False Dichotomies

The story begins two years ago. I had been in Israel for almost three months. I was earnest back then, ticking off my bureaucratic to do list as if I had faith in the red tape. I turned up at government offices without so much as a book to read, assuming that everyone would want to help me, that assisting an oleh in his bureaucratic absorption was the country’s pre-eminent spiritual mission, a fundamental joy. Read more

1. The first day.

2. Wood on McEwan.

3. End the university as we know it.  

4. This is water.

5. Shaming their memory.  

6. The land of no smiles.

7. Homes from within.

8. Tel Aviv street-art.

9. Mexican Flu.

10. Salt of this sea.

“The police assault on activists of ‘New Profile’ and ‘The Center for the Defence of the Individual’,  the detention  of activists, among them grandmothers, and confiscation of computers constitutes a severe attack on the Freedom of Speech in Israel” warns Uri Avnery of the Gush Shalom movement. “The activity of New Profile – an organization which opposes  the militarism of Israeli society and gives counseling  to Conscientious Objectors – is considered by the police to be  ‘incitng to shirking’  – a severe legal charge. Read more

Expect to see a lot of needless whooping about this. ABC”s George Stephanopoulos interviewed Iranian President Ahmadinejad last week, and asked the following question: “If the Palestinians sign an agreement with Israel, will Iran support it?” Read more

A few weeks ago, I touched on the idea that the worldwide economic recession has reduced Generation Y’s sense of entitlement. The world is no longer ours to inherit; as a result we have to revise our expectations in order to avoid acute disappointment. This point also applies to olim, particularly those from the west. Far too often, we walk around Zion as if we own the place, as if we’re innately superior. When I was coming to the end of basic-training, for example, me and my comrades were disappointed at being asked to be truck-drivers or office-clerks. After all, we had degrees from the best universities in the world. Shouldn’t we have walked into a top intelligence or public relations post? Read more

1. I do it to live n*****/to Pulitzer prize winners.

2. Beyond the pale?

3. Indian Zionism.

4. Literature and the recession.

5. Obama’s Seder.

6. Happy Birthday, Tel Aviv.

7. Top ten literary blogs.

8. New Coetzee.

9. India’s new face.

10. The best shoe-throwing yet.

I realised this wasn’t exactly going to be a regular office job while we were in the process of moving offices. I opened a cupboard to begin schlepping some books. I wasn’t looking down, and my hand was soon roaming over something odd but at the same time familiar. I crouched down to look closer. Of course, it was my commander’s M16, and it would have to move office just like everything else. Read more

I’ve decided to try and post more regularly, so stay tuned. Apologies if some of these early posts are wack, it may take me time to get the right tone for these more frequent commentaries…

Quid pro quo. You give something and expect to get something back in return. Diplomacy 101, something I don’t need to remind the esteemed readers of False Dichotomies. But the new Israeli government would do well to take a quick crash-course of the basics of international diplomacy, at least if they don’t want to be swept away by the new realities, leaving the country stuck in a strategic nightmare in the process. Read more

If you read Falsedi and live in Zion, come and celebrate my birthday with me.

Details (on Facebook) here…

חג שמח to those who are celebrating….Falsedi is taking Pesach off; I’ll be back on the 16th April with a big piece on Iran. Watch out now…

In last week’s Haaretz, Carl Perkal, the director of resource development for Sikkuy (The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel), argued that the Israeli health-care system was the model for removing inequality between Jews and Arabs in other spheres, such as housing, education, welfare, land allocation, and job access. Citing the 1994 national health insurance scheme, he notes that the law “made no distinction between Jews and Arabs (or any other groups), and in this it ended the inherent discrimination of the previous system, by which many Arab citizens found themselves unable to pay the monthly instalments to the various kupot holim (HMOs), and the HMOs avoided making investments in health facilities in the country’s Arab towns and villages.” Read more