In case anyone needed reminding of the discrimination faced by Israeli-Arabs in Israel, a timely reminder was recently given by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, during an appearance before a Knesset panel. “I feel uncomfortable with the fact that the state for many years acted improperly and should have made fundamental changes,” the Prime Minister said. “We have not yet overcome the barrier of discrimination, which is a deliberate discrimination and the gap is insufferable…A cycle has been established whereby on the one hand, the Arab population did not know how to establish a proper management system and on the other hand governments have denied them their rights to improve their quality of life.”

Much is rightly said about the de facto second-class status of Israel’s Palestinian-Arab citizens, and the role of the Israeli establishment in perpetuating the problem. Less, however, is said about the status of Israeli-Arab political parties in national institutions, and how those parties might function better. For too long, Israeli-Arab politicians have been unduly concerned with nationalist gestures, provocative in nature, such as visiting Hizbollah leaders in Lebanon/Syria. These gestures generally do nothing to help the Palestinian people, whether they are in Israel, the territories or the diaspora.

The primary responsibility of Israeli-Palestinian politicians should be to Israeli-Palestinians. In this sense, Israeli-Arab parties need to become more adept at the dirty coalition politics through which the various Israeli tribes develop themselves. The traditional excuse for this failure is the Israeli political taboo against inviting Israeli-Arab politicians into the coalition. This taboo is unjustifiable, and without it a centre-left coalition would be able to govern the country with relative ease. But the Israeli-Arab parties need to make sure that they are indispensable. The formation of a new umbrella grouping would be an important step in the right direction.

Look at the Ultra-Orthodox parties. Hardly big Zionists themselves, they understand that seats in the Knesset mean funds for their projects. Shas has been in every government since 1984, with the exception of the coalition formed by Sharon in 2003. One only needs to look at their positions on work and the army to see that they are hardly major supporters of traditional Israeli state institutions, occasional rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.  

It’s a little known fact, but there is affirmative action for Israeli-Arabs in the public sector. Last year, the government approved a measure that required 8^% of all civil service jobs to be manned by Arabs by 2010. The target for 2012 is 12%. Of course, this still falls short of the Israeli-Arab percentage of the population, which hovers at around 20%. The point is that this has been achieved without a single Israeli-Arab party in the ruling coalition. A good example of what might be achievable can be found in India, where untouchable parties have managed to secure huge advances through carefully playing the democratic game. In Uttar Pradesh, for example, the Chief Minister is a Dalit.

For a variety of reasons, the performance of Israeli-Arab parties in national elections is akin to an underachieving football team. The idea of an umbrella grouping is one that should be embraced by all seeking the advancement and self-empowerment of minorities within Israeli society.

On Gaza Street the testosterone flowed like blood as the bus-driver squared off with the man-who-was-too-late. The man-who-was-too-late, wearing jeans, t-shirt and a kippah, tip-toed up to the driver’s window as the bus stood in traffic. Every pedestrian stopped and gawked, the potential excitement of a puch-up too great to miss. The conversation was inaudible, but their deliberate gesticulations spoke volumes, like the melodramatic dances of some Broadway musical. We thought - we hoped - that the-man-who-was-too-late would punch the driver. Instead, he lolled away, disappearing from view behind the bus, another Yerushalmi on the edge, on the day I left the city.

According to Haaretz, Ali Baher, the chairman of the Hebrew University’s Arab student body, refused to shake Peres’ hand. Moreover, he called him a “murderer of children”, presumably a reference to Peres’ role in the Qana deaths of 1996’s Operation Grapes of Wrath, in which 106 civilians were killed in shelling from Israeli artillery.” Read on at the Z-Word Blog.

After writing several other words, including ‘camel’ and ‘wingnut’, Joe was accepted at Oxford to read biology. After reading biology and other words, he beat the pants off of everyone else in his academic year, except Rebecca Smith. Don Joe then took up a PhD at Cambridge. His PhD thesis, read only by two bearded professors, did not receive the wide distribution he hoped for. However, he did become a Jewish doctor and that scores highly with the ladies.

