Politics and Pyrotechnics

International affairs expert Dominique Moisi has difficulty explaining Israel's predicament, "What is wrong with Israel?" he asks, "In recent years, the Jewish state seems to have done more than all of its combined enemies to delegitimise itself in the eyes of the world. Its leaders’ apparent inability to think in strategic terms, and their indifference to the tribunal of global public opinion, is resulting in growing frustration among its citizens and, what may be more dangerous, deepening international isolation.                                           Where should one look for an explanation for this tragic evolution? Was it simply inevitable for a people who, deprived of a state for more than 2,000 years, may have lost the ability to act collectively in a 'raison d’état' manner?" Part of the problem is our dysfunctional system of government.   If Professor Moisi is right, maybe we will have an opportunity to correct matters in the forthcoming Knesset elections..   Many people claim that Israel's founding fathers committed the original sin when they created an unworkable system of government. The fragmentation of the Israeli political system based on a highly representative proportional parliamentarian structure is the root cause of nearly all our political ills. The Israeli political system, through its complex mechanisms of rigged party selection and absolute proportionality, condemns the country to weak coalition governments and escalating corruption. There is an urgent need to reform the system. One critic (I can't recall his name) complained “Government leaders cannot afford to spend 90% of their time thinking about how to survive politically at a time when the state’s right to exist is being challenged."

Well let’s vote to change the system. The recent amalgamation of the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu might just herald in a change in the electoral system.  On the other hand It might just herald in a lot of things we don't want.  Oscar Wilde's said it better, "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." The problem is we probably won't evict the Likud led coalition.

Although I quote them a lot I don't place my trust in political analysts. A case in point is a piece  Brent E. Sasley published in the Huffington Post  referring to  the bombshell news  that  the dysfunctional nature of Israel's political system allowed Bibi to pull off what is clearly a stroke of genius. He was referring to the short-lived (70 days) coalition of the Likud and Kadima parties this summer. It turned out to be more like an apoplectic seizure than a stroke of genius. Who knows, maybe the prime minister has got it right this time.

I'm rambling; I really wanted to write about the attack on the munitions factory in Sudan, which according to foreign sources was carried out by the Israel Air Force. Permit me to ramble on a bit about our local politics before I write about what our boys allegedly did in Khartoum.

Usually I try to avoid writing about our interminable political wranglings. However, with the Knesset elections looming ahead I can’t ignore them.

