Well ain't this swell! This immediately made me think of Adam, who had already told me about 3 times to read this book "The Case For Democracy" by Nathan Sharansky.. It seems that President George Bush (I love that guy!) has beat me to it.
The story has been told over and over in the last two months: Natan Sharansky wrote a book about democracy in the world; President Bush read it and became an enthusiastic fan. The modest author was invited to meet Condoleezza Rice and the Supreme Reader in person, Bush, joined the cause of spreading praise about the book.
A reader meets the author - rare but natural. Sharansky, known in the West for some 30 years, a minister in the Israeli government, is far from being Cinderella, and it is still the stuff of fairy tales: Bush, busy dealing with the world's affairs, takes time to leaf through Sharansky's writings.
"In recent years, however, unemployment in Israel has hit record levels, the army has become more selective in its inductions due to a surfeit of recruits, and the treasury has argued that the age of the welfare state and reliable stipends for the disadvantaged has come to an end."
I realise that as far as practical issues, such as employmency, is concerned, Israeal doesn't "need" Jews. But that isn't the main issue. Instead of declaring my own opinions, I've decided to post some of the comments of the readers.
1. Yes and Yes. Israel and aliyah go together like peanut butter and jelly. They are a part of each other. The more people, the stronger the country. Look at all that Israel has accomplished with one of the smallest populations in the world. One can only imagine what lofty goals Israel could achieve with double the Jewish population it has now. For me, the word 'SuperPower' immediately comes to mind. Aliyah Forever!
Seth Cohen, Miami, United States of America
2. With fire-bombings of synagogues, kosher slaughtering made illegal, emergence of 'far-right' political parties and 75% of CNN's voters saying the Holocaust can happen again - especially with the millions of growing muslims in Europe - it does not seem unreasonable to assume that one day Jews across Europe will again feel threatened. France is just the beginning.
3. Israel has and always will be our home. It was a desert when we weren't there and now we've returned it's an oasis. Israel needs aliyah as much as Jews need Israel.
4. I've just gradauted and I'm going as soon as I get enough experience to benefit Israel's prosperity...I can't wait!
Daniel Cohen, London, United Kingdom
5. Israel, a country indoctrinated with racism and militarism, should strive to make peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians (the victims of the victims) instead of continuing with these evil designs to uproot them and replace them with "Jews" from around the world, most of whom have no connection to Israel and his children.
Khalid Suleiman, Jerusalem, Israel
Sorry I just couldn't resist that guy
6. True, Israel may not need olim, but can Diaspora Jewry really survive without the prospect of aliyah? I am not so sure. We never know what horror lurks around the corner. Have we not learned that by now?
Yehuda Goldstein, Boston, United States of America
7. The question is phrased as though Jewish communities in the diaspora were no longer in 'mortal peril'. This was believed to be the case in the middle of the 19th century too, and we know what happened shortly after. Jew-hatred is still highly abundant in all parts of Europe, especially so in eastern Europe. Even more disturbing is that the hatred is constantly increasing. A more relevant question than whether aliyah is necessary for Israel, is whether aliyah is necessary for e.g. Russian Jewry. I believe the answer is 'yes', and that those who choose to stay in Russia will pay dearly for their blind optimism.
Torbjurn Karfunkel, Gothenburg, Sweden
Yay! I'm not the only thinking Scandinavian! Oh I think he's Jewish, though. I googled him. He's an active supporter of Israel and zionism so he's a much hated man, and he comes from Göteborg, where I was born. Cool!
Yesterday I received a very sweet mail from a fellow "Webshots" user. Webshots is the online photo gallery I use to post photos I take with my digital camera. The mail was from an Israeli PhD student from Haifa. I was extremely impressed with the photos she had uploaded to her own website, since they are a vivid & creative mixture of "life in Israel" photos. I strongly believe (especially after my last visit) that representation like this is exactly what Israel needs: Daily life in Israel - Orly's Gallery I also recommend the links she has to other people. Some of the photos are breathtaking.
Blog poll results, nationality, and the notion of home
Alrighty then. So I had promised I'd give you the real answer to the question of "my real nationality" after tormenting you a little with a poll. I must say that readers were quite clueless. Here were the results: (This feels like the Eurovision Songcontest).
