I have been diligently watching Srugim (which is only subtitled in Hebrew - which means a dictionary pause every other sentence of dialogue), an Israeli television series about the lives and loves of a group of religious Jews in Jerusalem.
True, a couple of months after it aired, but give a brother a break!
One of the things I personally enjoyed about the show, those who know me will understand, is how I could grasp some details which, a year ago, I wouldn't have. Why parmesan cheese on spaghetti bolognese is such a HUGE problem; the fridge you can't shut on Shabbat because the light is on; a group of people singing Carlebach tunes; the single woman at the mikvah; the money exchange booth on Hillel street...
Spaghetti bolognese (with minced meat, hence) with parmesan cheese.
(this is where you're supposed to say Ewwwwwwwwwww!!)
I've also found hilarious how rude Israelis are to one another! Hanging up on each other, kicking each other out because they're 'busy' - Jeez! People, be nice! :)
Anyways. Back the show.
They’re young - all hovering around the ‘big’ 3-0 - single, beautiful, and, let’s face it, a little horny. Which is all the more complicated when you’re religious and you’re not supposed to, you know, ‘lie with’ anyone but your spouse. They’re also annoyingly liberal with the use of the word "love". And "moments". And "somethings". Kids, yes, you're virgins, but you're not 14 anymore!
And their lives seem to rotate around their 'dates' which are in effect pre-marital screening processes, even if packaged as speed-dates in trendy German Colony cafes rather than strolls in Ha-Pa'amon park, seemingly reserved for the religious extremists in black and wigs - whom are nowhere in the show.
Interestingly, I think they too would be 'guilty', just like their Tel-Aviv dwelling secular brethren, of living in their own bubble. Which proves the ridicule of this accusation to either groups.
But those characters get on my nerves sometimes!
Yif’at is too often crying and way too often in her pink pajamas and fluffy slippers, but is perfect for the role of cute-but-second-choice-'why-does-nothing-good-ever-happens-to-me'-girl. Who ends up getting a second-choice guy.
Amir is a little pathetic - you're divorced, get over it already, especially when you're still doinking your ex-wife. Seriously!
And some other characters a little uni-dimensional: Yochai is the Torah nerd slowly coming out of his shell to the big-blue-world. זהו? And Reut's little sister is shallow as can be, which is a little sad.
More interestingly though, I think the concepts pictured are, when seen from an adequate distance, more universal than the show makers probably intended them to be. (I don't think Muslims were invited to the test screenings, hahaha).
As a young-and-hip-and-(somewhat?)-religious person (c'mon, give me that one!) coming from a traditional and religious society, I can relate with plenty.
How very complicated it can be to try to be with someone who’s not religious. (or not of your religion). You feign to be more secular than you actually are. Then you bend over some minor rules, then convince yourself that there’s a bigger religious loophole that you insistently know isn’t there, then regret it deeply, then eventually realise that despite your best efforts, religion will always be a barrier, and what was always supposed to happen eventually does.
(the scene with Hodaya crying at the ritual bath was particularly touching).
Or wanting what you cannot have, and losing interest in what you do have. Or going after something because you feel you're missing out.
(last item was worth adding because I watched that episode the day I learned an old crush was getting engaged to a complete doofus. That was funny.)
Nati (played by Ohad Knoller, whom I am having trouble viewing as a religious 30-year old virgin given that I too vividly remember him shagging Joe Sweid) is the quintessential weepy ("I feel I am made of stone! Snif, snif!!") and emotionally immature man who couldn’t see a good thing if it hit him in the face and instead goes on to chase an old flame who's getting married, breaking up her engagement, and dumping her the next day.
And he sure as hell didn't deserve perfect Nitsan - btw, if anyone knows her, have her call me - whom he breaks up with pretty much just because.
(and who, for the love of Elohim, should NOT have been given a Harrison Ford “I know” reply to an “I love you”. That's just plain wrong.)
How do you say "trading down" in Hebrew?
On a more societal level, how "love" nearly automatically entails "marriage", and how holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes (and, if you're particularly brazen, a stolen kiss) may very well be all the action you're going to get before the wedding, sounded very 'local' to my eyes.
Remember Ahmed Zaki in "Smile for the photo" (اضحك عشان الصورة تطلع حلوة): "a look is a contract; a smile is a contract; a kiss is a contract" ? - close enough.
Or how the guy wanted to marry the girl as "Tikkun" ('repair') is the equivalent of our good ol' "bisalla7 ghatelto" ('correcting his mistake').
There are purposefully few political discussions in the show - a little disappointingly so. I mean, this is a country where political conversations are so pervasive it's considered okay to ask someone who they voted for! :)
A dinner discussion between a secular and a religious guy where the tone climbs up a notch when the religious guy throws a "of course, right-wing!" was too quickly cut off by a dating problem.
But the newspaper they all seem to be subscribed to is Makor Rishon, a right-wing/conservative/ national-religious paper, which is an interesting hint and which Arab-hating extremist-settlers blogs seem to relate to..
What else. There's a supposedly amusing scene where two of the protagonists start running in fear as they see two figures at a distance (“They're not Aravim, are they?”, asks Amir) only to find out that, pfiiou!, they were neighbours David and Benny. Hmmm.. Was there no better excuse to have them hold hands but to throw an "Arab Alert"? Really?
L to R - (1) "They're not Arabs, right?" --- (2) "They're from ours." (our people, that is? our yishuv?)
A guest character, Hodaya's 14-year old cousin, provides some political relief. She has lost her faith in God over the disengagement from Gaza, which had seen 8000 settlers removed from Gaza (many of whom were moved to West Bank settlements, and many openly advocating for a return to Gaza - so much for peace-making). So the rebellious teenager is 'mad at God' because she prayed they wouldn't be evicted:
"I was sure that God was listening.. until the last moment i was sure this wasn't happening.. this cannot happen, we were good (hayinu tovim) (!!!).. it took them seven minutes to destroy my house. Between God and I, it's over".
The discussion goes onwards to faith, that God doesn't deliver on-call, etc.
That's it? I hoped for at least a little discussion on the rationale of colonising the territories, or something about the national cost of catering to the Gush Katif-ers whims.
And, "we were good"? Darling, your parents are people who voluntarily chose to move onto someone else's stolen land. Hayitem mechablim, that's what you are. Terrorists.
But I digress.
Overall - I enjoyed the show, which has clearly appealed to wide segments of the Israeli public as well. "This normal life" covers the spectrum of reactions pretty well.
I'll be waiting for season 2 - which I'll try to cover in due time rather than six months later!
So, what will it be for the next review.. Ha-ach ha-gadol? :)
PS - In case you're interested, Katamon was a Palestinian neighbourhood before 1948. I can't seem to find the original name, though... Anyone?
One of the things I personally enjoyed about the show, those who know me will understand, is how I could grasp some details which, a year ago, I wouldn't have. Why parmesan cheese on spaghetti bolognese is such a HUGE problem; the fridge you can't shut on Shabbat because the light is on; a group of people singing Carlebach tunes; the single woman at the mikvah; the money exchange booth on Hillel street...
Spaghetti bolognese (with minced meat, hence) with parmesan cheese.(this is where you're supposed to say Ewwwwwwwwwww!!)
I've also found hilarious how rude Israelis are to one another! Hanging up on each other, kicking each other out because they're 'busy' - Jeez! People, be nice! :)
Anyways. Back the show.
They’re young - all hovering around the ‘big’ 3-0 - single, beautiful, and, let’s face it, a little horny. Which is all the more complicated when you’re religious and you’re not supposed to, you know, ‘lie with’ anyone but your spouse. They’re also annoyingly liberal with the use of the word "love". And "moments". And "somethings". Kids, yes, you're virgins, but you're not 14 anymore!(image from the big felafel)
And their lives seem to rotate around their 'dates' which are in effect pre-marital screening processes, even if packaged as speed-dates in trendy German Colony cafes rather than strolls in Ha-Pa'amon park, seemingly reserved for the religious extremists in black and wigs - whom are nowhere in the show.
Interestingly, I think they too would be 'guilty', just like their Tel-Aviv dwelling secular brethren, of living in their own bubble. Which proves the ridicule of this accusation to either groups.
But those characters get on my nerves sometimes!
Yif’at is too often crying and way too often in her pink pajamas and fluffy slippers, but is perfect for the role of cute-but-second-choice-'why-does-nothing-good-ever-happens-to-me'-girl. Who ends up getting a second-choice guy.
Amir is a little pathetic - you're divorced, get over it already, especially when you're still doinking your ex-wife. Seriously!