“Israel’s majority Jewish sector has shifted its political allegiance sharply to the right. “Claimed  journalist Benjamin Pogrund in an article he posted in the Guardian recently.  Three weeks ago I quoted from an assessment made by Dan Ephron in Newsweek/Daily Beast hailing the           unbeatable Bibi. Now it would seem that the new merger has really made Bibi unbeatable.         Mark Weiss The Irish Times' correspondent in Jerusalem also thinks the Israeli public has         been shifting steadily to the right. According to a recent survey quoted by Weiss more than        two-thirds of the respondents said they would oppose suffrage for West Bank Palestinians if     Israel annexed the West Bank. Seventy-four per cent said they supported a system of                   segregated roads  for Israelis and Palestinians in that region.  Weiss says that the fact that      the Israeli news media largely ignored the survey is further proof of the right-wing trend.             Unfortunately he omitted to mention if the opinions expressed were from a broad cross section of the public or from West Bank residents only.     On the other hand, Benjamin Pogrund            quoting another survey said that the extent of the hostility expressed by Israeli Jews towards the country's Arab citizens shocked many people: 42% of the respondents said they don't want their children in the same school class with Arab children and 42% don't want to live in the same   building with Arabs. However, a closer perusal of the survey's findings shows that the secular    respondents, who form the majority of the country's Jewish population, expressed different        opinions: 73% did not object to having Arabs in their children's school, and 68% would live in   an apartment building alongside Arabs. Pogrund maintains that although Israel has moved to    the right, it is not an apartheid state. Furthermore, he stresses that, "The findings are                   remarkably positive views in light of the effect of the Palestinian suicide bombings during the   Second Intifada in driving many Israeli Jews to the right, plus the continuing threats to Israel's    existence by Iran and Palestinian militants and their supporters in the world. The firing of rockets and mortars at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and others adds to antipathy towards Palestinians." Referring to the survey quoted in the Irish Times Pogrund says, "The        survey's handling of Jewish views about the West Bank, based on a hypothetical annexation by Israel, raises questions about the way it was conducted and how the results were presented to  the public: 69% of Israeli Jews, according to the survey, would oppose giving the West Bank's 2.5 million Palestinians the vote inside Israel. The summary of the survey is headlined: "In case of annexation, most Jews will support apartheid."                                                                                The initial response to the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu merger seemed to affirm the claim that the      two parties together would gain more seats in the upcoming elections than each party would   gain separately. I think it would be wise to wait till the voters have assimilated the full                   significance of the merger..                                                                                                                  Netanyahu could encounter problems with some Likud members who have already opposed     the merger for ideological reasons. Lower ranked Likud members fear the merger will cost them their seats in the Knesset.    There are rumours that Minister of Communications Moshe         Kahlon in the outgoing government will form a new party. On the downside of the rightwing          union some supporters are not enthusiastic about the move. Lieberman’s solid base of               immigrants from the former Soviet Union isn’t really rock solid. Some might defect to other parties championing the social justice cause. Likewise Likud supporters  fearing Lieberman’s          strong  aversion to the religious parties might opt to vote for Shas, especially now that the          charismatic Arieh Deri has returned.                                                                                                      Predicting that the merger would strengthen Netanyahu's hand with regard to a possible Israeli military strike against the Iranian nuclear programme,  Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, wrote: "With Lieberman as second in command and heir to the throne, and his supporters in    prominent spots on the joint ticket, Likud will become a radical rightwing party, aggressive and xenophobic, that revels in Israel's isolation and sees the Arab community as a domestic enemy and a danger to the state."                                                                                                                    Across the divide in the opposition ranks there appears to be little inclination to adopt the motto " United we stand, divided we fall,"   or alternatively,  "A house divided against itself cannot       stand"  Mark 3:25.                                                                                                                                  Everyone is waiting to see if Ehud Olmert and Tzippi  Livni will return to the political arena. It’s   not beyond reason to speculate that Kadima with Livni and Olmert aligned with Yair Lapid’s      Yesh Atid (There’s a Future) party could attract centre party voters. Several permutations based on the centre parties alone or together with Labour have been suggested. So far they are no  more than fantasies. Both the centre parties and Labour have been busy parading their new     acquisitions. In the past valued acquisitions were retired IDF generals and former security forces directors. Now social justice leaders and journalists are on display. Political analysts have been debating if Labour party chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich has been acting more strategically than other Israeli politicians. She’s been laser-focused on the economy, arguing that Likud and the right are destroying the country with their unbridled capitalism, and all but ignored foreign policy and the peace process on the basis that Israelis express more concern with domestic issues in opinion polls, are content with the status quo vis-à-vis the Palestinians, and feel relatively    secure.  She has been bringing a range of individuals into the party. Mostly younger figures       publicly interested in social justice, a crusading journalist and a social worker, who helps high   school dropouts.                                                                                                                                       My description of the array of forces before the battle (the elections) has probably been too     detailed. If you are unfamiliar with the parties and the personalities' "Google  them" for               clarification. The elections are more than eighty days away. "Time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions…"

Let's move on to the pyrotechnics  Haaretz staff  journalist Anshel Pfeffer quoted The Sunday Times in an effort to sift facts from fantasy concerning the British paper's account of the  attack on the munitions factory in Khartoum.                                                                                                    "The Sunday Times regularly reports at length on Israeli secret operations," said Pfeffer." Sunday's piece by the paper's reporters in Tel Aviv and Nairobi is based on Israeli and western 'security sources' and claims that the attack was carried out by the Israeli Air Force and includes details of the strike-force, the stages of the attack and the target. Not all the details tally with other known facts." If we assume that the detailed account of the attack has more than a kernel of truth in it, why would the security sources want to divulge the details?. One headline explained it all – "Khartoum flames seen in Iran' wrote Ron Ben Yishai Yediot Ahronot's military analyst. Careful to preface his comments with the standard phrase- "According to foreign sources," Ben Yishai said, "However, if Israeli jets did carry out the strike, it means it took place some 1,600 kilometers from Israel, nearly the same distance between central Israel and the uranium enrichment plants in Iran …… Therefore, the attack, if it was carried out by Israel, also sent a strong message to Tehran.      "According to the Sunday Times the attack was carried out in the early hours by four F-15I fighter-bombers, each carrying two one-ton bombs and accompanied by four additional F-15s providing air-cover in case Sudanese Mig-29 fighters attempted to intercept. Along with the fighters were two CH-53 "Yasur" helicopters carrying teams of IAF search-and-rescue commandos in case air-crew from a downed fighter needed extracting from enemy territory.
The fighters were refueled en-route by a Boeing 707 aerial tanker and a Gulfstream 550 "Shavit" executive plane, adapted for electronic warfare, jammed the Sudanese radar and air-defence systems.  Israeli military analyst Alex Fishman believes the factory was actually owned and operated by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard. “One thing is certain: That factory did not belong to the Sudanese military industries,” he said. “It was a factory that belonged to the government in Tehran and which was run by Iranians. If there were any casualties in the attack, it is reasonable to assume that some of them were Iranian.”                                                                        Former IAF commander Eitan Ben-Eliyahu said, "The main difficulty in such an attack is precise intelligence. Getting to the target requires a flight of about two and a half hours, presumably on a southerly flight path along the Red Sea coast, under the Saudi and Egyptian  radar and with aerial refueling…….. There is no doubt that the explosions at the Sudanese arms factory have given elements in Khartoum, Gaza and Tehran something to think about."