20% Thought I was Icelandic/Romanian
That's a good guess, since I have family living in Romania
20% Thought I was Icelandic/Israeli I suppose they figured I look exactly like the Icelandic side.
20% Thought I was Icelandic.
Also not a bad guess. I pretty much am, plus I blog about Iceland a lot. 20% Thought I was Icelandic/Norwegian.
Good guess.
10% Thought I was Swedish.
Someone completely clueless, I guess. 10% Thought I was Romanian.
Nobody thought I was Norwegian.
I find that odd. I work in the tourist industry so I'm used to seeing people from all over, and I definitely look Norwegian.
Reality?
A little complex. 20% were correct (but I do know a few of you know me quite well, so your votes don't really count).
I am indeed Icelandic/Norwegian
What has confused some of you is that I was born into a family of world travelers, so my family (an Icelandic mother and a Norwegian father) just happened to be living in Sweden when I was born. In addition to that, my father had lived all over North America, South and Central America, Australia, all over Asia, in various muslim countries, etc etc. My mother on the other hand, who also enjoys the experience of living in different countries, currently resides in Romania.
But to complicate things even more...
In anthropology we study how different cultural worlds, and even different individuals, have a different notion of the word "home". I recall how a professor once asked the class what our idea of "home" was. A girl in class raised her hand and gave an answer that did not seem particularly thought through to me: "roots". If that were the case, I would not really have much of a home. Luckily it is not the case, for "home" is a state of mind, something you feel with your heart, as opposed to an actual, material home.
This is why is may well be that the seemingly simplistic saying of "home is where the heart is", may infact be the most accurate description ever given.
While even the BBC published material in remembrance of the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz deathcamps, the same cannot be said for everybody. Der Sturmer.. Ooops I mean 'The London Spectator' ran an article by (sigh) Anthony Lippmann.
On the anniversary of the liberation of German death camps, The Spectator suggests an IDF-Nazi comparison.
Elie Wiesel addresses the UN
General Assembly on Monday
On Monday (Jan. 24), the United Nations and European leaders marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, testifying to that greatest crime in human history ¯ the industrial murder of 6 million Jews.
While much of the British media (including BBC) provided helpful educational material on the Holocaust, The (London) Spectator ran an article by Anthony Lipmann, who declared that on this day
I will think not just of the crematoria and the cattle trucks but of Darfur, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Jenin, Fallujah.
'Jenin'?! Lipmann suggests some comparison between Auschwitz and Jenin ¯ where less than sixty Palestinians (the majority armed combatants) were killed in an IDF counter-terrorism raid in 2002. Columnist Mark Steyn was outraged that 'to Lipmann, those 52-56 dead Palestinians weigh in the scales of history as heavy as six million Jews.'
Lipmann, an Anglican whose Jewish mother survived Auschwitz, goes on to make his Nazi-Israel comparison even clearer:
"What would I have done?" I ask myself. "What should I be doing now? What am I doing for those being persecuted today - among them the Palestinians, who are suffering at the hands of Jews? But for a turn of fate, could I have been a Nazi too?... This little band of 600 [Holocaust survivors attending a reception hosted by the Queen] has a terrible responsibility - to live well in the name of those who did not live and to discourage the building of walls and bulldozing of villages.
One would think that the Holocaust anniversary would compel all British media to promote understanding for a secure State of Israel, defending Jews from those who would perpetrate another extermination campaign. Yet The Spectator chose, on this of all dates, to suggest the IDF are modern-day Nazi storm troopers. Says Melanie Phillips:
To imply that the Jews have turned into Nazis in the Middle East does two things. It tells a wicked lie about that tragic impasse, reversing who is victim and who is victimiser. It is the Palestinians who have a programme to eradicate the Jewish state and ethnically cleanse the Jews from the land, as the Arabs have been trying to do for the past 100 years. Israel is merely defending itself...
And of course the second thing Lipmann does through this travesty is to minimise the Holocaust itself and the crimes of the actual Nazis, and thus to betray the memory of those who died.
The Spectator, the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language (since 1828), should have exercised better editorial judgment on this historic occasion.
TORONTO - Jewish groups are condemning the University of Toronto for permitting an Arab student club to hold a weeklong series of lectures entitled, "Israeli Apartheid Week."