And some other characters a little uni-dimensional: Yochai is the Torah nerd slowly coming out of his shell to the big-blue-world. זהו? And Reut's little sister is shallow as can be, which is a little sad.
More interestingly though, I think the concepts pictured are, when seen from an adequate distance, more universal than the show makers probably intended them to be. (I don't think Muslims were invited to the test screenings, hahaha).
As a young-and-hip-and-(somewhat?)-religious person (c'mon, give me that one!) coming from a traditional and religious society, I can relate with plenty.
How very complicated it can be to try to be with someone who’s not religious. (or not of your religion). You feign to be more secular than you actually are. Then you bend over some minor rules, then convince yourself that there’s a bigger religious loophole that you insistently know isn’t there, then regret it deeply, then eventually realise that despite your best efforts, religion will always be a barrier, and what was always supposed to happen eventually does.
(the scene with Hodaya crying at the ritual bath was particularly touching).
Or wanting what you cannot have, and losing interest in what you do have. Or going after something because you feel you're missing out.
(last item was worth adding because I watched that episode the day I learned an old crush was getting engaged to a complete doofus. That was funny.)
Nati (played by Ohad Knoller, whom I am having trouble viewing as a religious 30-year old virgin given that I too vividly remember him shagging Joe Sweid) is the quintessential weepy ("I feel I am made of stone! Snif, snif!!") and emotionally immature man who couldn’t see a good thing if it hit him in the face and instead goes on to chase an old flame who's getting married, breaking up her engagement, and dumping her the next day.
And he sure as hell didn't deserve perfect Nitsan - btw, if anyone knows her, have her call me - whom he breaks up with pretty much just because.
(and who, for the love of Elohim, should NOT have been given a Harrison Ford “I know” reply to an “I love you”. That's just plain wrong.)
How do you say "trading down" in Hebrew?On a more societal level, how "love" nearly automatically entails "marriage", and how holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes (and, if you're particularly brazen, a stolen kiss) may very well be all the action you're going to get before the wedding, sounded very 'local' to my eyes.
Remember Ahmed Zaki in "Smile for the photo" (اضحك عشان الصورة تطلع حلوة): "a look is a contract; a smile is a contract; a kiss is a contract" ? - close enough.
Or how the guy wanted to marry the girl as "Tikkun" ('repair') is the equivalent of our good ol' "bisalla7 ghatelto" ('correcting his mistake').
There are purposefully few political discussions in the show - a little disappointingly so. I mean, this is a country where political conversations are so pervasive it's considered okay to ask someone who they voted for! :)
A dinner discussion between a secular and a religious guy where the tone climbs up a notch when the religious guy throws a "of course, right-wing!" was too quickly cut off by a dating problem.
But the newspaper they all seem to be subscribed to is Makor Rishon, a right-wing/conservative/ national-religious paper, which is an interesting hint and which Arab-hating extremist-settlers blogs seem to relate to..
What else. There's a supposedly amusing scene where two of the protagonists start running in fear as they see two figures at a distance (“They're not Aravim, are they?”, asks Amir) only to find out that, pfiiou!, they were neighbours David and Benny. Hmmm.. Was there no better excuse to have them hold hands but to throw an "Arab Alert"? Really?
L to R - (1) "They're not Arabs, right?" --- (2) "They're from ours." (our people, that is? our yishuv?)(3) "So there's nothing to worry about" -- (4) --> Let's run for our lives anyway!
A guest character, Hodaya's 14-year old cousin, provides some political relief. She has lost her faith in God over the disengagement from Gaza, which had seen 8000 settlers removed from Gaza (many of whom were moved to West Bank settlements, and many openly advocating for a return to Gaza - so much for peace-making). So the rebellious teenager is 'mad at God' because she prayed they wouldn't be evicted:
"I was sure that God was listening.. until the last moment i was sure this wasn't happening.. this cannot happen, we were good (hayinu tovim) (!!!).. it took them seven minutes to destroy my house. Between God and I, it's over".
The discussion goes onwards to faith, that God doesn't deliver on-call, etc.
That's it? I hoped for at least a little discussion on the rationale of colonising the territories, or something about the national cost of catering to the Gush Katif-ers whims.
And, "we were good"? Darling, your parents are people who voluntarily chose to move onto someone else's stolen land. Hayitem mechablim, that's what you are. Terrorists.
But I digress.
Overall - I enjoyed the show, which has clearly appealed to wide segments of the Israeli public as well. "This normal life" covers the spectrum of reactions pretty well.
I'll be waiting for season 2 - which I'll try to cover in due time rather than six months later!
So, what will it be for the next review.. Ha-ach ha-gadol? :)
PS - In case you're interested, Katamon was a Palestinian neighbourhood before 1948. I can't seem to find the original name, though... Anyone?
66 comments:
Henry/Frank - since you're the same dude -
I'm removing your comments. Cheers.
You're using my post to make a point which is not only irrelevant, but I also disagree with.
I've listened to the clips, and I don't know how a extremist talk show host will enlighten my day. Sorry, mate. Links removed
As for the title - perhaps that's a good occasion to take a second to explain what I meant:
it seems to me that the religious community is keeping to itself, with its own set of norms and behaviours and 'codes' in the behavioural sense. The 'fringe' status may be one imposed, but it's also something they nurture, maintaining a level of discreteness. That's my impression; I may be wrong.
What this show does is bring to the forefront on the mainstream debate the lives of this religious community, not the ostentatious religious people with their fur hats in the summer and their outright defiance of social norms, but that class of normal, productive, yet religious people.
The show is viewing this discreet community through 'normal' eyes.
That's the basic reasoning I had in mind when I chose the title.
Another level of reasoning vis-a-vis the conditions of 'normalcy' vs 'fringe' pertains to a discussion about the rationale of a Jewish state altogether that I had with a Jewish religious friend. For another topic though. :)
Oh, I thought you meant how although these characters are supposed to be religious and all you still had like the character of Amir having sex with someone who was no longer his wife which of course goes against their moral code.
So, the message of the series would be a secular one even though the characters are supposed to be religious. The message being that of even these people can't live up to this moral code even though they pretend to, obviously society at large shouldn't have this moral code either.
Well I haven't seen this show so that is what I thought you were saying. That the message of the series was in the end the kind of morality that the religious among Israeli society promotes isn't even practiced by them and it is deviance that should be considered the norm.
If that isn't the message of the series or the topic you were trying to get at then, oops, sorry.
But I still find Jews as decadent. Mind you not all Jews as there are really some good strong religious Jews actually out there.
It seems like the best and worse people in the world are Jews. Those following Jewish traditions being the best and those jews who have rejected these traditions being the worse. They have at the same time been a blessing and a curse upon all mankind.
I'm not much to judge someone's behaviour - especially a television character. :)
Check out interviews of the director, such as this one here. He discusses the question of fallibility of the characters, the use of stereotypes, etc.
Basically, he's saying that no one is perfect. Simple, no?
I don't know what the overall message is. Right now, being in a good mood, i would venture a "we're all so different but we're just the same" interpretation!
As for the rest of your note - HUH?? Are you fu***ng kidding me?
I was tempted to angrily respond, or to delete your message;
but right now i think I'd like to let someone answer you.
Sarah!! Abu Saar!! :-D
Mo-Ha-Med;
How come whenever you write something really extreme, even a little racist, you add the words "but I digress" afterwards? I have notcied it for several posts now, is it supposed to dull the sting or something?
Mr. "Jews are the Curse of all mankind":
I will let you on a little secret. For us jews (the cursed type), reading comments such as yours is a little like viewing Porn: its degrading, enraging and dumb - and we just cant help ourselves but read it! So pile it on, and Mo-Ha-Med please stop deleting the comments, you are ruining it for the rest of us!
G
Hiya G,
I do? interesting. Will try to notice from now on!. While i reject the accusation in your comment, it actually is a digression, it's a point I'm making which is outside of the main topic of the article.
And I don't see what is racist about calling settlers terrorists. Their very presence is the occupied territories is a continuous, 24/7 act of hostility. Like maintaining a blockade. So yes, settlers are terrorists.
But I di... damn!
:)
(I just checked the past 8 months of posts - i never used it! Perhaps in comments?)
Re: our friend's comments here: he posted links to racist speeches by Michael Savage, which I decided not to pollute my readers' ears with. the last comment I only left because I knew a juicy reply would inevitably come. :)
Ew, yuck--I was away and I'm not sorry I missed how we're the Curse of Mankind...how is this different from what Hamas says about us (except the latter is so upfront about their mission to exterminate us....)
