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…
1. Spot the difference.
2. Promised Land.
3. Media Melange.
4. The Facebook Haggadah.
5. The Hitch, Salman Rushdie, and Mos Def = Unmissable.
6. Planet of the Dead.
7. Seth on South TA’s refugee seder.
8. A heartwarming tale.
9. The decline of UK libraries.
10. An amazing goal.
For the next eight months I will be working at the Home Front base on the edge of Ramle. Ramle is – for want of a better word – grimy. It is a mixed working-class Jewish-Arab town, where relations are generally ok, but tensions are never far from the surface. A few months ago, some soldiers had stones thrown at them while walking to the bus station, housed in a municipal building with a style that is incongruous with its surroundings. There were also warnings of attempted kidnapping of soldiers in the area. As a result, all soldiers serving at the base were told they could only walk to the bus station in pairs. Note the absurdity: an army which forbids its soldiers from walking on its own sovereign turf. read more…
Strangely enough, on a Sunday…
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. read more…
1. Article on the art and architecture of the Republic of Tel Aviv
2. The Office to be remade for Israeli TV
3. A fan writes
4. Eamonn McDonagh on Israel and Iran at war
5. Let the wild rumpus begin
6. New books blog
7. ‘A Hell on Earth’
8. 20-somethings on the recession
9. FT2020
10. Why are full-backs the key to winning?
Benyamin Netanyahu started the coalition negotiations desperate to avoid the mistake he made in 1996. Then, he formed what’s colloquially known as a narrow right-wing coalition with Shas, the National Religious Party, United Torah Judaism, and the now defunct Yisrael BaAliyah and the Third Way. The government barely lasted three years. From the outset, then, Bibi wanted to avoid a repeat of this scenario. With his cards on the table so early, though, did his rivals manage to make the most of the situation? Or has Netanyahu (for it is Netanyahu, now, with all the backbiting within the Likud) emerged triumphant? read more…
Let me try and place a fly on the wall. I rise at five o’clock in my flat in Jerusalem. The murmurings from Café Bulinat, a secular enclave in the heart of this holiest of cities, spill over from last night. I yearn to be where I was the day before – sitting there with my breakfast while reading the paper. Instead, I am donning the uniform, ready to return to my base. Looking immaculate, I head out. Aside from the hiloni [secular] dilettantes, the only other people out at this hour are the Palestinian street-cleaners and cabbies. I imagine a look of contempt on their faces as I stroll past. read more…
1. Palestinian community educators win children’s literature’s biggest prize.
2. The Hitch on IDF Rabbis.
3. Colonialism?
4. Waltz with Bashir 2
5. Obama’s Special Olympics gaffe.
6. Gordon Brown tries and fails to watch Psycho.
7. Bernard Avishai on Israeli child abuse.
8. Das Kapital - The Musical!
9. Seth on IDF t-shirts.
10. She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.
