December 28, 2009 at 11:48 am by Yaser · Filed under Uncategorized
Economy is the main factor in political decisions. This is a no-brainer for most people in the west, however serving the economy seems to be the last thing on the minds of political leaders in this region.
during war livelihoods get damaged and people are left with nothing to lose, so they turn to violence as a way to vent their frustration which in turn highlights tensions and creates more destruction.
war of course is a state and that is the destructive aspect not the bombs and explosions. when you affect a nation’s morale that’s when it becomes impossible for it to recover.
in this context one can understand how and why people become extremists, that is, they demand a violent response which most of the time is disproportionate, but is that so?
there is no short answer, because one has to look at the big picture and see how the conflict is making people’s lives on each side harder.
on the other hand, giving hope can be very powerful(the victory of Barack Obama comes to mind).
lets take Syrian Israeli peace talks as a case study and examine the sticking points, we find with little effort that almost none of them can be resolved directly and that there is effectively no vision for economical prosperity that is the natural outcome of a peaceful settlement.
Thus rallying popular support for the cause is made extremely difficult.
this deadlock is a sword with two edges; as much as lack of hope is a hindrance for peace, giving hope through real and honest focus on a prospect for a better economical conditions for all is a very effective strategy that we can adopt to make peace happen.
every one cares about quality of life, well that is only during peaceful times, or am I wrong?!
November 22, 2009 at 11:50 am by Yaeli · Filed under Uncategorized
Our recent conversation with our Yaser and the very positive outcome has gotten me thinking. One of the things our neighbourhood has been really successful about is keeping our neighbourhood together through thick and thin and that is pretty unique. We’ve lost some members, both authors and commenters, due to things going on in their personal lives, and we’ve lost some due to frustration — but not frustration with the neighbourhood or other members but rather with the situation in their own country (for instance, many of our Lebanese authors have thrown in the towel because they no longer believe the internal conflicts in Lebanon will ever be resolved). We’ve had members take a sabbatical to get rejuvenated but they haven’t left and still pop in and post and comment. In fact, we’ve only lost one member due to conflict with another member here –and that was a conflict with a fellow countryman and not because of any cross-border interactions.
Despite the frustrations and tensions and upset brought about by the civil war between Hamas and Fatah, the uprising and battle between Al Fatah and the Lebanese army, the war in Gaza, the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the protests in Iran, and so much more, we’ve managed to talk through things here and remain cohesive and committed to trying to work things out and find solutions. We’ve forged bonds with one another that have survived the kinds of external and internal conflicts that usually tear groups like our apart. Personally, I feel like each and every one of our authors and commenters are family –yo, we don’t always agree and sometimes can fight dirty (grin), but underneath is a strong cord of caring and respect that I feel tugging at me even when I’m at my most “claws out and hackles up.”
But what is it that has allowed us to weather all these storms? What are the things that keep us coming back, that encourage us to make up, mend the fences, or smooth things over, when we argue or disagree rather than turning our backs and walking away? Can you guys think of specific things that have encouraged you to stay when your frustration level was up in the red? Was it something someone said or many someones said, was it a feeling of friendship with another member despite the current tear your hair out conflict with them? Or, I don’t know…I just know that if we can figure out some of the things that have kept us together that those things might be really important, in a very practical way, for other groups when the shit hits the fan in the “real world” or between group members.
October 31, 2009 at 3:00 pm by Yaeli · Filed under Uncategorized
People are people anywhere and everywhere. There are good people and bad people and people of all shades in-between. It is something we discuss here often but for many it takes finding that out the hard way. The story below was finding it out the hard way, by being involved in a serious accident, but the finding was good indeed. Enjoy:
One of the female passengers injured when an Israeli tour bus flipped Friday in Jordan spoke with Ynet about her experience, praising the locals and the hospital for their friendly and efficient conduct.
“After the accident, passengers began vacating themselves from the bus, with the help of local passersby,” the woman said. “One of the group members suffered a fatal injury from a beam that collapsed on him. He was probably killed on the spot. He was removed from the bus and they tried to resuscitate him.”
“The Jordanians called the police, and ambulances arrived shortly after and took passengers to the hospital,” she said.
The injured passenger had only kind words for the treatment received at the local hospital in the nearby city of Madaba: “The hospital wasn’t very modern, but they did everything necessary with what they had. Each stretcher was accompanied by some 70 Jordanians, not only doctors, but also passersby and family members of other patients.
“Everyone asked for our names, and wanted to know what had happened and where we were injured. They cleared a whole floor so we can all be together,” the woman said.