As a general rule, I think its a mistake to stereotype by 'religious' or 'secular' since I know some self-described "traditional" Jews who think themselves 'semi-secular' but who are, in the practice of their lives, more religious than many of the ostensibly ultra-religious in their black and white uniforms. Likewise, I think there are many excellent Moslems who are obedient to the teachings of the Koran in their daily lives without being ostentatiously, narrow-mindedly fundamentalist and Other-hating. The most hypocritical person I ever knew was a woman who was an openly devout Catholic--Mass and confession every week, rosary rattling in front of all the neighbors, yet was a vicious, back-biting, nasty, bitter woman who had nothing kind to say about anyone. Her outer actions were all in perfect accord with the expected behavior of a good Catholic--but her behavior to people around her was execreble. I'm sure every faith has these folks, so I'm not knocking Catholicism, I'm simply pointing out that public professions of piety don't mean one is religious.
I think the world is divided into people who love and fear G-d and those who don't--and among the latter are those who invoke His name to justify their own actions. They come, IMHO, perilously close to blasphemy.
That said -- C'mon, people, its a SOAP OPERA! It's all about television ratings and attracting viewers, and like most television, has nothing to do with Reality (anyone remember Dallas? Before your time, Mohamed--the world thought Americans all lived like Larry Hagman--what a hoot!) Producers have to titillate with "forbidden" items, and sex among the datiim falls into that category--betcha Egyptian movies and tv have elements of that as well. I know Indian movies do (I get Bollywood on my channels). Its not so common in the West because, hey, sex isn't titillating because you can get it anywhere, anytime...yawwwnn...
My son goes to school in Katamon. It was an affluent Arab Christian village, and the word Katamon is derived from a Greek phrase "kata tōi monastēriōi " meaning 'below the monastary' -- like many linguistic items over the century got garbled into something almost unrecognizable. The neighborhood has a Hebrew appellation but no one ever remembers what it is -- it's always Katamon. Like Abu Tor is always Abu Tor and not whatever the Municipality of Jerusalem tried to rename it...
Now we need the post about settlers=terrorists so we can have another juicy argument. A terrorist is someone who engages in "terrorism" which usually means deliberate acts of violence against unarmed civilians...sort of like the average suicide bomber. Or Baruch Goldstein. Not all Palestinians are suicide bombers and not all "settlers" are Baruch Goldsteins. Since the UN and the international community can't agree on a definition, I'm not sure we will either.
I, of course, disagree with your thesis that people who build homes on disputed territory claimed by an enemy who promotes their genocide and rejects all peace offers as insufficient, are "terrorists."
I also think the Palestinian insistence that Palestine be "Jew-free" and all Jewish neighborhoods be removed is every bit as racist as anything Avigdor Lieberman has said. You recall my "peace plan"? -- Everyone stay put. Those east of the Green Line are now Palestinians; those west of the Green Line are Israelis. Palestine is an Arab Islamic Palestinian state; Israel is a Jewish state. Both states have minorities entitled to civil rights; both peoples are entitled to a state of their own and self-determination. If Lieberman is a racist for calling for "Transfer" then how is the PA any less racist?
Mo-Ha-Med;
Yeah, I seem to remember most of the 'digress' from the comments, though I did randomly click a couple of your archive links.
Sadly, no racist digresses were found, but I did come across of 'innocent' ones:
- Sep2, 2007
- May 31, 2007
So there you have it! Shame!
Dear Henry Frank Smith:
I ran your comments by our artificial intelligence master super computer mainframe (you know, the one we control the internet with*) and it came up with the following conclusions about you:
1. You are Jewish
2. You live in the states
3. You have pimples
4. You have never had sex
The computer couldn’t find you in our database, but we always get our man!
Keep Running! Trust no-one! Don't masturbate (it makes your palms hairy)!
*Not to be confused with the mainframe we use for Mind control, which is an older model consisting of thousands of Bar-Refali clones, neutrally hooked up together.
G
Mohamed, HFS is really a vile racist. Can we please ask him to go away? He is not contributing anything constructive to this conversation.
OntheFace,
wallah i already deleted him three times. (and just now, five more).
Anywho. Henry Frank Smith, you heard the lady: please go away. Your further comments will be systematically deleted.
Back to the interesting conversation.
G
Oh dear, I trust your comment and I won't even check the dates you mentioned. I am however a little dismayed at the "sadly no racist digresses were found" comment. I was hoping you'd have formed a better idea about my blog by now.
Charming response to HFS, btw. I had a good laugh.
I am a fan of the first model of Mind Control Mainframe - you know, the one that had thousands of Natalie Portman clones? I was actually their first volunteer guinea pig.
Ah, Natalie.....
Aliyah06
Hello dear!
We will I'm sure have that discussion. Look, I am aware that a good chunk of those living in settlements aren't there for 'settling the land'. But that is no excuse. Like i said, we'll have this talk. :)
I disagree that we can equate Palestinian Israelis with settlers. The latter have moved there as part of a government-sponsored plan to make live in the WB impossible and to expand the boundaries of the State. Which by now is almost a given, that Gush Etsion and Ariel will somehow be exchanged for something else. probably sand in the Negev to be attached to the GS.
Settlers also under the definition of moving civilian population into occupied territories, which is illegal (the good ol' 4th protocol of the Geneva convention, 1949)as well as interfering with the Palestinians' rights of self-determination, which is also illegal according to the Declaration On Principles Of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations And Co-Operation Among States In Accordance With The Charter Of The United Nations (1970)
(i didn't put all the caps, they were already there. :)
As for the show - which is what this post was about! - I quite liked it! And yes, there's the right amount of illicit love and sex and violence in Egyptian cinema too. Too bad you guys no longer get the Friday afternoon egyptian films (which we used to watch on Israeli satellite channels we received in Cairo, with the Hebrew subtitles and everything :) you'd be seeing the new productions and some of it is pretty... shall we say, explicit? :)
Oh, and regarding your peace plan: well, I like it. I don't think settlers do. :)
And at the comment of Dallas being before my time:
Pfffff.... :-P
Well, my friend, if the settlers don't like it and the Palestinians don't like it, then it may just work. Compromise is defined as that situation in which everyone gets a little of what they want but not all of what they want, and you can recognize it because everyone comes from the table a bit piqued.
I've only seen a couple of Egyptian films--very glitzy, very romantic (hey, its the country who gave us Omar Sharif, after all), tinges of illicit sex (usually the Bad Girl, as opposed to the Heroine) but I enjoyed them immensely.
Hey, don't knock Gaza sand--its was very productive sand when the hothouses were going, and there are entire stretches of Negev today which happily put profusions of flowers, tomatoes and strawberries on EU tables. Negev sand, properly cultivated, could be a 'breadbasket' of Euros!
When it comes to katamon, as far as I know this is the original name of the neighborhood. My grandfather used to live nearby in el-bakaa (German colony) before being uprooted by the kind, sweet and gentle Jewish militias.
Even though the neighborhood has a number of christian orthodox institutions , I am not sure about the residents. Me myself I know a couple of Muslim families who used to live down there.
What was common between the families that they were rich and well educated. The Semiramis Hotel bombing forced a lot of its residents to leave.
HFS - what part of "go away" do you not get?
I've read a bit about the neighborhoods and writings from that period indicate that Baka was "mixed" Arab Moslem/Arab Christian and a few Jews; Katamon was primarily Christian (can somebody explain what a "Palestinian Greek" is? Does that mean Christian? Yes, I do read the links...) with some Moslem residents. The neighborhoods seemed to be more fluid then and residency determined more by socio-economic status than by millet. Abu Tor and Talbieh were also mixed Arab/Jewish neighborhoods, however but after 1929 some Jews began leaving Abu Tor, fearing another Hebron Massacre (the British, in a heavy-handed hint, paraded the Hebron victims past the shops and houses on Derech Hebron.)
Mohamed!
Great posts as always!
Hey Mo-ha-med,
I love how Arabs always tell us which Jewish neighborhoods used to be full of Arabs.
Guess what, Mecca and Medina used to be full of Jews, now it is Judenrein thanks to your namesake.
Shit happens.
Get over it.
interesting post, interesting blog. Of course you're aware of the nearly always unsuccessful attempts to rename neighborhoods - like does anyone know where kommemiut is? (answer, talbiyeh), etc.
But honestly, I could care less about politics in this forum. As an Orthodox Jew, I'm much more fascinated as to what you, as a religious Muslim, thought about the more intense moments on the show - such as the mikveh scene with hodaya. I have the same curiosity about what people outside of the fringe thought about shuly rand's film, "Ushpizin"
Komme-what? :)
The renaming is quite an issue, not just in Jerusalem but in the rest of the country. Some other time though!
