False Dichotomies

The Baader-Meinhof Complex is a compelling story chaotically told. This is a shame. The historical material beats anything John Grisham could come up with, while the subject matter is of immediate relevance to the post-9/11 generation. The film, however, makes little contribution to the vitriolic conversation about the causes of terrorism. Instead, it meanders in its own confusion. The first half is well paced and exciting, with impressive recreations of the 1970s. Then the film drops down a gear, as the RAF leadership find themselves in prison, before the story trickles towards its limp climax. Read more

My brief profile of Avigdor Lieberman can be read here, in the Cambridge Student online.

Memories of a Lone Soldier continue…

First time, ever I saw a gauge
Fat Joe (Gangstarr, We got Gunz)

Tonz of gunz, everybody’s getting strapped, tonz of gunz, better watch your fucking back
Guru (Gangstarr, Tonz of Gunz)

More rules of the game. Once again we gather in a het. We must place our water bottles parallel to our right boot, vertically, up and to the right a bit. If not, it’s matsav shtaim (literally Situation Two, figuratively a whole load of press ups). On this particular occasion, we are about to learn the ten golden rules for handling a gun. These, we are told, are rules written in blood. A fellow soldier, from Kazakhstan, is selected to read. A few hours previously, I had reminded him that the army was a game, and that the best way to get through it was to play by the rules. Here, he took matters into his own hands. In a tone of ultra-exaggerated enthusiasm, in which the Borat comparisons were hard to ignore, he began to plough his way through the Hebrew truisms. Our group descended into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. Missing the point, our mefakedet [commander] asks why we are laughing at our fellow soldier. Together, we are made to perform matsav shtaim. And then we get guns. Read more

Travel writing should be born in ignorance. Bill Bryson’s defence of making observations about foreign societies without knowing a word of the language rings true. Once you know a place’s language or history or culture, you become an insider, an expert. There is, of course, a place for experts. But we shouldn’t forget the voice of ignorance, the instinctive reaction of prejudices being put to the test in foreign climes.

Halfway through my brief trip to Gothenburg, then, the questions began to splurge out. Up to this point The Swede had to tolerate my derision towards the Swedish model (but of course not towards Swedish models), my shock at the lack of people on the streets, the seeming loneliness and compartmentalization of it all; people barely talking to each other, whispering in light, snow-flake tones. Sitting on the boat firmly cruising around the archipelago that surrounds Gothenburg, though, a more positive picture was taking shape. I needed some context. Read more

False Dichotomies is pause. I’m off to London and Gothenburg for ten days for a cousin’s Bar Mitzvah and various other japes. Thanks to everyone who’s been reading the resurrected Falsedi over the last few months. Please God (in a metaphorical sense) I’ll be back in 10 days with more: more travel writing, a review of the Binge Trader’s debut, analysis of the new Israeli government, and much more. In the meantime, enjoy these brief jottings about some of the tunes I’ve been rocking. One love, and I’m out… Read more

The dominating emotion of this most undecided of elections has been anguish. Normally reserved for the most troubling of love affairs, this anguish has seized my nights and conquered my days; the scenarios all laid out, the permutations thoroughly hypothesised. Never before have the clichés about choosing the lesser evil been proved so true. And, if anything, the dilemmas only increased as the campaign (if that is what we can call two and half weeks of low-brow, personality driven bickering) progressed.

It’s strange to look back now, but everything started with so much clarity. The choice was between Bibi and Tzipi. This was an election favouring the right, which meant those on the left had to be realists. Instead of fighting among ourselves for the few votes available, we had to shore up the one candidate who actually had a chance of preventing the return of Mr Netanyahu. Read more

My ‘summary’ piece on Operation Cast Lead can be read here, in the Greater Kashmir newspaper.

For the first time in my life, I’m about to cast a vote that really counts. My excuses for my apathy towards Britain’s first-past-the-post system no longer apply; Israel’s pure system of proportional representation means that my voice can indeed make a difference. With this responsibility, though, come a number of tough dilemmas. Is it a choice between Tzipi and Bibi? Are all the leading candidates broadly similar? Is it right to pretend I am voting for Prime Minister, while ignoring the rest of the names on the party list? Should I ignore the race for the top and focus on strengthening a smaller party? All these questions remain unanswered, which is why I remain – even this later in the day – an undecided voter. Read more

Zionism at its best aims at the normalisation of the Jewish people. The petition to remove religion from Israeli ID cards should be applauded. Israeli citizens are Israelis – that is what matters. I urge all Israeli readers to sign the petition here.

Revolutionary Road is a horror movie. It’s no coincidence, I think, that the tragic protagonists of the film – Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) – live in a house at the very edge of their suburban anti-idyll, slanted on a hill. They are on the edge of the woods; at one point we see April through the window-pane at twilight, dressed in white, having just returned from roaming wildly through the trees. It is a gorgeous and frightening image, enhanced by the constantly creepy score. This is an “everyday” drama that had me on the edge of my seat, terrified at the inevitable, violent conclusion. A film where the sadness is offset by the importance of the ideas being examined, and how they pertain to every single one of us. Read more