Is Raf OK? -- Installment #79
2024-02-16 -- Tel Aviv
Tags: 4 Min; Few Videos
I stayed in today. Got the latest Corona vaccine yesterday and had the full fever response. I'm over it now, but I sure slept a lot!
Perceptions
For 25 years, I lived a few hour drive from Canada. Yet I never understood the mechanics of Canadian government. It's like that here vis-a-vis Washington DC. The Senate passes an aid bill, that makes the news, and Israelis think they are being supported. I have written to more than one Israeli journalist covering the U.S. that they need to explain the American process (at the moment it passed in the Senate and is stalled--possibly dead--in the House, after three months of delay by Senate Republicans).
Israeli's don't understand that the U.S. has not approved a single new dollar to cover the war. Arms deliveries are either purchased by Israel or are part of the existing aid that Bibi signed with President Obama.
In an exchange today, I wrote: Israel can probably get by whether or not additional aid is passed. Ukraine, however, is probably dead without it.
(Too much fucking war in the world.)
Mail Bag
Reserve Duty (Miluim)
As for miluimniks, one of my friend's fathers volunteered to go back to his unit. He was a demolitions expert. They took him, but didn't send him into Gaza because he's 67 years old! But they took him.
Lost Friends
Email from one of my Vermont-based Hebrew teachers:
אבל קשה עם מה שקורה בישראל. 8 מהסטודנטים שלי בתיכון גבעת ברנר נרצחו במסיבת הטבע או נפלו בקרבות.
What is going on in Israel is hard. Eight of my students from the Givat Brener high school were murdered at the festival or killed nearby.
Ceremony To Thank Beduin Heroes of Oct 7
3 Minutes, in English. Some violence.
Term Of The Day: #Pallywood
Almost nothing is taboo for #Pallywood, the anti-Israel propaganda industry that creates false or misleading images, videos and narratives in order to portray Israelis as evil. Non-Palestinian western activists and international media are an important part of this propaganda campaign.
From faking injuries to using children as props, for decades, anti-Israel agitators have staged elaborate and horrifying scenes of Israeli brutality and Palestinian victimhood. Those scenes are then recorded and promoted around the world in an effort to frame Israel for human rights abuses— often exploiting especially vulnerable Palestinian children.
I nearly included a shocking clip, taken in the West Bank, of a Palestinian father pushing his 3 or 4 year old child to confront armed soldiers and throw rocks at them. Disturbing. Beyond belief, actually. The soldiers give the kid a high five and want nothing to do with it. The dynamic is gross.
Is the disconnect the point? In the West Bank, Israel and Israelis engage in egregious behavior. Yet there is so much Pallywood content, the temptation is strong to ignore it all.
Hamas using the population of Gaza as a shield and tool is an extension of Arafat and Abbas' philosophy: Their goal is permanent refugee status and lots of media showing children being killed by soldiers.
What Happens When You Teach at Columbia and Reject Hamas
Tears of ____ ?
Today's Feature: A Gaza Mosque (Not tunnels!)
On the first floor, a normal mosque. Upstairs: Weapons, ammunition, the works. IDF protocol has always been to leave religious sites alone. Hamas has broken that.
Relief Area
Alef - al-Qaeda I
Nobody on 9/11 said, “I support both sides.”
Bet - al-Qaeda II
“Imagine being an American post-9/11 but instead of mourning your people, you are busy convincing the world that the Twin Towers actually existed, the airplanes literally crashed into them, that actual people were jumping down. This is how I feel wandering around these days,” writes Michael Sutton.
Gimmel
Dalet: How the social media battle feels
I committed an odd vegetable sin. In the fridge: A basket of excellent cherry tomatoes. Super tasty. Under the impression that they were nearly gone, I bought a second basket (I walk past the shuk one to four times a day...).
Problems: The first basket was still half full. And, the second basket was even tastier.
What to eat when?
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)