Have a good weekend.

Beni                            1^st of November, 2012.

How green was my valley?

Saul's shoulder , not to be confused with swimmer's shoulder,  is a prominent spur  jutting  out from the northern face of  Mount Gilboa.  It's probably the best place to view the eastern Jezreel Valley.  Hang gliding enthusiasts often take to the air just below the observation balcony. Other less venturous  visitors stick to the balcony or a rocky ledge further to the west. On a clear day you can see as far as Mt Hermon in the north and the Gilead mountain range in Jordan. On Sunday morning a heat haze obscured the horizon, however the valley floor was clearly visible .Admiring the view with my guests Mike and Lisa Kraft, we scanned the intensively cultivated valley, a picture worth a thousand words.. I recalled a phrase I often use to describe the neatly manicured landscape, "By no stretch of the imagination could the pioneers who came to this valley have conjured up a vision of this patchwork of fields, fishponds and citrus groves."  What better place could there be to show the fulfillment of biblical   prophecy. Even secular Jews are moved by the words of Isaiah. "I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together."  Isaiah 41:18-20                                                                                                                     “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose……" Isaiah 35:1.                                                                           At this juncture, I pause to consider what the valley looked like when the Jewish pioneers arrived here. At the time of his Holy Land visit in 1867 Mark Twain wrote “Stirring scenes ... occur in the valley [Jezreel] no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent-not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings.” …"Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.... desolate and unlovely.” Innocents Abroad.                                                                                     Earlier, in 1852, the American Writer Bayard Taylor travelled across the  Jezreel Valley, which he described in his  book The Lands of the Saracen; as: "one of the richest districts in the world."                                                                                                                                 In 1887 Lawrence Oliphant wrote “Palestine's Valley of Esdraelon [Jezreel] was a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."  How do we reconcile these contradictions?                                                                                                                                             Mason Martin an American author who spent sixteen years as an analyst for the CIA, was critical of attempts to use Twain's humorous writing as a literal description of Palestine at that time. She writes that "Twain's descriptions are high in Israeli government press handouts that present a case for Israel's redemption of a land that had previously been empty and barren. His gross characterizations of the land and the people in the time before mass Jewish immigration are also often used by US propagandists for Israel."                  However, another nineteenth century visitor, English clergyman, Biblical scholar, traveller and ornithologist, the Reverend Henry Baker Tristram. corroborated Twain’s descriptions of dismal landscapes.                                  .                                                                                                             Hilton Obenzinger author of “American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania,” wrote,” Fellow tourists, according to Mark Twain, had an annoying tendency to come away from their Holy Land visits with impressions fitted to preconceived notions, tailored to the tourist's own particular faith or frame of reference.” Honest as these men's intentions may have been," Twain wrote, "they were full of partialities and prejudices, they entered the country with their verdicts already prepared, and they could no more write dispassionately and impartially about it than they could about their own wives and children." Twain was bothered that tourists parroted mindlessly the words and thoughts of this travel writer or that faith.                                                                                                                                    Both Taylor and Oliphant omitted to mention swamps and deserts.                                                                                                                                             A fact finding survey conducted in 1920 for the British High Commissioner to Palestine echoes Mark Twain’s descriptions.                                                                                                                            Many years ago I had the good fortune to interview the late Shlomo Rosenberg  shortly before he died.  Rosenberg ploughed the first wheat field at Degania. A decade late he joined Ein Harod. He described the dreary depressing landscapes of the Jordan and Jezreel Valleys in the early twentieth century. Considering these conflicting views I wonder how green was my valley before the advent of the Jewish settlement.                                              Believing the Holy Land topic had by no means been exhausted yet another American author, Lester I. Vogel wrote a survey similar to Hilton Obenzinger’s work. In his book “To See A Promised Land: Americans and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century.” Vogel wrote, “What nineteenth-century Americans saw in the Holy Land was not always what they set out to see, nor do their accounts to the folks back home always convey the images that later partisan-minded generations choose to emphasize.” His work is a comprehensive collection of primary accounts, from missionaries, settlers, archaeologists, adventurers, and diplomats. It shows how they shaped popular American perceptions as the twentieth century turned the lands of the Bible into a political battlefield.” During the nineteenth century there were literally hundreds of popular books, pamphlets, and articles about the Holy Land available to American readers. Although most Americans never visited the Middle East, they nevertheless had distinct images of what the land was like through these writings, their churches, and their own reading of the Bible. On the very day of his assassination in 1865, even President Lincoln contemplated a tour of the Holy Land at the end of his term in office.                                                            Americans who did travel to the Middle East took with them preconceptions and brought back with them descriptions that, in turn, helped to reshape continually the popular image of the Holy Land. Lester I.Vogel suggests that this unique relationship between Americans and a foreign land might be seen as an expression of "geopiety," a term coined by the geographer John Kirtland Wright to describe a certain mixture of place, past, and faith.                                    Of course Americans weren’t the only people attracted to Palestine. A growing number of Europeans came here too during the nineteenth century. Political developments in the region opened up the country to foreign visitors.                     In addition, there were early mentions of a Jewish State in the Holy Land.                                                                    The crumbling of the Ottoman Empire threatened the British route to India via Suez as well as sundry French, German and American economic interests. The idea of a Jewish state east of Suez therefore held some appeal.                       In 1831 the Ottomans were driven from Greater Syria (including Palestine) by an expansionist Egypt, in the First Turko-Egyptian War. Although Britain forced Muhammad Ali to withdraw to Egypt, the Levant was left for a brief time without a government. The ongoing weakness of the Ottoman Empire made some in the west consider the potential of a Jewish State in the Holy Land. A number of important figures within the British government advocated such a plan. Again during the lead-up to the Crimean War  in 1854, there was an opportunity for political rearrangements in the Near East.                                                                                                                             In 1844, George Bush, a professor of Hebrew at New York University and the cousin of an ancestor of the Presidents Bush, published a book entitled The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived. In it he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for “elevating” the Jews “to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth” by allowing restoring the Jews to the land of Israel where the bulk would be converted to Christianity. 

