OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND . . .

(Originally published in The Times of Israel)

Despite being named the eighth most redneck city in the U.S. as reported by that prestigious journal, ransackedmedia.com, I love my hometown of Sacramento.  It is a pleasant tree-lined city with blue rivers and greenery and good people, even if I occasionally think their self-worth depends a bit too much on keeping the NBA's Kings in town.

Despite my fondness for Sacramento, after three months back in the U.S., I was ready to leave the old hometown and head home to Israel. In addition to just needing my quotient of life in our Jewish-majority homeland, I was, frankly, getting a little weirded out. 

Sacramento was fine.  It was the rest of the U.S. that had me wondering.  Sandy Hook, Boston, a shopping mall here, a theater there.  A child knifed to death by her 12-year-old brother in the foothills above Sacramento, three women held for years by a Cleveland masochist, a five-year-old killing his two- year-old sister with a Davey Crickett My First Rifle.

My First Rifle was described by the county coroner as a "little rifle for a kid."  Makes sense.  I suppose there was a little coffin for a little sister killed by a brother with a little rifle for a kid. 

80,000 NRA activists cheering on Sarah Palin and a cast of extremely strident people as they resist the idea of checking to see if a guy or girl who buys a gun at a trade show is a whack job.  Somehow the idea of registering a gun is a threat to the Republic and all it stands for. 

We register and license cars.  We register and license CPA's.  In California we register and license hairdressers and cosmetologists.  But somehow checking out buyers and registering and licensing guns is a threat to liberty. 

Some of these folks seem to think that their gun will stop the U.S. government, with its tanks, carriers, and missiles, from taking over the country.  They see their guns as the last line of defense against what they fear is a tyrannical government.  What they seem to have forgotten is that they, we the people, are the government, and those soldiers they will be defending against with their rifles and pistols and semi-automatics are their sons and daughters, nephews and nieces.

So, in the face of this insanity, it actually seemed calming to be returning to the security and peacefulness of Jerusalem. 

Then we arrived. 

SKIING, SUSHI, AND THE VOTE

(Originally published in The Times of Israel)

Last week was an interesting and eventful week for Israel, but, then, they all seem to fit that description.  It was also a fun and satisfying week for me. 

I was walking back from the post office last Monday.  One tends to go to the post office a lot more frequently in Israel because it is the place where one makes a variety of payments to the government, and at least this one seems to do that quite a bit. 

Between the post office and my apartment building is, among other things, the Israel Bar Association, which hosts seminars and  meetings for lawyers and law students.  Gathered on the steps for what appeared to be a break were about 30 young people,  Among them were young Arab women in fashionable head coverings and designer jeans, Orthodox Jews with men wearing kippot (head covers), and an assortment of other people in a variety of colors, sizes, and garb. 

I thought once again of the difference between the Israel I have come to know and the Israel portrayed in the world's mainstream media.  I thought the same thing a few days later as a young Arab woman, also wearing a fashionable head scarf, worked the cash register in my line at the supermarket and spoke Hebrew that was obviously a lot better than mine. 

 Tuesday of last week was an all-star day.  My daughter, her boyfriend, and I drove up to the north of the country on Monday night.  We were among the first in line Tuesday morning at Israel's only ski resort.  Mt. Hermon is on the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. One can only imagine what might be raining down from the Heights on Israel today had it returned the Heights to the Syrian regime.

The Great Pepper Caper and Other Stories

(Originally Published in The Times of Israel))

In what could be the greatest Middle East debacle since I reported on the Saudi Arabian pencils and panties scandal at this time last year, it has now been disclosed by Challah Hu Akbar, writing in the Elder of Ziyon blog, that three kinds of Israeli peppers were discovered on the shelves of Spinneys, one of Lebanon's largest retailers.

Heads are sure to roll. Things do not get much more embarrassing in the Boycott Israel/Hate the Jews world than to have wholesome food from your neighboring Zionist entity show up on your shelves. God forbid, it could be a Zionist conspiracy to supply nutrition to your population.

Not to worry. The man who discovered the offending peppers on the shelves of the Spinneys in Sidon contacted local authorities, who called the Lebanese Army. Apparently things are so calm and under control in Lebanon that the Army was able to bring in military intelligence and the police to go to work on this high-priority case.

MIRACLES

Having just finished the season of miracles, I thought I would report on  a few miracles I experienced about a week or so ago.  I had lost my car registration, so I went to one of the Israeli Ministry of Transportation offices here in Jerusalem to see if I could get a replacement.  The Ministry of Transportation here provides the services of a Department of Motor Vehicles in the U.S.

Israel's bureaucracy is famous for being, well, bureaucratic.  Historically and sometimes still today it can be frustrating, seemingly uncaring, rude, and basically not easy.  Add in language challenges and impatient clerks, not to mention impatient citizens jockeying for position in line.  Speaking of lines, they weren't really part of Israeli culture until about 20 years ago.  Theoretically, yes.  In reality, no.