I actually emailed the director - Shapira - and told him I enjoyed the show.. and he replied "you should've told me earlier that non-Jews watched the show, we would have included a Muslim character in season 2!"
The mikveh scene was brilliant. Fooling yourself, fooling God, until you can't take it and realise that the big obstacle is actually yourself and your goddamn religious beliefs that you follow, that you love to follow, but hate that you love to follow..
But you try to push through anyway, because you convince yourself that somehow everything will work itself out, even if you know you're lying to yourself...
until you break.
Great scene!
Well, what did YOU think?
Ushpizin was very cute. "Prayer answers everything". sure, lama lo? If that's the morale of the film...
Though I fail to understand why one would pay a thousand shekels for a lemon but oh well.. :)
wow
mohamed i think its amazing you wrote this article
taking the time to review israeli tv and israeli culture also with no hebrew skills and having to look up everything
impressive!
i love this show
i think it shows and its point is to show the religious israeli side as apposed to the non-religous israeli side and espicially in the area of boy girl relations
it does it quite well i guess as a non-religious israeli it opened up my eyes a bit about the whole religious culture which quite amazingly in israel the non religious and religious sides are very different and seperated
i guess thats pretty sad
but thats how it is
watch srugim full episodes online here
Hey Anonymous,
Well thank you!
And not exactly 'no hebrew skills'... I manage somehow. :)
I did enjoy the show! And i see what you mean about the religious/secular divide in Israel. I'm quite sure there are things in the show that i can relate to, as a religious Muslim, more than a secular Israeli.. funny, huh?
Thanks for the link. :) I'll be waiting for the next season to begin soon!
So glad to see your comments on the show. As an observant Jew, I find that I relate well to the Muslims on Little Mosque on the Prairie, so the inverse makes sense.
As for the running from the 2 unknown figures in the distance: profiling is complicated. As Jesse Jackson said about being in Chicago, "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
Thanks, anon -- indeed, i can see why you'd relate to the Little Mosque on the Prairie...
As for profiling - yeah, i can understand. Interesting Jesse Jackson quote, btw.
This said - what was the purpose of this scene, really? Apart from giving them an opportunity to hold hands, it was constricted and quite mean, I believe..
Stam.
Btw, about "rudeness" you mention before: Native-born Israelis are called sabras: prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside. Yifat let Nati use her washing machine and gave him her key just a few days after meeting him. Not my way of relating to people, but the warmth that surfaces occasionally is deeply felt and genuine.
I don't doubt it's genuine, Anon. Though with Nati it was a bit of a "you had at Shalom" situation - that must've played into it, no? No one gives a key of their apartment to a stranger unless.. they want them there!
People show trust to strangers within the dati community. Most extreme: I was on a bus in Jerusalem wearing a long skirt and long sleeves, and a woman got on the bus, handed me her baby, and then went up to pay.
You said something about how you think Amir and Yifat were second rate. The main point of the show is that the people who seem to be huge catches really aren't. Nitzan is hypercritical and controlling. Nati doesn't love anyone. I dated two Natis for 3 months each -- one with a car as nice as Nitzan's -- and the lack of warm feelings truly felt excruciating.
Long skirt and sleeves! Az at dosit!
(yes, i'm kidding. I just find the sound of the word to be funny).
The baby on the bus happens all the time in Cairo, too...
Point well taken. But - Amir is truly an average guy! Yifat is the quintessential housewife - and, with all the respect in the world to housewives, that's not a compliment in this context!
And yes, Nati is a dick. (sorry to hear you dated Natis!) but he's more interesting than Amir. Or, eeek, Yochai.
And Nitzan was willing to pretend she's afraid of a cockroach to make Nati feel good about his manhood. I've seen worse.. :)
I don't think they show meant to say that huge catches aren't so. It's more of a - 'nobody's perfect'.
wow, i enjoyed your blog a lot :)
and i thought the same way you do..about nati. sigh.
Glad to read that! Thanks!
Arab-hating extremist-settlers blogs
Thats simply unfair. Where did I ever write or imply that I hate Arabs?
PS: Season 2 is out...
Just to get back to someone calling your comments about Religious Settlers such as were evicted from Gaza "Racist". This is preposterous. There was no mention of race or anything derogatory concerning the Jews. It was a pure and clean political position.
I too, and mind you I am a former Dutch expat to Israel with an Israeli ex wife and a Jewish/Israeli/Dutch son, find the Religious Settlers a kind of terrorist. They indeed just walked into someone else's land and claimed it just like that. Where I come from we call that occupation, colonialism or theft. Furthermore, as an Israeli tax payer I was very annoyed to pay taxes for the safeguarding of these people's well-being by the IDF. You wanna live the West Bank or Gaza? That's your own problem. Try 'n' straighten that immigration out with the locals and leave my tax buck out of it.
Now with regards to The Bubble, I've seen that guy in many roles, and somehow he pulls it off. I came to the conclusion I really like him as an actor, but indeed I've seen too much of him in left wing-ish roles (also the Liquorice-eating bomb-squat man in "Beaufort") to really really buy into the religious virgin schtick. Still, a damn fine actor.
On the whole I cannot identify with the religious of any denomination. As a staunch atheist with no belief in the soul, any god or an afterlife, I watch this show and cringe at the behaviour and guilt these people (foolishly) subject themselves to. So I have trouble, because this show, in a way, reminds me of all I dislike about living in Israel too much.
All I can say is we need *more* Russians, Arabs (Christian and Muslim alike) and random Atheists of any denomination in Israel to make it an acceptable country. All hail cultural diversity.
Hey! That wasn't supposed to be anonymous!
Eh... Let's try signing again. ;)
Ya Jameel --
Come on. You don't like them much, do you.
Well, thanks for the notification!
Chris Winter --
Interesting comment about the taxes. Is there no recourse for Israelis to demand that their taxes no longer be used to be to fund settlements?
I can understand that you cringe at the behaviour of religious people - I can almost imagine you shaking your head at in disbelief. =) On my side though, I can totally relate to that.
All that said - indeed, hail cultural diversity!
Ahalan Mo.
A few things you should know: I have Palestinian friends...and Israeli Arab friends. My older kids, who volunteer with Magen David Adom (Israel's emergency medical response organization) are constantly interacting with Arabs from a professional standpoint. My 11 year old son spent 15 minutes this morning (I kid you not), reviewing with me the Arabic words he learned yesterday...and me teaching him as well.
I wish I could find this article for you in English about Settlers and Palestinians. (maybe run google translate on it).
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1142622.html
The bottom line is that my issue with the terrorist nature and history of the Palestinian Authority, not with Arabs or Palestinians.
Regarding Chris -- its unfortunate you consider religious settlers as terrorists. My settlement is built on land that used to be occupied by the Jordanian Government and wasn't privately owned land.
The "Israel" you live in is quite different, with literally tens of thousands of Arabs displaced because of where you live. yet you call ME the terrorist, though I displaced no one.
Why did you move to Israel in the first place?
Jameel -
A quick response because I'm falling asleep on my keyboard:
It's easy to extend a hand to the guy you're stepping on. It's easy to suggest peace or a cease-fire when you've used war and violence to take what you want already.
Furthermore, I'll have you notice that the settlers who engage with Palestinians are a minority: said the article, "מפחדים מצד אחד ממה שיחשבו עליהם בהתנחלויות, שלא יראו בהם בוגדים,"
"... afraid of what will be thought of them in the settlements, if they will not be seen as traitors".
Most ideological settlers, it seems to me - I'm deliberately leaving aside the leeches who moved into the West Bank and Gaza because it was cheap - still wish the Palestinians would migrate, die, drown (I'll remind you that this was the suggestion of Avigdor Lieberman, to put Palestinians in buses in drown them in the Jordan river), burn, or simply disappear.
They not necessarily want to kill them -those, let's face it, many do - but most would sure like to wake up tomorrow in an Arabfrei Judea and Samaria.
I read the article via Google Translate (well, many sentences made no sense! but i got the gist of it). Seriously, man, the meetings depicted in this article are cute, really. But they're more of a joke than anything else. The settlers who got a koran to the village whose mosque was burned? Lovely, but insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
As for your settlement not being on privately owned land (which settlement would that be, out of curiosity?) - my question would be this: does that give me the right to go built a settlement in Israel on KKL-owned or other public land?
No. Because it's public land in another country!
I would however love to hear from you more on something mentioned in the article -- that some settlers are in favour of a binational state.