The Jezreel Valley we viewed from Saul’s Shoulder on Sunday was not a verdant sea of waving wheat. Sure, it was cultivated along its entire length and breadth, but it wasn’t  as green as it is in spring. In a corner of one field below us the soil had a light discolouration, a tell-tale sign of the swamp that was here before 1921.

Have a good weekend.

Beni                            25^th of October, 2012.

The Golan

Last weekend members of my kibbutz spent two days "on tour". The occasion was the Dovie Dvir memorial trip, an annual event commemorated for the past 38 years. Dovie, a young member of Ein Harod was killed in battle on the Golan Heights in 1973. He was a part-time tour guide and nature preservation enthusiast, so his family and friends chose to commemorate the anniversary of his death in an appropriate way, namely by visiting the places he loved. This year we toured the Golan Heights visiting places where since time immemorial man has left his mark.                                                                                                              Main routes linking the ancient civilisations of the Near East crossed the flat plain that makes up most of the Golan, at times referred to as Houran and Bashan. Even earlier, the same routes were paths used by nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes.  From the fifth to the third millennium B.C  Chalcolithic tribes  lived there. The ruins of 25 small Chalcolithic  villages have been identified. Their occupants disappeared suddenly leaving behind them   stone and copper tools, simple pottery and pagan effigies. Nearby at Rajm Hiri, an impressive ceremonial monolithic structure inspired legends about a race of ancient giants that inhabited the Golan. In some places the remains of a Roman road are still visible as are the ruins  of 34 Jewish villages from that time and later on. The synagogue at Um al Kanatir, destroyed by an earthquake in 749 A.D is being reconstructed by a team headed by an engineer and an archeologist. An innovative method is being used in the reconstruction work. It employs digital computer software and embedded integrated circuit chips inserted in more than 2,000 stones from the synagogue.. A specially designed crane was brought to the site for the purpose of moving and replacing the heavy basalt stones. Now that a large part of the synagogue has been rebuilt the result is very impressive. It seems that the villagers used the water from a nearby spring in a flax  bleaching process for the manufacture of linen. Olive oil production and the lucrative bleaching enterprise enabled them to commission the building of a grander than usual synagogue.

Further north by the Wasset junction there is a small sculpture park alongside the "Emir's palace." Emir Mahmud Faour was the head of the powerful Arav al-Fadel Bedouin tribe. Two hundred  years ago one of Mahmud Faour’s ancestors led the Arav al-Fadel from Saudi Arabia to the Golan. Before long the tribe’s “assertiveness” gained it status and   land. With the passage of time Emir Faour acquired land both in the Golan Heights and the Hula Valley.  The Ottoman Caliphate  had difficulty policing this remote region so in the 1860s and 70s  it  settled Circassian refugees displaced by war in the Caucasus region to counter the local Bedouin banditry.

The ruins of the Emir's palace await restoration. The Bedouins and Circassians   fled during the Six Day War. Part of the Druze population moved to Syria, but the residents of six villages chose to remain. It's difficult to determine how many Golan residents left of their own volition and how many were "encouraged" to leave.                                                      The Syrians claim that prior to the Six Day War the Golan was home to 130,000 Syrian citizens. Today more than 20,000 Jews live in 32 settlements and one town. A similar number of Druze live in six villages.  Official Israeli sources and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants  claims that 100,000 Golan residents fled as a result of the war, whereas the Syrian government maintains that most of the population was expelled.