The woman gave further details of her hospital stay: “They gave us soft drinks and cookies, kept running around among us, asking if we needed anything, and immediately sent each of us for treatment. Those who were in better shape sat at the cafeteria and made a list of all the passengers and their belongings. When the belongings finally arrived from the bus, not a single purse was missing.”
The Israeli consul, who arrived at the hospital, helped arrange the transfer of the patients back to Israel.
“We were apprehensive about taking the road to the border crossing, because it was raining and people were a little traumatized,” said the woman, adding that “during the drive to the border, we were accompanied by a convoy of police, ambulances and the consul as well.”
The passenger intends to send a thank-you note to the hospital. “They acted a little like Israelis — in the good sense of the word – the good Israelis who always help others along the way.”
“They made us feel very safe, I felt at home. Whoever is thinking of going to Petra should go; they are good people,” concluded the woman.
October 27, 2009 at 5:12 am by Yaser · Filed under Uncategorized
Yesterday I had a life-changing experience, it came as I listened to Dr.Azmi Bishara deliver a talk in a conference hall in Damascus, and because I believe that actions speak louder than words, I decided to suspend my participation in the GNblog until there is tangible movement in the peace process.
thanks
October 1, 2009 at 4:06 pm by Yaser · Filed under Uncategorized
I have just finished reading an aricle in Haaretz titled ‘Stop using Palestinian gays to whitewash Israel’s image’
in this artcile Haneen Maikey a palestinian activist explains about the true reality of palestinian LGBTQ community and the false pretence of the Israeli and western media to use this issue to show the liberal and tolerant face of the Israeli society,notwithstanding the fact that it is an Israeli newspaper publishing the story, the reality about activism in plastenian society and voices that call for change is ignored most of the time.
I must admit, I was hesitant before writing this post, however I think the issue of homosexuality is an important indicator of how we can deal with pressing social and political issues,also what draw my attention while reading the article is how you can get an insight into the lives and struggles of people when you deal with them as individuals rather than groups or nations.
I’ll not make a haste judgment about homosexuals conditions, especially that I was only recently have seen real activism to defend Homosexuals rights, there is no real open discussion about the issue and rare moments of openess quickly give way to the usual defamation and steriotypical image of Homosexuals.
But I think that the activist made a very good statement about this hot topic.. what is your take??
September 21, 2009 at 9:21 am by Carmel · Filed under Israel, Palestinian Territories
Today, for international day of peace, I want to share a personal selfish thought with you. If you’re not Israeli you can either sympathize with me or hate me for it (and if it really touches you, it should be able to feel a little bit of both).
Pumpkin spiced latte
It’s a Starbuck’s original. I’m having it almost every day for the past two weeks. It became part of my routine here and drinking it feels so foreign, exotic. It’s nice to get used to something that you won’t be able to have when you’re back home. In a globalized world where you get the same things everywhere; in the Internet era when you can be on facebook, twitter and skype with your friends and family, and experience the events back home – I hold on to those little differences that weave the sense of actually being in another place.
I’m in Hawaii, carrying out a routine of paradise on earth, and yet I miss home so much. I get to be in a fantasy setting and I find myself longing to just hang out with my dog again in that ugly square near my house in Tel Aviv. The Americans I meet feel lucky to be Americans. They always assume all of us Middle Eastern would rather be Americans too and be away from all of this war crap. I don’t blame them, they got long immigration queues that give them that idea, but I find it hard to explain to them why I can’t really make myself at home anywhere but in my home. Why I love visiting their country and all other countries, but no matter how many years I’ll drink it, that tasty pumpkin spiced latte will never “taste like home” for me.
Home is where ______ is
What’s that got to do with peace day? I’m getting there. You see, I happen to live in a place of dispute. My ancestors claim it was their promised land and wave their bibles, while some of my neighbors and web friends claim their ancestors were on that land too and hold keys to the old houses they fled from during our independence war. How would an American feel if a Native American will knock on his door one day and claim his ancestors actually owned this land before there were U.S property laws and he should just evacuate himself to Canada or something? (At least until the Canadian Eskimos will realize they can pull the same trick…)
The Native American (or in my case, Palestinian) may have a point there, but would you leave the house you were born in, the only place that you will ever call home, because the guy has a point? Furthermore, will that guy really feel like home in your house? I’ve talked to this Palestinian guy online and he told me his family is originally from the Israeli city of Safed and he dreams of coming back home.
Since he was born in Gaza and never saw safed, I was compelled to ask him: Are you sure it’ll feel like home to you? Safed is a myth to you as the vague Promised Land was to my biblical ancestors. I’ve been to Safed a month ago, it’s a very poor city living of its peculiar mystical tourism. Honestly, after you’ve seen the city I bet you wouldn’t wanna live there. A home is not just a construction or merely a location, it’s what was cultivated on it and in it and with it, and it’s the culture and the community that emerged in that space and has already merged with it. “And that, my friend” I told him, “isn’t yours. It can’t be yours. It’s foreign to you, and you’ll feel it”.