If so - first, what percentage of settlers would want that?
And, more importantly - where do the Palestinians go in this case? To Jordan? Or do they remain in Palestine/Israel? And if so, will they be equal citizens or some sort of 'guests' of 'permanent residents' like the East Jerusalemites today?
Yalla, g'night! (or rather good morning! :)
Hi Mohamed,
I am super impressed by any Arab who is willing to sit in front of his computer with a Hebrew dictionary trying to understand Israeli soap operas. Kol Hakavod! That is real commitment to inter-cultural understanding
I disagree with your statement that all settlers are terrorists. Since this blog is about Srugim, I will try to make my point from that show (which is relatively realistic).
In one of the later episodes, Yifa'at (the weepy, pink pajama wearing girl who ends up marrying Amir)--moves to a settlement until the end of season 1. She lives in a caravan (trailer) with her settler neighbors, and intends on staying there. Then Amir woos her, and she marries him and moves back to Jerusalem.
So--is Yifaat a terrorist for 3 or 4 episodes? Does she stop being a terrorist at the beginning of the second season? Does she take a break from being a terrorist when she goes to Jerusalem for Shabbat to visit her friends?
What about Amir, is he a terrorist for driving out to the settlement to woo Yifa'at? Or do you have to actually live there permanently to be labeled a terrorist?
Another point--
The settlement of Alon Shvut ("the tree of return") was originally build in the 1920's on land that was bought by Jews. In 1948, the Arab Legion (which was the Jordanian Army) killed the Jews who were defending the village and destroyed it.
In 1967, the Israeli army conquered the area, and Israeli Jews rebuilt the village.
So--why is it so clear that this is Arab land? Because it was controlled by Jordanians for 19 years?
Is it so clear that any Jew who lives there (granted, for ideological reasons) is a terrorist?
The same argument can be made for the much more contentious settlement in Hebron. Before 1929, there was a Jewish community in Hebron. In 1929 (during the British Mandate), the Arabs of Hebron rioted, and they killed some of the Jewish inhabitants and drove out the rest. There was no Jewish presence in Hebron until after 1967--when the Israeli army defeated the Jordanians and occupied the city.
So, why is it so clear that any Jew who moves to Hebron is a terrorist? Most of the houses that the Jews have been trying to "take over" are the houses that belonged to the Jews before 1929.
Why is it so clear to you that those Israeli Jews have no right to be there?
Hello Terra Rosa,
Well I do speak some hebrew so luckily I didn't have to translate every single word. :)
So Yifat was in a settlement? Hmm, I thought she was in a moshav or something.. I would've surely criticized that in the post!
As for settlers being terrorists or not, permanently or not...
Let's take a simpler example we'd both agree upon.
Criminal. We agree that a thief (or a killer, or a drug dealer, or whatever) is a criminal, right?
Okay. So is the drug dealer a criminal only at the moments when he is selling drugs and cashing the money? Or is he a criminal even during the weeks he's not actively 'working'? Or is it a label that sticks to him until he receives his punishment - spends the appropriate time in jail?
And even if he's punished for his crime - does he remain a criminal in our eyes?
Well, same applies for a settler. Colonization is a major, major crime. It is a continuous crime - it's a knife constantly moving in a wound. Settlers are indeed on the same level as terrorists.
So is a settler no longer a settler when he's at the beach? Well, I guess not. So he doesn't stop from being a terrorist when he's at the beach, no.
I believe, however, in redemption and forgiveness. Because we know that settlers will never be punished for their crimes - If settlers were to move to Israel and the Palestinians who suffered because of the settlers' presence were properly compensated, or at the very least if their suffering was acknowledged and they were to receive proper apology, one can hope that they would be amenable to forgive the settlers.
Now onwards to your second point. A few quick remarks:
a. Ownership is not sovereignty. I can own a piece of land in downtown Manhattan but that doesn't give me the right to put the Egyptian army in charge of its defense, right? Even if I, an Arab, own land in the US, it remains the US.
Regarding the history of Alon Shvut: I don't know about it, but that doesn't sound like something the Arab armies would do during the 48 War. In any event.
As for why is it Arab land - well, because it's an Arab country. Because most of Palestine, an Arab country, was occupied and a state was created on its land. Then the state has decided that the land it occupied wasn't enough, and decided to help itself to the land that was left for the natives.
Not only is this against international law - which says that the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan heights are occupied territories - but it's also morally wrong.
Same for Hebron. Hebron is occupied under international law. Settlers who are there are there with an intent of harm and exploitation.
And as a final point - if the argument you want to go for is "houses that belonged to Jews before 1929" - I'll have you notice that:
a. That's not true. We're talking about occupying the downtown of the city and taking over entire streets, not select homes.
b. A house that belonged to a Jew does not become the automatic property for another. That makes no sense.
c. If you go for the argument of 'house belonged to Jews before 1948' - by the same token, Palestinians should be allowed to retrieve all the houses and lands, from the northern to southern border, because they belonged to Palestinians one day. The houses stand as is, from Jaffa to West Jerusalem, and I'm sure their original Palestinian owners would be happy to get them back!
d. Add to this that the Hebron settlers are vicious, violents, and intent on harm. They're there to damage, to burn, to kill, to expel. That's the kind of people that no-one in the world would like to have around.
In principle I have no objection to Jews living in Palestine (in the Palestinian territories, I mean): but if they do, they need to request a residency permit like any immigrant anywhere in the world, they need to abide by the local law, and they need to obey the Palestinian police.
Just like I would do if I were to move to the US or something.
Hope than answers your questions and clarifies my point of view.
Cheers,
mohamed.
Hi Mohamed,
I like your distinction between sovereignty and private ownership--I think it adds clarity to the discussion.
I think it is interesting that you don't think that "killing the defenders and destroying a village" is not something that the Arab armies would do in the 48 war.
First of all, I would like to clarify that "killing the defenders" is not a particularly strange thing to do in war--we are talking about two armies facing each other and one winning. As for destroying the houses--why is this beyond the capabilities of the Arab armies?
Secondly, what exactly was the purpose of the 5 Arab armies invading the newly declared State of Israel in 1948? Do you believe that they were there make friends with the Zionists? Their declared goal was to destroy the Zionists and their new state, and I don't think that they were particular subtle about it.
If you believe that the Arab armies where righteous people who were "simply doing the right thing", (and assume that I will agree with you), I think you need to do some real reading into the Israeli narrative of what happened in 1948 and 1967 (not to mention 1973). We (the Zionists) do not see ourselves as the aggressors in any of these conflicts. The way we remember it, the Arab armies where coming to destroy the state and kill every man woman and child in it.
BTW, the Arab organizations (PA, Hamas) who do exist in the area now, are not particularly fastidious about the distinction between civilians and combatants. They have a nasty habit of blowing up city buses, cafes, and other places where civilians congregate.
I think that the underlying assumption in your post is that the Jews had no right to build a state at all--in any part of British Mandated Palestine. For some strange reason, however, you are willing to grant the Jews sovereignty over the areas that they controlled at the end of the hostilities in 1948, but not over any areas that they controlled at the end of the the hostilities in 1967 (Including the Golan Heights).
Why are you willing to grant the Zionist sovereignty over one part of the land that they control and not the other?
I think you need to clarify to me where you understand the right to sovereignty comes from before I can dispute your assumptions intelligently.
cheers,
Moshe
A clarification: I wrote "I think you need to do some real reading into the Israeli narrative of what happened in 1948 and 1967 (not to mention 1973)."
I did not mean to imply that the Israeli narrative is simply a story that we tell--I was just using a measured tone and pc wording, because that was the tone of the conversation.
The truth is, I think that the way you are portraying Israel as an aggressor who "decided it wanted more land" is some serious revisionist history.
In 1947, (a civil war with the Palestinian Arabs) 1948 (a conventional war with the Arab armies), 1967, and 1973--the arab countries started the conflict with the intent on annihilating the Jewish state.
and BTW, all 19 years that Syria controlled the Golan heights, they used that high ground to shell the Jewish villages and kibbutzim in the Galilee. There is a reason Israel is so reluctant to give it up).