Some justification for Israel’s alleged scorched earth policy in the Golan Heights after the Six Day War is mentioned in a BBC survey entitled “Golan Heights Profile” published last year. The author of the survey wrote, “Syrian artillery regularly shelled the whole of northern Israel from 1948 to 1967 when Syria controlled the Heights.”

So far all attempts to return the Golan Heights to Syria under the terms of a peace treaty have failed. The present state of civil war in Syria has further distanced any possibility of that happening.

The Golan Heights give us an excellent vantage point for monitoring Syrian movements. The topography provides a natural buffer against any military thrust from Syria.    In recent years advances in  ballistic technology have increased the importance of keeping control of this strategic high ground and maintaining geographic depth.              Rainwater from the Golan's catchment feeds into the Jordan River supplying a third of Israel's water supply. About 40 percent of our beef, 30 percent of the fruit we produce and 38 percent of Israeli wine exports come from the Golan.  Public opinion polls indicate that most Israelis oppose returning the Golan Heights to Syria.  Every time pressure is brought to bear on Israel to negotiate a “land for peace” formula regarding the Golan Heights the “Golan is Israel”  lobby rolls out its placards and bumper stickers.  In their campaign the lobbyists point out that the Golan Heights is roughly the size of the borough of Queens in New York and comprises less than one percent of the area of Syria. Clearly inferring that the Syrians wouldn't miss the Golan. However, since Anwar Sadat fixed his land for peace rule  demanding   withdrawal" to the last grain of sand" Syria has to follow suit.

At the present time there's not the slightest likelihood that Israel will initiate  peace negotiations with   Syria and the Palestinian Entity.  Notwithstanding this pessimistic outlook, Palestinian Chairman/President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his claim that in 2008, prior to Ehud Olmert’s resignation, he and  Olmert  had almost concluded a peace agreement.  Lately Kadima party politicians have been busy trying to convince Olmert to return to politics and  lead the party in the forthcoming elections. Obviously Abbas would prefer Olmert to Netanyahu. So far it's only wishful thinking on his part. 

"Does the Israeli right have a permanent majority?" asked Dan Ephron   in an article he wrote for   Newsweek The Daily Beast under the heading "Unbeatable Bibi." Ephron discerned a change in Israeli voting trends.   "For decades Israeli elections were often cliffhangers, a reflection of the balance between those who wanted to cede land to the Palestinians and those who wanted to seize more territory. So close in size were the two camps that balloting often resulted in wafer-thin majorities—or awkward power-sharing arrangements between them. But the trend seems to have receded in recent years." Ephron quoted political analyst Noam Shizaf’s prediction that next January’s elections will herald the total collapse of the centre-left, both as a political power and as an ideologically coherent idea.                                                                                                                       Haaretz columnist Anshel Pfeffer wrote a “Guide for the Perplexed” on the Knesset elections, mainly a primer for foreign lookers on. .”Not long ago the main issue in every Israeli election was the future of the territories and the peace process with the Palestinians and Israel's neighbours,” wrote Pfeffer. “During this campaign, with the peace process in a deep freeze, the dominance of the Iranian issue and the instability of the region, as well as Labour's focus on social issues, it will remain largely in the background. The parties on the left will try to remind voters of the ticking time bomb in the West Bank and Gaza while the far-right parties will rally the faithful by saying they are the only ones who resolutely defend each and every settlement and outpost.” Pfeffer believes  Netanyahu will win the elections. He said, “ Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, currently the great white hope of the centre, will almost certainly be prevented from contending by his corruption trials. Even if he is able to run, he will prove a liability rather than an asset to the opposition.”  Surveying the undecided voters he claims they exist in all sectors of the population.  “The rapidly shifting political sands have left few ‘tribal’ voters who stick with the same party election after election. The great majority are "floating voters," deciding each campaign afresh. These are mainly generic voters with a number of parties to choose from. They are Israel's diverse tribes - ideological right-wingers, ultra-Orthodox, national-religious, Israeli-Arabs, leftists, and the secular middle-class. This last group is the only one that can shift the balance between the main blocs and potentially change the ultimate outcome. Middle-of-the-road Israelis, who comprise a quarter or perhaps even a third of the electorate, have regularly moved back and forth in recent years between Likud, Labour, Kadima and the now extinct Pensioners, Centre Party and Shinui. The fluctuating fortunes of each of these parties prove just how flexible these voters are. (In 2009, Likud more than doubled its vote after plummeting in 2006 to just 12 MKs.) Half a dozen parties will be competing for their votes and while Netanyahu has a clear edge for now, that could change. If not in January,  then next time around. Other political analysts are less inclined to make sweeping predictions. Let's wait till the fat lady sings.

Have a good weekend.

Beni                                                    18^th of October, 2012.

Simchat Torah

It seems the chosen people's Promised Land was the worst realty deal in history. In a direct reference to it Golda Meir once said, "Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!" Even if it's understood in a figurative sense only, the land flowing with milk and honey was probably a pleasanter place than the country Mark Twain visited in 1867. In the letters he wrote to his editor, later collated and published as “Innocents Abroad,” he depicts disconsolate landscapes. “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent…..Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective--distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.”