Leaving science to become a corporate whore in LA, he has worked hard on making his accent even stronger, because that too scores highly with the ladies. He ought to get laid a lot more than he does. He’s not bitter though; not at all. As a cathartic backlash against the minutia of corporate America “What the f*** am I doing here? A guide to working for large corporations” has become his passion, obsession and several other fragrances. It represents a wry writer’s rants through the boardrooms, break-rooms and bathrooms of banal bureaus everywhere. Joe also has a delicious barbeque chicken pizza in the oven.

The easiest way to convince people you’re intelligent and well read is to add “And then there’s China” at the end of any conversation. Discussing world politics? And then there’s China. Aristotle, Nietzsche, Foucault? And then there’s China. The only occasion when this doesn’t work is if you’re already discussing China. Everyone has to have an opinion on China; it’s dinner party law.

Understanding Chinese culture isn’t that difficult; indeed the Buddhist philosophy that underlies a lot of Chinese customs and business isn’t so different from the Jewish traditions that underlie world banking, Hollywood and the bagel industry. For example, in Buddhism your family will be respected if you have a lama in your family. Furthermore, Buddhists often approach lamas with their health problems, treating them like doctors. Everyone knows Jews love doctors.

To save you from having to read Confucius, Lao Tze and Mencius, here are the basics of what you need to know to do business in China:

1. If someone offers you a delicacy, politely refuse citing an allergy. When something is a delicacy it means that local people don’t eat it most of the time. There is a reason that Kentucky Fried Chicken is more popular than Kentucky Fried Jellyfish, Insect, and Mystery Meat. No one can be offended when you refuse on medical grounds. It’s far better than trying to grin at your host while you’re swallowing something’s foot.
2. Stop staring at the waitress.
3. When using a toothpick cover your mouth. If you really have to eat a delicacy cover your eyes, nose and after swallowing, your mouth.

I learnt these lessons the hard way, after a business trip to China that did little to advance my career. I moved out to Hong Kong for four months to look at investment opportunities in China; in the first week I joined a tour organized by an investment bank, giving analysts the chance to talk with the managers at Korean and Chinese companies.
Before I moved to Hong Kong I spent my last days in London pleading with doctor after doctor for the strongest conjunctivitis medication they had. They gave me various ointments, applied directly to the eye, which had the habit of leaving white globular residues dangling from my eyelashes.

The flight to Hong Kong was a disaster. Excess baggage costs were ₤39 per kilogram and I was no less than forty kilograms overweight: I hadn’t the time to ship my stuff because I had been at the doctor’s. Choking at the prospect of asking my company to reimburse the ₤1600 excess baggage claim, I found a shipping company in the airport that could send my extra bags at a fraction of the cost. The only drawback was that I wouldn’t receive the extra suitcases for another 10 days, long after I had joined the analyst trip. Beggars cannot be choosers, but they often cross national borders without much clothing. I had enough shirts in the one bag I could take but no socks or vests. Who cares? These can be bought cheaply enough in Hong Kong.

On the one day I had to settle into Hong Kong before joining the analysts in Korea I stocked up in Kowloon, the counterfeit capital of Hong Kong, on cheap socks and vests, which were fake Tommy Hilfiger. It wasn’t until the flight to Korea that I took one of the cheap vests out of its packaging: it smelt strongly of a fish-like chemical. Do I really have to face the CEOs of Asian companies smelling like a haddock, with globular eye-goo dribbling from my lashes?

Let me not forget to mention that my English bank, in its steadfast approach to beating bank card fraud, had locked my card immediately after I had used it in Hong Kong. Great: I’m now an odorous pauper with a bloodshot eye. Perhaps I should just go the whole hog and smear excrement on my gums.

The landing card for entering Korea asked whether I was carrying any fake goods. Do fish pee in the sea? Did they also pee on my undershirt? Yes and yes. So before the first flight was done I am bare-chested in the airplane toilet with a black biro scribbling on an unconvincing Tommy Hilfiger logo, turning it into a black square. Fortunately I made it through Korean customs without a hitch, which is just as well because the only Korean I know was taught to me by an ex-girlfriend: “hello” (anyung), “thank you” (kam-sah ham-nedah) and “do you want to die?” (chu-go leh?). Luckily, immigration lasted about as long as that relationship.

I spent the first days of the trip very hungry, until the bank unlocked my card. In all, these are not the ideal circumstances in which to meet the management of the sixth largest conglomerate of Korea. I can only begin to imagine what the managers I met thought: “Why they send us this boy who smells of fish, why he eat all our biscuits, and why he masturbate into his own eye?” None of these details made it onto my write up of the trip.