I hope this argument about historical facts (which I think is a totally hopeless discussion--you believe your historians and I believe mine--how can we prove the facts to each other on a blog?) will not detract from the discussion about the roots and causes of moral sovereignty--a discussion which I think we can move further with.
moshe
Moshe -
Indeed, i shouldn't have written that it "wasn't something they would do", simply because I don't know the history of this village, and you may know the history of the 1948 war better than I do. This said, during 1948 the sides had different purposes. The Israelis were keen on expelling as much Palestinian population as possible and razing their homes so they would have nowhere to come back to while simultaneously filling the vacuum with the Jewish population, whereas the Arab armies had the purpose of preventing/stopping that and reversing the tide (so getting the Israelis out of Palestine). But the way the war played out - with the Israelis having the upper hand most of the time, and when the tide turned a UN-sponsored truce would be imposed (think June 1948) - has meant that the Arab armies were doing most of the defense.
Regarding the Israeli narrative, I've had the chance to learn about it, yes. I understand it - even if I personally think it's ridiculous (and I mean no insult there). I was reading Ben Gurion's "my talks with Arab leaders" and what struck me was how juvenile the arguments were. How it was so utterly incomprehensible to him that Palestinians weren't keen on accepting him as a neighbour - that he was farming their land and living in their cousin's house didn't strike him as a good enough reason for them to dislike him. It would've been funny if it weren't so sad.
I had this e-discussion with settlers before - I asked them, very straightforwardly, if they realised that their presence in the West Bank was annoying for Palestinians. Past the usual defensive arguments they conceded that they didn't think it was, as long as they were living in their villages and the Palestinians in their own. The selective, restrictive view of the world was fascinating to me.
"We (the Zionists) do not see ourselves as the aggressors"
That's precisely the point! Do you not see that your presence in Palestine is the original aggression? That's perhaps the main difference in narratives.
"Jews had no right to build a state at all--in any part of British Mandated Palestine". In terms of rights? Absolutely none. For a group of people to pick a spot on a globe and decide to occupy it and build a country there is an affront to every right the international system is built on.
That the early Zionists consider, albeit briefly, a 'project Uganda' or a state in Argentina is proof that we're talking pure pragmatism.
So in terms of rights? absolutely none, no.
If I am willing to grant the Zionists sovereignty over pre-67 Israel -- well, believe me, that was a tough concession to make, which I am basing on pure realism. Demanding Palestinian sovereignty over all of Palestine is simply not feasible: If I were Israeli, I wouldn't be willing to concede an inch of my home country either.
So I decided to agree with the vision of a two state solution based on pre-67 borders. But this is where I draw the line, which is already extremely generous. For the Zionists to demand even MORE land is just insulting and I reject to even consider it.
Onwards to your second message.
1947 a civil war. That's funny, because for the Palestinians the Zionists were not locals but invaders. 1948, yes, the purpose was to end the occupation of Palestine which had been enshrined by a ridiculously biased UN resolution.
As for the Golan heights - I'm pretty sure these were Syrian for much longer than 19 years. History does not begin in 1948..
BTW, I googled Alon Shvut. It says it was founded in 1970. (and yes, I know about Gush Etzion but it seems that Alon Shvut is merely next to it). Gush Etzion 1948. Hebron 1929. Do you know the number of times I've had Zionists use those examples to inform me that Arabs are bloody evil? Never mind that any one of the dozens upon dozens of massacres committed by the Israeli army or pre-state terror groups have killed more than Gush Etzion and Hebron 1929 combined (a case I just saw mentioned: Dawayma village.)
Say, Moshe, where do you live?
Best,
mohamed.
Hi Mohamed - I've been following this thread quietly for a while..finding it of interest to see how you present the Palestinian narrative.
Since 1948 is far to complex; how do you explain the Arab pogroms in 1929 and 1936; which weren't only directed at Hebron, but Jews everywhere through the country?
Ya Jameel,
Palestinian narrative is theirs to determine - I'm only a regular guy with his own understanding of how events unfolded.
To be honest, I'm a little disappointed by your question. You and I seemed to have a pattern of discussion on relevant things rather than arguing the details of particular events 80 years ago.
1929? You mean those events, where almost as many Arabs and Jews were killed? If you're going to call this an Arab pogrom, you should also call it a Jewish pogrom, since 116 Arabs died too.
Or, you know, just refer to things as they were -riots. I'm looking at the Wiki page on it and it sounds SO biased, effectively given an explanation of "Jews celebrated peacefully so Arabs killed them and set their holy books on fire". Come on, even you will agree that this is probably not how things happened.
1936, the Arab revolt. When the Palestinians FINALLY started to realise what was happening to them and their country.
Says the Jewish Virtual library:
"Eighty Jews were murdered by terrorist acts during the labor strike, and a total of 415 Jewish deaths were recorded during the whole 1936-1939 Arab Revolt period. The toll on the Arabs was estimated to be roughly 5,000 dead, 15,000 wounded, and 5,600 imprisoned."
Well, you tell me. How do you explain that - along with the tiny detail that 11 times more Arabs died?
Seriously, man. What do you want me to explain? why things happened then? Or do you want me to say that I condone the killing of innocent people?
If the latter it is, well, you'll have to wait for a long long time. Every death everywhere is an ungodly tragedy.
Why things happened the way they did - is something I neither know in detail nor have an interest in researching now.
Mohamed: OK, lets put all of history by the side for a minute. The reason these issues are of importance to me, is because I live here, and have rocks/firebombs thrown at me by Palestinians on a daily basis.
Just last week at a traffic accident when I went to help a Palestinian motorist who was hurt (I'm a volunteer EMT and first responder), I asked the Palestinian policeman if he couldnt do something about all the rocks and firebombs being thrown at me on the roads. He was embarrassed by my question.
Now, lets say he asked ME a question; "why can't you get the settler kids to not chop down olive trees or burn down a mosque?" -- Now, there have already been documented cases of leftists and Arabs cutting down trees to indict the settlers, but that's irrelevant.
Why?
Because, had he ASKED me that question, I would direct him to my kids (one of whom was on the ambulance, also as a volunteer), and they would have told him that I absolutely FORBID any actions like that. They know its wrong to throw rocks, firebombs, and they know I also tell that to their friends. I would even report their friends if I knew there were doing such a thing.
So why did the Palestinian policeman not have an answer for me? Why didn't he even say "you're right, they shouldn't throw rocks?" Why did he turn away in embarrassment?
Because he knew that I was asking a valid question, and I was helping him, and the Palestinians as an EMT, and he had no answer.
That's a nice story. (I'm not being sarcastic, btw, it is).
This said, settlers have both the Israeli army - which outnumbers settlers in some cases - as well as the Palestinian police to protect them. Part of the reason why the PA-run police - especially those new squads trained by Keith Dayton's goons - is criticized is that they are forbidden to defend Palestinians from Israeli attacks - they're not allowed to stop settlers from doing any sort of harm, let alone arresting them - while simultaneously hunting down the Palestinians that Israel wants them to.
(they do. We both know that.)
I find remarkable that you teach your kids not to hate Palestinians. It's unfortunate that all settlers don't think like you.
There's also another issue, which we discussed a long time ago.
Settlers, it seems to me, do not seem to understand - that their presence in the West Bank is not 'neutral', and those settlers who don't burn Palestinian groves aren't going to be liked by the Palestinians either;
Settlers are committing a crime by building their colonies and moving to the West Bank. Even if they don't physically go and attack Palestinians.
That's why kids are throwing the stones at you... :)
Actually, if would you speak to Palestinians, the vast majority have no problem with the settlers. Palestinians workers built my home, and the majority of the homes in my neighborhood. The industry centers around the settlements employ thousands of Palestinians.
When we build these settlements, many of them 25-35 years ago, we were welcomed by the Palestinians. In Efrat, Rabbi Riskin met with the local mukhtar and they used to have very decent relations.
I personally had business dealings with local Palestinians till 9 years ago when the intifada errupted. I used to go shopping at the entrance to Kalikilya, and my wife in Bethlehem. There was little to no animosity, and things were far more normal than they are today.
Unfortunately, it was the importing of the PLO into the West Bank and Gaza under the Oslo accords that re-ignited violent Palestinian nationalism that had basically abated during the early nineties.
I disagree that I am committing a crime by living in my home. It was not Palestine before 1967...it was occupied by Jordan. We're going to have to learn to live together in some sort of framework, because I'm not leaving...and since they aren't either, we're just going to have to find a workable framework.
Hi Mohamed
1) Where do I live (let's answer from easiest to hardest)--I live in Manhattan-but I lived in Israel from 2001-2007, so I have a grasp of (at least one side :)) of the politics)
You might ask why I post at 3:30 am--that is a good question--it is probably an unhealthy habit.
2)I also wikipedia-d Alon Shvut. yes, the settlement was started again in 1970--3 years after the Israelis took control of the area. But it was built on the ruins of the old villages of Gush Etzion.