While Mark Twain was touring the Holy Land the U.S government was negotiating a land acquisition that some in Congress at that time described as  a foolhardy venture. The American tax payers paid   $7.2 million, worth $120 million today, in order to buy Alaska from Imperial Russia.  At an approximate cost of two cents an acre the Americans got a bargain.  The discovery of gold, oil and gas later on made America’s northernmost state with or without Sarah Palin, .the best realty deal in history

Back in the Middle East, Golda’s grievance was also borne out on the ground. Our Holy Land has  stubbornly refused to yield all but the tiniest amount of hydrocarbons. Then almost miraculously, as Tobias Buck described it in the Financial Times . " After decades of importing every drop of fuel, Israel has struck it rich, uncovering vast reserves of natural gas in the Mediterranean " Of course our ancestors didn't expect to find a land gushing with gas and petroleum. The frequent mention of rain, water and drought in the Bible indicates that then too a large part of the country was semi-arid to arid and the rest afflicted by periodic droughts. The discovery of gas fields under the Mediterranean sea bed wasn't 

an Act of God, but the result  of prospectors’ obstinate and determined efforts.                Our "hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land" is beginning to flow with more water than God gave it. Desalination plants, brackish water treatment, sewage purification systems and aquifer management projects are gradually making Israel self-sufficient in water resources with prospects of a surplus for export.

I have written about this before, so before you decide to write me off as a senile old codger I hasten to add that I mention it again because the week-long Sukkot festival includes three imbedded events, related to water and rain.  For many Jews and especially for non-Jews the conclusion of the Sukkot holiday is a little confusing. Simchat Torah ., (Rejoicing with/of the Torah,) marks  the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings and the beginning of a new cycle. The name Simchat Torah is a relatively late epithet dating from the Middle Ages. In the  Talmud  it is called Shemini Atzeret, namely "Eighth Day of Assembly", which follows immediately after Sukkot .  Simchat Torah is a component of Shemini Atzeret . To add to the confusion different communities celebrate the events separately or together. In Israel, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are celebrated on the same day.

Before the destruction of the Temple a water libation ceremony was performed every morning during Sukkot. Our sages of old determined that during Sukkot  God judges the world for rainfall; According to ancient accounts the  water drawing ceremony (Simchat Beit Hashoeva) was a joyous occasion replete with dancing and music   It was an invocation for  God's blessing for rain in its proper time. The water for the libation ceremony was drawn from the Pool of Siloam in the City of David and carried up the Jerusalem pilgrim route to the Temple. Recently, during excavations being carried along the route a huge water cistern dating from the First Temple period was unearthed. Archeologists surmise that the cistern was used for the everyday activities of the Temple Mount itself and also by the pilgrims who went up to the Temple and required water for bathing and drinking.

The Sukkot holiday is over and now we are back to the normal Middle East routine. Our neighbours however, ignored our automatic "out of office" postings and continued their belligerent actions. A few stray mortar shells fired from Syria landed in the Golan Heights. The fire wasn't returned but IDF exercises in the area were intended to show that we are alert and ready for any contingency.                                                                                                                                            A  Jordanian news, blogging and media website called  Al Bawaba  added a lot spin to an unusual but otherwise uneventful incident that occurred during Sukkot. It described how an unidentified drone had  penetrated Israel’s airspace on Saturday causing concern and embarrassment. Our news sources on the other hand, reported that the drone was detected flying over the Mediterranean Sea parallel to our coastline and was under surveillance throughout the whole course of its flight. It veered inland near Gaza and headed  east . The drone could have easily been destroyed while it was flying out at sea, however retrieving it for examination would have been difficult, perhaps impossible. Its flight was terminated by a rocket fired from an F16 fighter while it was flying over open country close to Hebron. According to news media reports an examination of  the wreckage revealed that the drone was either a Russian or an Iranian type of UAV supplied to Hezbollah.

Another flare-up in the western Negev occurred on Monday morning when more than 50 rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip hit the Gaza periphery region. The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organisation claimed responsibility for the attack. Previous attacks were carried out by Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups while Hamas preferred to maintain some semblance of a truce with Israel. Monday's attack was a clear change of policy. Apparently Hamas is adopting a more assertive stance. It's possible that the recent attacks along the Israel - Egyptian border carried out by terrorist groups in Sinai and the regime change in Egypt have caused this new assertiveness.  Residents of the Gaza periphery communities were concerned more about their own safety during Monday's barrage. Simchat Torah celebrations were cancelled on account of the likelihood of further attacks.