Hope breaks out; disappointment follows in its wake. This should not be dismissed as cynicism; it is just the way things are. We invest great emotional and intellectual energy in dreaming our dreams of the future, enjoy the sweet thrill of triumph for a moment or two, before resuming our lives as before, disappointed that the promise was not realised. “The test of a first-rate intelligence,” writes F. Scott Fitzgerald, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still be able to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” How are we to function in these circumstances?

The election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44^th President of the United States of America exemplifies this problem. Obama has been elected on the basis of “the audacity of hope”, and in doing so has created expectations that cannot be achieved, expectations that have been irresponsibly heralded by everyone from the political class to the media to the ordinary citizen. Like any other mortal politician, he simply won’t be able to do what people think he will.

Obama himself acknowledges this. Note the serious tone of his acceptance speech; there was no triumphalism, no ecstasy. Rather, he finally sought to dampen expectations, to make it clear to the American public that a long road lays ahead. “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep…There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem.” Some might argue that this was not such a significant departure, taking note that elsewhere in the speech he insisted that “we will get there”. This is to miss the point, I think. Look at the rhetoric in the days following the victory. “We have talked about this [the high expectations],” said Robert Gibbs, considered a top prospect to be White House press secretary. “It’s important that everybody understands that this is not going to happen overnight.”

The seeds for all this were sown by the media response to the Obama campaign. In three key areas, the media gave Obama an easy ride. Firstly, by not raking more muck from his so-called ‘dubious contacts’ (Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers). Of course, it’s clear that these connections did not amount to anything that would give cause to question Obama’s suitability for office. Falsity is the nature of a smear. But a presidential race is a dirty game, fall of lies, and one feels that other candidates with similar connections would not have been so lucky. Secondly, in terms of policy – the media allowed itself to be seduced by Obama’s extraordinary oratorical and interpersonal skills, leaving a distinct lack of critical coverage of his policies (this has been explained in another way by those on the radical left: people were so terrified by the possibility of a Republican victory that they didn’t bother to critically scrutinise Obam’s plans). Thirdly, and most importantly, the messianisation of Obama has not gone unchecked. “I can’t imagine waking up in a world in which he loses,” read one friend’s profile on Facebook the day before the election, a natural culmination of a campaign in which otherwise sober-faced individuals have allowed themselves to drool in awe at Obama, as if he is a saviour sent from the Lord. None of this is good for America’s citizens, and it potentially spells trouble for Barack Obama.

Crucially, though, all of the above contributed to a stunning victory. Now, however, they are elements turned against him, because they will make the inevitable disappointment even greater than it might be otherwise. Obama has to govern as a human being and not as a deity; the question is whether or not the people and the media will allow him to do so. Some have already predicted that a press backlash against Obama will soon follow. As Jack Shafer writes in Slate, for example, “So even before Barack Obama swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution on Jan. 20, the press corps – which has failed to make anything it has thrown at him stick (Wright, Rezko, Ayers, voting “present”, his FISA, the surge, guns, capital punishment, and campaign finance flip-flops) – will finally start extracting maximum punishment.” A backlash may be excessive, but a bit of healthy realism will be long overdue. Indeed, Obama should have nothing to fear from it – extraordinary as his victory was, he now has to normalise himself in order to govern.

Some think there is nothing to worry about. Norma Geras writes that “those telling us to moderate the happiness are precisely appealing, whether explicitly or implicitly, to exaggerated expectations of what an Obama victory might be taken to mean – when anyone with just a little knowledge of relevant political facts would not have entertained such expectations in the first place.” This is missing the wood for the trees. Of course there are plenty of people out there who have recognised Obama for what he is: a supremely competent political operator, an absurdly talented orator, armed with a moderately progressive programme as an antidote to the failure of the Bush years. These people, however, do not tell the whole story. There are many others who see Obama as a redeemer, as someone who is going to usher in some sort of utopian age, and the price of disappointing these people – not least in terms of the effect on political participation – cannot be understated.