3)You didn't answer my question about where the right to having sovereignty comes from, but you seem to imply that it belongs to "whoever was there first" . Is that what you mean by Arab Land?
I think that the Jews DID (and do) have a right to move in between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, for several reasons.
But, I have to think about how to formulate them, and I don't have time now. If anybody wants to pinch hit for me, they are more than welcome--I will follow up later.
For the record, I think that the real issue here is not the ownership of land, but the right to self determination. Palestinians and Jews both have that right--where the border goes is difficult to figure out (for me),
but I do think there ought to be two states for the two peoples living in the area.
Hi Mohamed,
In my last post, I wrote:
I think that the Jews DID (and do) have a right to move in between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, for several reasons.
Now is the follow-up.
Before I get to the main point (Israel's right to declare a state where it did), I want to take you up on a minor point: You wrote:
"That the early Zionists consider, albeit briefly, a 'project Uganda' or a state in Argentina is proof that we're talking pure pragmatism."
1) The main purpose of Zionism was to give Jews "self determination" like all the other nations. This purpose would have been served in Uganda and Argentina. I think it is strange that you are belittling this purpose as "pure pragmatism", considering that the Palestinians have been killing and getting killed for the same goal for many years. Self determination is a BIG DEAL!
2)There was a faction that considered the Uganda/Argentina plan, but they were quickly shut down by the vast majority of the Jewish People. Herzl may have dreamed of self-determination, but all the rest of the Jews were dreaming of Zion.
OK, now for the main point. This is a really weighty responsibility--arguing over whether Israel had a right to become a state to begin with! Please remember that I am only a random guy in NYC, not the ambassador for the Jewish People. If I fall short of convincing you, well, it could be that I am not representing properly. May God forgive me if I fall short.
I will start with a discussion on Sovereignty.
Mohamed, your vision of nations and sovereignty is strangely static. You seem to believe that if a people live in a place, it is their right to inherit that land for all eternity. If this is indeed a right, it is certainly a modern idea. The Arabs weren't bothered by it when they left Arabia to take over the Middle East in the 7th century!
So, you will say that times have changed! Things that were acceptable then are not acceptable now.
1)1948 is not NOW, and certainly 1882 when the Zionists started moving into Israel, the idea of conquering a land was not considered particularly evil. Judging countries from today's standards is an anachronism. But this too is a side point.
But the Jews did not acquire sovereignty only by force. There are 3 other ways that the Jews acquired sovereignty.
1)When the Zionists came to Israel, they bought the land that they lived, worked, and built on. The Turks and later the British would not allow them to simply steal land, even if they were inclined to. When the British proposed a partition plan, the Jews were relegated to their cities and other settlements, which they bought and built themselves.
2)The Jews have an ancient claim to this land. It is their ancestral land that they were exiled from by the Romans. I know that you will not find this contention particularly convincing--but it is a claim that the Palestinian exiles make for themselves all the time--they say "we used to live here--we deserve to come back". The only difference is a difference in time scale. (Unless you are one of the crazy revisionists who claim that the Jews NEVER lived in Palestine, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. If that is the case, this discussion is over, because you are particularly far gone into conspiracy theories and madness)
3)The Jews built cities on land which they bought, they farmed it, and they lived as a majority in the small areas in which they lived (not in the whole land, mind you, that came after). They became an independent society, and independent societies have a right to self determination.
You might claim that the Arabs should have sovereignty over the whole land, and therefore should be allowed to rule over the Jewish minority, despite the fact that they live separately. This fits in with your theory of "Eternal Possession" of a land by its original owners, but I think that buying, building up a land, and establishing an independent society is grounds for independent self-rule.
The British thought so too, and they decided that the Jews should rule their own areas (1947 partition plan). The Arabs thought this was a terrible idea (probably because they subscribed to your "eternal possession" theory, and there was a civil war (yes, a civil war within the British Mandate between the recent immigrants and the old inhabitants).
The Jews accepted the partition plan and were going to live peacefully (don't believe me? Look up the 1947 partition plan in a history book)
It was the outcome of this war, that gave the Jews control over land that they did not buy and were not the majority in. That is not a great thing from today's moral perspective, but I believe that the Jews felt justified in taking the land of the people which tried to destroy them. Regardless, the idea of foreigners coming into a country and trying to build their own society on bought land is not regular imperialism--and I don't think they deserved to be attacked.
Also, it is important to note here that at that point, many Arab countries drove out the Jews, and they ended up in Israel (800,000-1000,000 million poeple-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands
--so two populations got displaced in this conflict.
OK, I don't think I did such a good job, but I spent a lot of effort on this so I am going to post it anyway.
Last thoughts--I think it is probable that both sides of this conflict saw themselves as the defender, and the other side as the aggressor. This may seem strange, but I bet you it is not uncommon in the history of wars.
Moshe
Jameel -
Even if it was indeed Jordanian - which it wasn't, but for the sake of the argument - how does that change the fact that it STILL wasn't yours to build a settlement on?
The reason Palestinians built your houses is that they're the cheapest labour around. You didn't give them jobs because you wanted to contribute to the Palestinian economy, did you!
And, last time i checked, Israel was mass-importing south east asian labour to replace Palestinians in construction, agriculture, etc.
Cool thing that Palestinians are okay with you, really. I think they're afraid of you more than anything - they know that you can call the army, complain on a bogus charge, and have their kids kidnapped by the IDF in the middle of the night and sent for 10 years to Ofer prison. Not that you Jameel would - I don't know you - but many settlers definitely would. And do.
You (settlers) control hilltops, the prime real estate in the West Bank. You control water aquifers and you consume 10 times more than the Palestinians do. Your children attack theirs on their way to school, your women throw ink and wine on them and their laundry. You attack them with rifles and shotguns, take over their farmland, harvest their crops, and burn what you can't carry.
Do you sincerely not see that you are causing them harm?
If you do but believe it's your right to because God said so, that's one thing - but do you REALLY not see that your presence there is harmful?
Moshe -
Rest assured, I don't take you as being the 'ambassador for the Jewish people'. We're both reasonable people having a simple discussion that only engages us.
Alright. Self-determination. Let's take another example. Kosovo. Kosovars decided to break away from Serbia,and indeed they had the right to do so. And when they did, they did on their own land, not somewhere else.
They didn't move to Greece. No. They didn't move to Albania. They exerced their right, on their land.
The plight for self-determination of the Jewish people is not for me to discuss. I object, out of principle, that a group of people in a conference room in Switzerland 115 years ago decided that my part of the world seemed to have good enough weather to build a country.
(yes, I know it wasn't about the weather.)
Deciding to move people into a country and build a new country atop of the old one - you can't say it wasn't evil. Mainly though it was completely unheard of. We really have no comparison. Save for, maybe, Liberia.
"a land with no people for a people without a land" is probably the best-crafted lie in the world. There were people there, and no one had, has the right to parachute in their country, and declare it their own. It is morally wrong.
Regarding acquiring sovereignty: Yes, some land was bought. Most of it wasn't. That Jews bought most of country from absentee owners - the claim often goes that they lived in Cairo and Beirut 0 is a load of bullshit. If you have a copy of 'from time immemorial', throw it out of the window. :)
Yes, Jews lived there a couple of thousand years ago. The Italians lived in Alexandria, too. But the Italians have no claim over Alexandria. And Jews have no 'moral' claim over Palestine.
The connection of Jews to Zion is a spiritual; it's not an 'expat' connection. One day it was: when the Jews who left Israel (I'm talking two thousand years ago) first relocated in their new host countries, their longing to Israel was an expatriate one - all the more of one who didn't leave their home of their own free will. But fast forward 2000 years, and let's be honest, you are no longer "expats of Zion". You are American, Polish, Ethiopian, etc.
(unlike Palestinian refugees, whose connection to their homes is personal, direct, and real.)
Yes, many will see that part of the miracle of Israel is that Jews have succeeded in maintaining this longing to Zion through thick and thin. Personally I find it to be a beautiful fact but it does not translate in any rights of sovereignty whatsoever.
Let's take another example. I happen to have Sudanese blood: my family lived in Sudan - we're talking 8, 9 generations ago.
Does that give me the right to take a caravan, set it atop a hill, and decide to build a city for myself, find myself a pretty piece of land - Sudan is big enough after all, I'm sure I'll find some unused spot - and harvest it?
No. It's not my country, it's someone else's. And if i do want to move there, that can only happen with the permission of the Sudanese.
Same for Palestine.
I have to stop short here because I have to run, but I look forward to your response(s).
Cheers,
Mo.
Hi Mohamed,
I don't have that much time to write (must go to sleep), but I feel like you didn't really deal with two of my points.