On Tuesday the prime minister announced that new Knesset elections will be held early next year. Although the pretext for the early elections was the government's failure to muster a majority vote for the new budget, it appears that Netanyahu believes  his chances of being reelected are better at the beginning of 2013 than at the end of the year when the government's tenure is due to end. This assumption is borne out by the results of a  Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University. The results show that Netanyahu easily defeats all his possible rivals from the centre-left bloc. As far as the public is concerned, Netanyahu is deemed much more suitable for the post of prime minister than any of his potential rivals. The poll also indicated that the Likud-right wing-ultra-Orthodox bloc has increased its strength to 68 Knesset seats, while the centre-left bloc has dropped to 52 seats, compared to the blocs' respective strength in the outgoing Knesset and the previous poll. As we know political polls reflect prevailing views on the day they are conducted. The scope of the poll has a direct bearing on the results. In the poll supervised by Professor Fuchs a number of variables were included in the questions posed to the respondents. It's not certain that all the political candidates included in the poll will contest the elections. For example 28 percent the respondents favoured Tzipi Livni, who might return to politics. Other possible contenders haven't confirmed their intention to participate in the forthcoming elections. Most political analysts concur that Netanyahu will base his election campaign strategy on foreign policy and security matters. Labour party leader Shelly  Yachimovich is an assertive champion of the social justice struggle, but she has no international experience  and no credentials on security matters. At the moment it appears she will base her election campaign on a socio-economic agenda. Nevertheless, I'm sure she knows that without a few battle-scarred generals in her ranks Netanyahu will outgun her. The much coveted centre ground that attracts so many would-be leaders often turns out to be a quagmire.                                The current opposition leader, Shaul Mofaz of the centrist Kadima party, has strong security credentials as a former defence minister and IDF chief of staff; however his brief coalition with Netanyahu damaged his credibility.              Former TV anchor Yair Lapid has likewise captured some attention after entering politics earlier this year launching a new centrist party. His political platform is a little hazy based on “improving Israeli society." The analysts predict that he will win a few seats in the next Knesset. Other centre of the field maybes/hopefuls are former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Haim Ramon and Tzipi Livni

Economic issues, including a rise in housing costs and the burden of an underemployed and rapidly expanding ultra-Orthodox sector, are expected to feature more prominently in this election, particularly after last year’s socioeconomic protests.

One commentator summed up, "But even when voters say they care more about economics, they tend to vote largely along the lines of their positions on security. On that point, Netanyahu has won respect, if not love, from the public."… . “I don’t think they love his approach to Iran but I think they see him as doing the right thing by making it such a central aspect of global affairs.”

At the moment the betting odds are in favour of Benyamin Netanyahu, however events in our volatile region, the results of the U.S. presidential elections as well as unforeseen surprises in the months ahead could possibly erode his present lead.

Have a good weekend.

Beni                            11^th of October, 2013.   

Sukkot

 

This week we are celebrating Sukkot. In biblical times it was one of the three festivals requiring a mandatory pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. I have always found the standard translations of Sukkot awkward, however for want of anything better I’ll stick with - Feast of Booths, Feast of Tabernacles,. The festival is agricultural in origin.   As proscribed in Exodus. 23:16 - "At the end of the year when you gather in your labours out of the field".          

The Sukkah (booth) is a symbolical reenactment of the makeshift dwellings our ancestors built during their forty year trek in the wilderness.                       

However, some biblical scholars believe the origins of the sukkah are linked more to security and less to our stopover in the wilderness en route to the Promised Land.             

During the harvest season farmers have always been wary of thieves out to steal their crops. To prevent this happening they put up easily constructed temporary shelters in their fields and lived in them till the harvest was over. Now too you can see similar structures, canvas awnings supported by a few wooden poles strategically positioned by the side of water melon fields.

Arab farmers continue this ancient tradition and claim it is effective in warding off potential thieves.  The Jewish agricultural sector places its trust in alarm systems and local patrol groups with coordinated police backing.   

This year dozens of sukkot representing Jewish communities from all over the  world are on display at the Global Sukkot Festival  being held in Netanya and Ashdod. In Netanya  the  smaller representative sukkot  are set up inside a huge sukkah measuring 528 square metres, claimed to be the largest in the world.

My kibbutz like most kibbutzim is a secular community. However our secular way of life has strong ties to Jewish tradition and custom. We observe, commemorate and celebrate all our festivals in a way that is compatible with  our chosen lifestyle. Many families build their own sukkah by their homes and help build sukkot  by the kindergartens and day-care centres This year a very large central sukkah was built on the lawn by the dining room.

Two weeks ago I wrote, “It has been a bad week for Bibi..´” Well this week has been worse. The prime minister’s United Nations address met our expectations. He is a confident and accomplished public speaker.

His polished delivery in fluent American English was indeed impressive. However his bomb illustration drew a lot of flak   

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in the Atlantic  - “He insulted the intelligence of his audience (not just his audience in the hall, which quite frequently deserves to have its intelligence insulted, but his worldwide audience) and he turned the most serious issue facing the world today into something of a joke

. People are laughing at him in places where he can't afford to be laughed at -- I don't mean Twitter, where everyone is perpetually laughing at everyone else -- but in actual important offices of the United States government. Not good for his cause, and not good for the more general issue of focusing the world's attention on this threat.”.

