Is Raf OK? -- Installment #84
2024-02-29 -- Tel Aviv
Enhancement: Relief Area Bet was extended 2024/03/01. Thank you M.T.
Tags: 2 Min Read; Jumbo Relief Area
I didn't plan on publishing more this week. Two things happened: Jon Stewart took on the topic and the holiday of Purim approaches.
Purim is the dress-in-costume-get-drunk-and-party holiday in Judaism. In Israel, the festivities stretch for about a week. The Purim spirit is already in the air.
I have been Israeli experiencing ecommerce lately. It is quite varied. Some sites you use an app on your phone to pay (the site shows a bar code you scan with the payment app on your phone). Some you order on line and then call in to pay. Every manner of post office and courier service is used. When a place has a question or issue with the order, they call you. Lots of SMS messages with details. Delivery drivers call to see if you are home. If you are, you go outside to collect the package from them.
How Is Gaza?
From the feeds I follow, there are three dueling genres of "Gaza pain" videos on social media: Demonstrations against Hamas; Mother or Father screaming about how their children are suffering; and, The laughing and stagecraft behind the mother and father screaming clips.
And then the fiasco of today, when aid trucks were mobbed and people died. The presence of violence is being investigated. Elsewhere in Gaza:
Nuseirat
Fresh goods in the market of Nuseirat in the center of the Gaza Strip, yesterday. (The Israeli army has not operated in this area for the whole war so far.)
Flour Arbitrage
A resident of Gaza City who immigrated to Rafah 5 days ago encountered merchants selling sacks of flour for NIS 55 per sack. [NIS: Israeli Shekels, the currency of Gaza, about 3.5 per dollar]
He tells them that in Gaza City each bag is sold for around NIS 3000.
He tells them that if he could send them north to his family in Gaza City they could live on these sacks for a year.
The merchants answer him: If you take care of transporting the sacks to the north of the Gaza Strip, we will give them to you for free. Even 40 bags for free.
Everyone is gloating over the generosity of the Gazans...
Not to ruin the celebrations, but these are UNRWA bags... They come for free anyway (:
By Way of Saying
There is no famine in Gaza. Much is shattered (housing, economy), but much also works. Like the rest of the Middle East, there is no single story that describes all of Gaza.
In Other News: Former Prime Minister Olmert
Quoted in Haaretz:
Olmert, who a year and a half ago lost a defamation suit filed against him by the Netanyahu family for asserting they were mentally ill, doesn't seem deterred from using strong language to describe the prime minister. Over the time that has elapsed, he believes he has "won the understanding of the vast majority of the Israeli people" that the Prime Minister's behavior points to "a nervous breakdown."
"A nervous breakdown is the only way to interpret the way he behaves," he says on the podcast. "I don't know that he suffered a nervous breakdown - I don't have any medical evidence to prove this. But I have brains. I have eyes. I understand what I see. And what I see is the behavior of someone who has gone through a dramatic nervous breakdown. And most likely, he still hasn't recovered from it."
...
"5,000 Palestinian terrorists shook the foundations of the state of Israel because of the overconfidence and arrogance," he concludes.
What Does Jon Think? The “Stewart Plan”
Jon Stewart gets a few things wrong. The main one: War, in most of the world, means destruction. Lots. Getting upset about that indicates there aren't many history books on your shelves.
Stewart, refreshingly, highlights two rarely noticed material factors: The insincere core of Arab support for the Palestinians and the scary ideas of American Evangelicals (he fails to note the key role Evangelicals played in Middle East policy during the Tr*mp years and how much the Israeli Likud loves them).
13 min. In English.
Relief Area
Alef
Bet
Translation: Sinwaar’s Ears
These cookies are traditional Purim cookies. The tradition is that they represent the bad guy’s (Haman’s) ears. They have been renamed.
Per M.T.: Two additional piece of nuance: 1) Not just a villain, but a new Amalek. A contention that has gotten Israel some troublesome publicity, incidentally, even if accurate. 2) Sinwar, like Obama, very recognizable based on the size and shape of his ears.
Gimmel - What if Michael Rapaport hosted the Oscars?
3 Min, English
Dalet - Krystyna Hutchinson’s Road to Peace
Watch one minute from this starting point:
Hopefully this is Shabbat Shalom until next week.
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)