 Some wise advice I received as my wife and I started our path toward citizenship was to always consider your first visit to an office an exploratory, information-gathering expedition, not one likely to result in achieving your objective.  We were told to consider it an opportunity to get through some pages in your book. 

Truth be told, our experience has not been that bad.  At times, it has been surprisingly easy and pleasant.  Israeli bureaucracies, along with restaurants and service industries in general, have improved immensely in the last few years.  Still, given DMV's generally, this was an encounter I was not looking forward to.

UPCOMING ISRAELI ELECTIONS: THE RUNDOWN

The Israeli elections are coming up on January 22, and the 37 “lists” competing run the gamut from communist, pro-marijuana, pirate (yes, pirate), and anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox to green, nationalistic, and anti-Zionist Arab.  Other than the fact that they are both democratic and the fact that the voters complain about their choices, there is little in common between the American presidential and the Israeli parliamentary elections. 

Although the media might focus on the personalities of those at the head of a party, Israelis do not elect a prime minister.  Each party assembles its “list” of candidates.  Because the number of seats a party gets in the 120-member Knesset reflects the percentage of votes the party receives out of the total votes cast, the higher one is on the list, the more likely the candidate is to get a seat in the Knesset.  A candidate’s place on the list is decided either in a party primary, by a party committee, or by the leader of the party.  The fighting for position is intense. 

 

When an Israeli voter enters the voting booth, he or she does not see a list of the candidates.  Usually the voter sees the name of the parties and the name of the leader of each party.  The voter votes for the party.  Unique among democracies, Israel has no districts. Each person on the list who becomes a Knesset member represents the whole of Israel.  The threshold for a Knesset seat is only two percent of the vote, so virtually anyone can, and many often do, form their own party and win a few seats.

 

The leader of the party that receives the most votes does not necessarily become the Prime Minister.  In recent years no party has received the 61 votes to rule on its own and to decide who will be Prime Minister.  They have had to form coalitions.  For example, in the last election Kadima leader Tzipi Livni received one more vote than Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu.  However, Netanyahu was able to put together a coalition with other parties to form a majority of the Knesset and to become the Prime Minister.

 

Here is a rundown of the major parties contesting the current election and the likely, but in no way certain, results:

TRAGIC COMEDY, PALESTINIAN-STYLE

(Originally published in The Times of Israel)

The situation would be comic if it wasn’t all so hopeless and tragic. You’ve got a statehood bid by an entity that has two sub-entities. One is controlled by a terrorist group, Hamas, sworn to the destruction of Israel and the elimination of Jews. (Read its charter if you want a nightmare.)

Hamas claims it cannot control even more extreme groups in its midst. It is an oppressive, undemocratic, and increasingly corrupt regime. Its leadership is split over the statehood bid: one leader asserts that Abbas should be prosecuted as a traitor if he ever sets foot in Gaza, while the other says he supports the bid as long as it does nothing to limit the right of the“resistance” to continue to try to eliminate Israel and does not infringe on the “right” of the descendents of people who previously lived in Israel to“return” to a country they never lived in.

The other sub-entity is headed by President Abbas, who is spearheading the UN bid. That entity is thoroughly corrupt, undemocratic, and often oppressive. The President is in his seventh or eight year of a four year term. His sons are millionaires as a result of his “service.” Virtually no one respects him. He was irrelevant in the latest war that half of his proposed nation engaged in and in the negotiations that led to the ceasefire.

President Abbas has refused to negotiate for four years, despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration of support for a two-state solution, an unprecedented nine month halt in settlement construction , and other quiet concessions and gestures, and despite continued requests by the Obama Administration, which is at least partly to blame for him not being willing to negotiate .

MY FIRST WAR: PART II: BUS BOMBING, THANKSGIVING, BODY COUNTS, AND VISITS

A friend of one of our sons just posted:  "The ground war has begun--in central Tel Aviv."

A bomb went off on a bus in a crowded Tel Aviv area about an hour and 45 minutes ago.  First reports are 15 injured, four seriously.

Hamas said it would start suicide bombers again. Not sure if this was one, or if someone left it on the bus. But it makes no difference.  It is still reprehensible. There are no military targets in this area.  Just lots of people from the surrounding office buildings and restaurants. 

The bomb went off on the bus as it stopped right next to a building that houses an art gallery where a friend of our daughter works.  She can look out the window and see the carnage if she were to want to do so. 

The world condemns Israel for accidently hitting civilians who are living amongst the Hamas' rockets and arms.  But the world has been silent for months and years while Hamas and its allies deliberately target civilians.  Where are the UN resolutions?

We are planning a Thanksgiving dinner for tomorrow. It is fun and meaningful to celebrate Thanksgiving--the quiessential American holiday--while abroad.  Per our usual practice, we will have friends of our kids and assorted other young Americans here on study programs or living here without their parents.