1. While waiting for the bus the other day, I spoke with the Binge Trader about his CIF latest. While taking his daily stroll to Bat Yam, he came across a couple of magavniks cuffing a young Israeli-Palestinian. After reading the piece, I thought Seth had made much ado about nothing.  “He was only slapped around a little bit. I thought it was going to be like Rodney King or something,” I said. “That makes it alright, does it?” was the instant response. “We haven’t broken your bones but we’ve just left you a bit worse for wear.” “No, it’s just that it isn’t much of a story”. Seth went on to challenge this paradigm. He told me about a Hebron orphanage frequently targeted by the IDF. Haaretz would only report on it if there was guaranteed violence.  Stuff like this is happening day in day out, he noted, but nobody’s interested. The problem is with the media. Perhaps I’m desensitised, I said, chastened. Or disinterested, was the brute comeback. On reflection, Seth’s right. The kind of incident he witnessed is unacceptable, no matter how low-key, and we should draw attention to it whenever possible.

2. I hear there’s a lot being written about this outside the land, but I thought I’d chip in nonetheless. I caught up with an old friend the other day, now a lawyer in London, and he told me a bit about how things were in London, particularly with the recession etc. Plenty of his friends were being laid off; others were finding it harder to find work. If there was a positive to all this, though, it was the end to the sense of entitlement that’s characterised my generation of North-West London Jews. We were too young to remember the hardships of the 1980s, and then we entered our best years during the boom of the 1990s.  At university, we assumed we’d walk into whatever it is we wanted to do straight away, and then take the world by storm accordingly. I have to admit that I even felt this when coming to Israel, that my meagre qualifications in the UK meant I should be running the country by the time I’m 30. Now this sense of entitlement is gone. This is liberating. Thank God I have a job and thank God I can pay the bills and live reasonably comfortably. There’s something more humbling about taking each day as it comes, without the overbearing pressure of massive expectations, each step forward felt like another hurdle climbed. I suppose it’s back to basics, and I hope others are able to feel the way I do.

1. On Sunday, I went to the protests at the Ministry of Defence following the injuries sustained by American ISM activist Tristan Anderson at the weekly demonstration against the Separation Barrier in Ni’lin. I’ve been to a similar demonstration once before – at Bi’lin - and I can testify to the heavy-handed tactics employed by the IDF, tactics that are not employed when it comes to dealing with settler demonstrations. Anderson was injured by a new tear gas cannister, one that had been banned in the past and only recently reintroduced. One of the demonstrators showed me the offending item; from holiding it I quickly realised that it would prove lethal if fired from close quarters. In a particularly ironic moment, one of the soldiers patrolling the protest warned the demonstrator not to throw it, “as it might cause injuries.” Most of the forty protesters were drawn from the anarchist movement, a fact reflected in their incendiary slogans, in which the IDF was frequently referred to as a “terrorist organisation”. While I do not share the politics of Anarchists against the Wall,  it’s a shame that other groups (Peace Now, Meretz etc) weren’t represented. The sad truth is that only when the Israel-first brigade (also known as Hasbaraniks) are at the front of these protests will progress be possible.  

2. A few days later, I found myself looking down at the spot where the demo took place. At a meeting at the top of the Azrieli (‘Round’) Tower, Tel Aviv lay naked before me, the helipad at the top of the Kirya looking like the X on a treasure-map. A poster in the board-room reads “Touch the Sky,” depicting the Azrieli Towers peaking out over the clouds, while Tel Aviv lays hidden below. It might not be an original point, but it’s always worth reminding oneself of the hubris of skyscrapers. Without buying into the traditional Babel narrative, there’s something consistently disturbing about great heights built by man, in contrast to the humbling and reasuring feelings found at the top of mountains. In fact, the Azrieli is so high that I found it impossible to pick out the Vineyard’s low-rising, ramshackle buildings. I think there’s a moral in that for us all.

3. In his latest weekly missive, Uri Avnery contrasts outrage regarding the rape allegations levelled against former President Moshe Katsav and the withdrawal of Chas Freeman as candidate for Chairman of the US National Intelligence Council. Geopolitically speaking, he’s right to say that the Freeman furore is more significant than the Katsav case. I was surprised, however, to see him dismiss the outcry over Katsav as trivial. If a President has managed to rape while in office, that’s a pretty big deal. It’s also disappointing to see Avnery dismiss the as trivial Katsav’s call for affirmative action for “promising young immigrants from Oriental countries,” although it’s indicative of the Ashkenazi elitism which has meant that the peace camp has consistently remained on the fringes of Israeli political life.

4. Liverpool got knocked out of the European Cup by Chelsea on Israeli Holocaust Memorial Day. Because of this, television stations in Zion weren’t broadcasting. I watched the game (via German tv) beamed onto an East Jerusalem wall, surrounded by bemused Palestinians, wondering why I was screaming with all the virulence of an anti-Occupation demonstrator. Avram Grant wore a black armband in memory of his family killed in the Shoah, while it was Frank Lampard’s first appearance since his mother, Pat, had died. I knew we would lose – the sentimentality would be marshalled in Chelsea’s favour, leaving us with no chance. And so it came to pass; Lampard scored a decisive penalty, and that was that. Fast forward a year and Liverpool are appealing not to play their Champions League second leg on the anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster. This is strange.  Everyone knows that a second-leg at Anfield 20 years following Hillsborough will result in a Liverpool victory come what may. Sentimentality is an all too powerful force in our world.

5. The Shalit deal has fallen through and everyone’s battering down the hatches. Israel have nabbed another 10 Hamasniks; Hamas are threatening to worsen Shalit’s conditions. The reverse should have happened. While the gaps between the two sides may be too great to produce a deal, why wasn’t there at least an agreement to guarantee bettter conditions? One important step would have been to ensure that all the prisoners involved can be visited by a third party, for example the Red Cross.

Julian Soufir, a French immigrant, did Shlav Bet the mahzor before me. Then he cut the throat of an Arab taxi driver in Tel Aviv. This week a Tel Aviv District Court ruled that he was unfit to stand trial, as he had been insane at the time of the murder. Instead, he will be locked away in a psychiatric institution.I’m no expert on legal definitions of insanity, but I do know one thing. If an Arab had done this to a Jewish taxi driver, he would have been jailed for life. The breakdown of basic legal fairness was one of the early predictions of those who saw what the occupation would reap. This is yet another example of how right they were.

Earlier this week, another Arab died in Israel, perhaps in even more tragic circumstances. He was hiking in the north and stumbled into a mine-field. He injured his leg but – along with his friends – managed to alert the rescue services. The rescue helicopter managed to get him into the winch, but then – like something out of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love - he tragically fell from 20 metres in the air. He was killed instantly.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that there was any foul-play in this tragedy. But somehow it seems to be symbolic of the primary result of the Arab encounter with Zionism. Because the primary result had always been dead Arabs, whether they’re bombed by the IAF in Gaza, stabbed by a French Oleh in Tel Aviv, or accidentally dropped from a helicopter near Beit Shean.