Jon Stewart’s brief piece got top marks from me. Posing a virtual question to Netanyahu he asked, "What’s with the Wile E. Coyote Nuclear Bomb?

You’re going to pretend you don’t know what a nuclear bomb looks like? You’re Israel. Run downstairs and look in the basement."

Critics of the use of visual aids probably agree that on occasions they are effective. In 1975, the UN was riding a wave of anti-Israel sentiment, fuelled by European fears of the Arab oil boycott. The UN had recognised the "right of resistance" (terror) of the Palestinian people, recognised the PLO as the only legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, while the PLO was still committed to destroying Israel and still engaged in terror. The United Nations General Assembly also passed the shameless "Zionism is Racism" resolution.

Israel’s ambassador to the   UN Chaim Herzog’s response  to this resolution was a memorable defence of Zionism. At the conclusion, he tore up the resolution.

David Frum in the  Daily Beast  overlooked the bomb placard  and offset the negative criticism with a bottom line summary- “The prime minister of Israel came to New York to warn of the worst. The president of Iran seemed once again arrived to confirm those warnings.”

Joshua Mitnick in the  Christian Science Monitor  pointed out how Bibi’s chart

confused viewers. “While his presentation certainly got attention, some experts say that Netanyahu’s prop missed the mark, confusing where his red line lies rather than simplifying the issue. The problem, they said, is that his presentation conflated two different types of numbers.

The bomb chart showed percentage progress toward acquiring enough fissile material to make a bomb. Netanyahu said the Iranians were 70 percent of the way there and drew his now famous red line at the 90-percent threshold, a milestone he predicted would be reached sometimes next spring or summer.  

But in his remarks, he spoke of the need to draw that red line between the production stage of enriching uranium to medium level purity – 20 percent, according to experts – and the stage of uranium enrichment for weapons-grade purity, which is 90 percent.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said that the red line refers to "90 percent upon the path to weapons grade enrichment." Amos Harel, a military commentator for the liberal Haaretz who also noted the confusion among commentators, wrote that it refers to the amount of 20 percent enriched material required to begin high level enrichment.

‘It's not clear if he’s saying that Iran can’t have a certain amount of medium-enriched uranium, or he doesn’t want Iran to have 90 percent enrichment grade fuel,’ says Barbara Slavin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council . ‘Where he drew the line was the wrong place. You want to stop them at 20 percent.  You don’t want to let them get to weapons grade.’

Netanyahu's critics ridiculed him for the gimmick, unleashing a flood of satirical riffs, from inserting images of Looney Toons cartoons into photos of Netanyahu on the UN podium (his bomb diagram was compared to that of cartoon villain Wile E. Coyote) to an image of Bob Dylan from his 1960s video Subterranean Homesick Blues, holding the chart.”

Lisa Beyer – took Bibi’s graphic presentation person to task when she wrote in     Bloomberg “Whoever produced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cheesy graphic of a bomb for his United Nations General Assembly presentation today should consider a new line of work. Netanyahu, who tends to pomposity, is an easy target to start with, and his cartoonish graphic was predictably mocked.

Iran's nuclear program -- was as serious as they come, and his message was smart and a little different this time. Noting, rightly, that Israel's intelligence agencies are superb, Netanyahu observed that they nevertheless could not be counted on to know when and where Iran had produced a detonator for a nuclear bomb or assembled a complete weapon.”

Nahum Barnea in Yediot Ahronot had an ‘all’s well that ends well’ moral to the bomb chart debate.

."Despite all the mocking of various individuals of little faith, the image of the Israeli prime minister and the bomb will be broadcast in every news edition around the world, and will be incorporated in the video clips made by the Republican Party for the presidential campaign. There is nothing like a bombshell to spice things up. ‎The technical details will not particularly trouble those who view the image."

"Timelines are very problematic.” said Emily Landau, a fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for International Security Studies. “So many factors can intervene and slow down the progress toward a bomb, It's hard to make predictions about when they will get to whatever stage. That is always precarious." 

Ron Ben-Yishai Yidiot Ahronot’s military affairs analyst said, “We can assume that the chances Israel will launch a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations in the near future have been significantly reduced and are actually close to zero - certainly not before the US presidential elections in November and probably not during the upcoming winter either. “

While we are still celebrating Sukkot   I want to conclude by mentioning a number of  new traditions that have taken root. We hold a local kite flying happening for the children. The Arad hot air balloon event draws participants from many countries. A similar even takes place at Maayan Harod. Early this morning  I saw a bevy of hot-air  balloons  heading across the valley. The one in the photograph I took reminded me of an inverted Bibi bomb.

Chag Sameach

Beni                            4^th of October, 2012.