1)I mentioned that the Jewish Settlements in the time of the British Mandate were on land that was bought by the Jews. I noted that the British (and the Turks before them), wouldn't stand for outright theft of land.
You countered my point by writing:
Regarding acquiring sovereignty: Yes, some land was bought. Most of it wasn't. That Jews bought most of country from absentee owners - the claim often goes that they lived in Cairo and Beirut 0 is a load of bullshit. If you have a copy of 'from time immemorial', throw it out of the window. :)
Do you have some evidence of this, or is it just your gut feeling.
Secondly, I wrote that "1)1948 is not NOW, and certainly 1882 when the Zionists started moving into Israel, the idea of conquering a land was not considered particularly evil. Judging countries from today's standards is an anachronism."
I don't think you dealt with that point, other than to say, "eciding to move people into a country and build a new country atop of the old one - you can't say it wasn't evil. Mainly though it was completely unheard of. We really have no comparison. Save for, maybe, Liberia.
"a land with no people for a people without a land" is probably the best-crafted lie in the world. There were people there, and no one had, has the right to parachute in their country, and declare it their own. It is morally wrong."
I don't think this sufficiently answers the point. In 1898,all of Europe was setting up countries in places across the world, on the ruins of old countries. The British controlled a whole empire!
There is only 1 clear difference between what the Jews were doing and what the British were doing: The British were purposely exploiting countries for their natural resources--putting little money in, and taking a lot out. The Jews were simply trying to set up a place for themselves to live--they poured a lot of money into the place, and got very little out (for the first little while).
You might say that the Jews were exploiting Arab Labor---this is also not true--A big part of the old Zionist movement was called "Avodah Ivrit", which meant that the Jews would only hire Jews to do their labor--This policy got the Arabs quite angry at the time.
Anyway, back to my main point. Until the 1960's, it was considered acceptable to move into a place and set up a country. The British did it in Australia and North America, and the Arabs did it when they invaded the Middle East in the 7th century (the Arab invasion). The Scandinavians did the same thing in their part of the world (vikings?)
If you are going to start judging people by the standards of today, you have to damn most of the Western world. (At least Britain, Canada, USA, Australia, Belgium,and France
as well as the entire Arab world, for their invasion
The truth is, morality has been evolving, and there are higher standards now.
I'm totally a fan of high standards. I truly believe that the death penalty is no longer moral, and offensive wars are not moral either.
My problem stems when people use the breech of these high standards (in the past)in order to lower them now.
For example, in the 50's and 60's, the Palestinians used this past breech to justify blowing up random civilians in the streets . The Syrians felt justified in shelling the Jewish farms, houses, villages, and towns in the Galilee, because they felt that the Israelis had no right to be there at all (all this is BEFORE the occupation, mind you-I am deliberately staying in the 1960's.
OK, you say--but you are continuing your crime! You are still occupying the West Bank, and blockading GAZA.
It is my belief (I am sure you disagree), that the Israeli Gov't has been trying to leave the west bank and Gaza for 20 years (since 1994). The Palestinians have made this very difficult in 3 ways:
1)They would accept no compromise on the settlement blocs. These are the large Jewish cities in the West Bank. The compromise included paying for the land AND giving the Palestinians equal portions of land in Israel proper. This deal included all of Gaza and 97% of the West Bank. It included full statehood for the Palestinians. (This was the deal proposed in 2001 at Camp David)
2) The Palestinians have perpetrated a hell of a lot of muders within Israel's borders since that time, making it very difficult for the Israeli public to trust that they would be safe neighbors to have, of the IDF would retreat completely.
3)The Palestinians have sent thousands of rockets from Gaza, ever since Israel left in a unilateral disengagement. This makes it difficult for the Israeli public to believe that it is truly safe for them to let the Palestinians live without a military presence.
OK, enough for now. Have a good night (or day, are you in Palestine now?)
"How very complicated it can be to try to be with someone who’s not religious. (or not of your religion). You feign to be more secular than you actually are. Then you bend over some minor rules, then convince yourself that there’s a bigger religious loophole that you insistently know isn’t there, then regret it deeply, then eventually realise that despite your best efforts, religion will always be a barrier, and what was always supposed to happen eventually does".
As an orthodox jew I thought this was incredibly insightful. I will never (probably) agree with any of your writings about Israel/Palestinian issue but I was so touched by this I thought I should leave a comment :) In my experience, this comment doesn't just apply to intimate relationships but to work/friend relationships as well. The pressure to conform/not stick out becomes incredibly strong, to the point that you find yourself compromising your ideas, despite the fact that the only people who have issues with following religious laws (whatever the religion) are precisely the people who aren't following them i.e. keeping the shabbat or kosher.
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for dropping by.. Sorry the thread turned so politically heated, that wasn't really the purpose of the post. I do appreciate you taking the time to write though.
I guess I was lucky in my social relationship in non-Muslim countries, as pressure wasn't terrible but I can fully understand your point. Out of facility or out of a desire to just blend in, we're sometimes willing to go against our own rules.. even though, as you say, we don't have issues with religious laws, they do!
Mohamed
As a fan of srugim I'd like to first note that you have some insightful comments on the show with which I agree. But in some ways what most impresses me about the show is the fact that although ALL the actors are secular they make very convincing religious people of a certain type. This isn't to say that EVERYONE in the national religious community divides up only along the lines of those characters but that there are enough character traits in each of them for us to recognize someone in real life who's similar to them. the topics they speak about are also very typical of the in crowd in many places. That said the writers of the series are focusing not on the jewish community as a whole but on a certain lost and somewhat desperate sector within it of singles who are all lost in various ways.
I'm glad the show stays clear of politics because if it delved into it it would become just another show with a hatchet to grind. I think it's great that while you and I may differ radically on the political front (you discuss things in your blog like "stolen arab lands" while I would say they were lost in a war of aggression or in earlier cases given to us by the British and the UN. You speak of land seizure by Israel and I'd ask what's being done by the Jewish lands several times the size of Palestine confiscated by Arab/Muslim governments from the Jewish citizens of their countries with the establishment of the State of Israel as the result of a UN vote in which they participated, lost, and then refused to honor the results of and so on and so forth) we can still enjoy this show as being about people who have problems much like us and make choices as to how to deal with them. I'm not suprised in the least that there'd be many religous muslims who could identify with many of the show's themes and characters when divorced from the political issues. In fact I think the very fact that they ARE srugim - the group most widely tagged by the muslim world as the "enemy" it helps convey that put aside the politics these aren't monsters but just regular people dealing with the same issues muslim singles deal with to some extent.
Certainly a show like this does a lot more in terms of conveying a sense of people as people. Are there similar shows in the arab world or is everyone so obsessed with Israel that they can't just chill and enjoy a show that focuses on relationships between Muslims of that age? It seems to me that more energy put into focusing on internal community issues would do more to showing a human face on people and be better invested energy than programs meant to incite people to murder other people in God's name.
you're right about that scene where they run away because they think Arabs are coming. That said, I think we can agree that that should be the worst a program ought to have and that it's far less toxic than the kind of stuff that Turkey's been portraying in its series about murderous Israeli soldiers killing for fun or the palestinian produced mickey mouse character who calls for Jihad. The aggression needs to be taken down a few notches in programming or it only fosters more aggression. Shows like this which focus on the human condition and common problems rather than on cross cultural divides are a good step in that direction
The British and the UN had no business giving Palestinian land to anyone to begin with... As for a UN vote, in a post-WW2 incredibly undemocratic international structure, in which the countries that won WW2 gave themselves the 5 permanent seats - and so on and so forth.
Regarding shows: there's a large production of sitcoms in the Arab world, yes. Few are good enough to be exported though. Of the media production, btw, espionage flicks are but a tiny tiny part.
Believe it or not, we really care little about Israel. Surely less than Israel worries about us. :)
I see your point about the Turkish show - but you're comparing apples to oranges. This was a show precisely about Israel and Palestine; Srugim is, as you said, about people - but it nevertheless managed to include Anti-Arab elements, which is quite underhanded.
Anywho. Thanks for dropping by and glad you enjoyed the post!
My problem stems when people use the breech of these high standards (in the past)in order to lower them now.
For example, in the 50's and 60's, the Palestinians used this past breech to justify blowing up random civilians in the streets . The Syrians felt justified in shelling the Jewish farms, houses, villages, and towns in the Galilee, because they felt that the Israelis had no right to be there at all (all this is BEFORE the occupation, mind you-I am deliberately staying in the 1960's.
pictures looking great...........
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