The program, organized by the Arab Students' Collective, begins Monday with lectures about the roots of what the students call Israel's ethnic cleansing and segregation of Palestinians.
"We're trying to educate people on the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and not simply a military occupier of the Gaza," said Hazem Jamjoum, a member of the student group. "Today we'll talk about the origins of the conflict, the 1948 war, when the first half of Palestine was colonized."
The students set up a mock Palestinian refugee camp on campus in an attempt to show passers-by the conditions in which they say many Palestinians have lived since the war.
The students insist their program is not meant to be a slight against the Jewish people, but what they call an oppressive Jewish state. They note Jewish students are taking part in some activities and Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian at the University of Haifa, is scheduled to speak Thursday. Other speakers come from pro-Palestinian and Arab groups.
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This isn't the first time such incidents take place. But think about it. What is really going on here? What are respected educational institutions saying by allowing such public displays of anti-semitism (for that's what it is, let's not fool ourselves ok)? I personally find it upsetting to hear of such incidents each and every time they occur, because the more frequent they become, the more "normal" they will be considered, the more normal they will be considered, the more brainwashed people will become, and the more brainwashed people will become, the more dangerous it can get.
That is why I just don't like this. I don't like it one bit.
Buoyed by a Sunday rally which saw one of the largest demonstrations ever staged in Jerusalem, opponents of the disengagement plan protested for a second day Monday.
Olivier Fitoussi / BauBau Anti-disengagement protesters demonstrating in Jerusalem Sunday. Estimates as to attendance varied from 150,000 to 250,000.
Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the Sunday demonstration held in the government complex between the Prime Minister's Office and the Knesset.
No official figures on the number of people in attendance were released, but Channel 1 television reported that some 150,000 people were there Sunday and organizers said there were nearly 250,000.
Well, you people certainly don't have a clue! I had a poll called "What is Hatshepsut's real nationality?", and people guessed everything except the right answer! To make this a little more interesting I've removed the poll and replaced it with another one, containing more options. I figure this will be more interesting, since there's no telling where some people might think I'm from :-)
So I encourage everybody to give it a go!
I have noticed that some of my readers, most recently David (yeah it's true David, you inspired this), have had some misconceptions where my nationality is concerned. I do indeed intend to clarify this misunderstanding, but first I would like to get an idea where people generally believe I am from. So please be so kind as to answer my blog poll below.
I find it interesting that it is very easy to explain to a European that I am born in one place, but my nationality is another. With Americans it is different. If I tell them where I am born, they connect my nationality to that place, and I have problems explaining it. I believe this is mostly caused by the fact that America was (and still is to an extent), much like Israel, a society largely based on immigrants, wheareas Europe is not. (Well, Turks and Arabs excluded).
The Hamas - A worthy cause for "civilized nations"
Smooth Stone, whose priceless blog I read obsessively, had a recent post worth checking out called:
Despite Israeli Alerts, UN Transfers Thousands to Hamas Affiliates
Long after Israel warned of the terror connection, the UN Development Program transferred thousands of dollars to a Palestinian Arab charity affiliated with Hamas though the UN publicly claimed payments to the organization had stopped.
The UNDP was headed by Mark Maloch Brown, who has recently been appointed Secretary-General Annan's chief of staff.
Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the UN, exposed UNDP support for charity committees affiliated with Hamas in a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
UN undersecretary-general for communication Shashi Tharoor claimed in a letter to the editor of the Journal that "no further payments were made by the UN" to the Hamas affiliates after a June 25, 2003, letter from Timothy Rothermel of the UNDP to the Israeli army. Yet according to a UNDP letter that was seen by the Sun, the agency transferred $6,000 to the Jenin Charity Committee on September 11, 2003. A subsequent letter from UNDP, dated October 3, 2003, states that the transfer was a mistake and "was intended for the Tul Karem Charity Committee."
UNDP spokesman William Orme said Thursday that his agency is checking into the new facts, and that if the documents are accurate, an internal investigation will be launched immediately. "We were told no payments were made following June 2003," he said.
Olivier Fitoussi / BauBau Anti-disengagement protesters demonstrating in Jerusalem Sunday. Estimates as to attendance varied from 150,000 to 250,000.