The salient point is that Obama has the opportunity to leave things a little bit better than when he embarked on his candidacy. This has been the driving motif behind his political career, and it is this that we should expect from him in the same way that we should expect it from ourselves. The importance of incremental steps towards a better world should not be lost amidst the clamour for instant transformation, and it would be a tragedy if the unfair expectations heaped on Obama’s shoulders (albeit expectations that he has – until now – not done enough to dampen) led to his failure. Only through appropriately nurturing our disappointment can we ensure that hope will continue to spring eternal.

On the dreary, cold misery of a wet Wood Lane, Westfield looms, a soulless grey monolith; hard and dark and aesthetically redundant, a slab, on which the eye neither settles nor moves, towering to nothingness with no profound purpose whatever. A quick glide up an innocuous escalator, though, and the world changes: here is the death of God itself. 

It is impossible not to marvel at what we - each and every one of us – have achieved in this creation. A smug sense of superiority and self satisfaction becomes us as the eyes are drawn upwards, to the vast domes of this most beguiling of buildings. A cavernous wonder, here is a cathedral for the self; a magnificent complex of proscenia within which we are both the actors and the crowd, strutting and stopping, walking and watching as we admire ourselves admiring what we’ve become. This is you. And don’t you just know it.

The rolling waves of the ceiling – though such a prosaic term fails it badly – are an angular matrix of glass and white plastic; a white city proudly illuminated and toned by neon and brightness. Triangles form pentagons and pentagons bend to sleek contours as the cap to this hubristic extravagance rolls and washes away towards a horizon of Next and Prada. Craning necks, though devoid of pain or sensitivity, turn and twist, eyes on stalks, to anticipate what lies beyond, so far in the distance that it belongs to another time altogether. Vast and expansive, this arena grips the devoted crowds by the heart, numbing them of pain and joy, filling them instead with a sense of absolute faith.

Gliding along marble floors, bleached in the glowing tones of Hollywood lighting, cleansing faces of individual imperfections, an inauthentically beautiful herd drifts, each struck dumb by their own sense of place in this vast order. Shops roll past, gently shimmering with an iridescent hue. Glass and plastic, ever expanding, stretch out as far as the imagination will allow. This is us and it defies nature itself.

And no one’s buying anything. Instead they float by, propelled by the stupefying energy of the place, towards nothing in particular; the journey, it seems, is an end in itself. Except that we are already there – and we shall never, ever leave. Glazed eyes and stupid grins lead shells in aimless circles, ever onwards, as mouths gawp and speak and stutter. Shop names are emitted in open, reverential tones, as though they denoted distant realms of enchantment. “Where are you going?” “To Sony.” And a firm nod of acceptance. “Sony. Yes. I’ve heard a great deal”. Reassuring in its numbness; like Prozac, the highs and lows are sliced away, leaving nothing but cleansed healing. Drugged and drunken on the inebriating vastness of it all, the congregants’ collective soul is filled with a sense that everything is alright. No regret. No remorse. Whispy clouds over the soul, calmed to a plastic acceptance, like cheap perfume in a bright corridor.

We can’t believe our luck! This must be how it feels to win the lottery. Look, look! A Spanish villa by Niketown. Don’t ask why. Just accept it and glide on, on to the distant realms of Nandos and Debenhams. The biggest shopping centre In Europe (as though there were worlds besides this). Smug and content, we smile together, but happiness doesn’t come into it. We’ve been touched by the splendour of a material God, purged of our sins, though it wasn’t as hard as that sounds. Just that quick, escalated ascent .

Shapes and silhouettes streamline the space. Information banks replace guides. Touch screens supersede conversation. Aesthetically moulded plastics sit like portals to another world. Arachnid constructions of acrylic and light shine from plinths and pedestals, their purpose unknown. “I’m here”, they say, “now watch.” And you do. Indefinitely. No more squares or bumps, glitches or fault lines; matter is represented instead with perfect imperfections, smooth figures and symmetrically isolated patterns. Plant banks and money shops, railings and menus, rolling ceilings and lilted floors and glancing, vapid display cases all perfectly choreographed to wink and wave as you pass. This is where to belong. Where we all want to be. Where items aren’t bought but purchased and sales consumed as lifestyle choices. This is you, now, forever.

Quick. Let’s get the fuck out, while we still can. Stranded in the higher realms of the cathedral, a gallery overlooks a magnificent stretch of nothingness, but descent from enlightenment is not as easy as its opposite journey. A suicidal jump is considered, though one suspects it would end not with a crack but a swoosh, as I’m spirited away to a distant branch of Apple or Orange. There can be no death, where life is so contained.

But I do get out. And, like a miracle, others have escaped with me. And as I’m stung by the cold breath of the city air and coated in wet saliva of damp and chilling rain, I leave the cold slab behind me and stumble out into a noisy little shithole. And I thank God for poverty and depression, dark streets and fear and pain. I’m gladdened by the darkened corners of my life – because at least they hurt when I pinch them.

Now enough is enough. Shas have taken the game too far. At a time of deep economic uncertainty, to bring down a potential government because of an unwillingness to subsidise reckless reproduction (don’t believe anyone who claims they didn’t join the coalition because of Jerusalem) is unacceptable. All the more so when the matsav seems as a stable as ever, and when the government is embarked on the only path that has the potential of bringing peace, i.e. the path of negotiations (both on the Syrian and Palestinian tracks).

Shas don’t like those who accuse them of ‘extortion’; it’s just more evidence of Ashkenazi racism, they claim. According to Eli Yishai, “It’s interesting that they didn’t call the Labour party, which received NIS1.5 billion under the coalition agreement, extortionists. We are speaking here of racism and condescension. If he who helps ailing children is called an extortionist, then I am an extortionist.” I have to confess by not being entirely sure by what he’s referring to with the NIS1.5 billion claim, but I would like to focus a little on the child allowances. Here’s what Finance Minister Ronny Bar-On (Kadima) has to say on the subject: “I’ve clearly and publicly stated my stance, some of my advisors might state too clearly, I’ve said that with the economy the way it is, it is a mistake to increase spending. I knew that there was a chance that insisting on this could result in early elections…the claim that Israel has unlimited resources is baseless. There are more worthy causes that warrant an increased budget, such as minimising socio-economic gaps, among other things.”

Shas will tell you that they wanted the increase in allowances to start from child number three. This move was designed to broaden their appeal, as it would mean that only 20% of the NIS1 billion extra would go to Shas voters. “All the rest will go the other sectors of society, Arabs, secular Israelis and settlers,” stated up-and-coming Communications Minister Ariel Atias. It is Livni that forced the break-down of the negotiations, they claim, by insisting that the allowances only begin from child number four, a demand which Shas view as a cynical manoeuvre to depict them as a narrowly Haredi party.

Both parties are guilty here. The idea that you should receive an extra amount of money after reproducing a certain amount of children is absurd. Each child should be worth the same; having lots of children should not be profitable. Moreover, having to go to the polls because of this issue is insufferable. All the more so because of what might happen in the elections. For the last couple of years, opinion polls have shown Netanyahu to be a shoe-in for Prime Minister. With this in mind, I’ve been quick to join the “anyone but Bibi” group on Facebook.  

A poll by the Dahaf Research Institute shows Kadima winning 29 of 120 seats (the same number it has now), and Likud taking 26. A TNS Telesker survey gives Kadima 31 seats to Likud’s 29. Both surveys found that Labour would win 11 seats if elections were held this week. Overall, the polls show that the right-wing bloc will take 61 seats and the centre-left bloc 59 (this includes 11 Israeli-Arab MKS, a topic I’ll discuss in a future post). If Kadima do edge out Likud, President Peres may have to choose between asking the leader of the largest party and the leader of the largest bloc to form the new government. I’m not sure what the precedent is for this scenario.

Either way, this brings us back to where we started. Neither party will be able to rule without Shas. While Shas and Likud are more natural bedfellows, Bibi has already been expressing concern that Shas may demand the Education portfolio, a nightmare for anyone with even the most moderately progressive objectives for the Israeli education system. As for Kadima, is there any reason to expect that the stumbling-blocks that brought down the Livni coalition-in-the-making last week won’t be insurmountable again next time? Like Groundhog Day, Israel’s political instability continues to replicate itself, while at the same time apathy takes root and socio-economic problems fester. According to Ovadia Yosef, “Anyone who does not vote for Shas is a traitor, not just to Shas but to the Torah.” Coming from the spiritual leader of the party whose demands are sending Israel to the polls at the worst possible time, this is chutzpah indeed.