Many people ask me how come I continue to live and love Israel, why won’t I use immigration as a form of resistance to my government’s actions. Heck, I even threatened to do so myself, many times. But obviously I can’t. I mean, of course I CAN, technically, I’m a friendly educated person with a global consciousness that can take root practically everywhere. You can remove me quite easily from Israeli territory but you can’t remove my roots – the Israeli culture and identity – it is with the same roots that I go to a foreign land and although it will rarely be noted on the surface, my roots may never really fit in perfectly in the new soil.
Even if I wander as far as the north pole, I’ll always be asked where I’m originally from, I’ll always be held responsible to something by someone, I’ll always feel guilty about something, I’ll always care about everything that happens back home. *sigh*, yea, home will always be “there” even if whatever I had there didn’t exist anymore.
The secret formula of home
It’s not politically correct but it’s true so I’ll just go ahead and say it: as much as I am peace seeking and sympathetic to Palestinian suffering, and aware of the injustice that keeps me safe in my home, I am still grateful my home is unchanged, that the circumstances that make it my home are maintained. Living in Israel you normally meet Palestinians who speak of an independent country in Gaza and the West Bank and that seems just fine and far away, but when abroad or online you meet many other Palestinians that speak of the entire land as Palestine, that want to return to Jaffa and Safed and hey, wasn’t Tel Aviv actually “Sheikh Munis” once?…
I fear that the concept of home, like love or identity, is a complex caotic fractal, a secret formula, that if I change one component I’ll lose it entirely. Tel Aviv just won’t be Tel Aviv under Palestinian rule, with a flock of new Palestinian residents or when its people and cafes and beaches are moved, as is, to Uganda. The geography and ecology create symbiosis with the community and the culture: it just doesn’t grow the same way in a different environment, in different circumstances.
There’s no clear right or wrong, both sides have rightful claims. Palestinian grandmothers should be allowed to return to the homes they fled from and at the same time Israeli children should be allowed to live in the homes they were born in. It doesn’t matter that it’s a small territory barely spotted on the world map while vast fertile lands wait to be inhabited someplace else. This is the fu**ing home for both of us and that’s that, i guess. Go figure. May we find a more peaceful and creative way to share it in a way that maintains those secret ingredients that make it a home for all of us.
The people of Israel live, homeless
As I was wrapping up this post a miraculous thing happened. I overheard the Israeli hymn, the tikva (that means “hope”), coming from downstairs across the street on waikiki beach, played by a homeless violinist. I left the computer and went down with a video camera. By the time I crossed the street he was already playing the popular “Jerusalem of gold” and I managed to capture him with the finale of the patriotic chant “am Israel chai” (which means “the people of Israel live” and is often sung by religious people in hard times, to cheer us up and remind us of the liveliness of our people and what we accomplished after all that we have been through).
The mixed nationalities tourist audience cheered without even realizing what they listened to. During the break he took after “hava nagila”, the homeless violinist told me he wasn’t even Jewish, he just knows many popular violin tunes from different cultures and he was playing there for hours before i heard him.
Tears came to my eyes as I realized this was just a message from the universe, from God to me, a manifestation of the ability of my culture to follow me everywhere, even in the most unexpected places like Waikiki beach, and always strike a chord (pun intended this time) weather I like it to matter for me or not.
The people of Israel indeed live and they live practically everywhere in the world, but only few lucky (?) ones can come to terms with calling another place home. I am continuously amazed to meet Israeli people living in the U.S and Europe for many years, seeing success and wealth there and yet giving it all up, settling for much less, only to return home again, to Israel.
Before you have any dialog with us, I think you should understand this about us. It doesn’t justify occupation, it doesn’t justify anything. I suppose even the most serious left wing activist feels this dissonance as he or she still live here and not just write an angry blog from their NYC residence… it’s just how thing are and that’s what I wanted to talk about today.
What is home to YOU? Is it a distant cultural memory or the actual smells of your mom’s cooking, the flower bushes outside your house, the angry salesman in the local grocery store….?
Happy peace day to everyone. I still blog for trust!
September 17, 2009 at 8:47 am by Yaser · Filed under Uncategorized
Syrian president is in Turkey in what seems as a culmination of a highly improved relationship over the past couple of years, there is talks about the importance of this relation for the two countries and the region as a whole.
a very important and crucial test for this relation and its application is the efforts undertaken by Turkey to resolve the dispute that erupted between Syria and Iraq after the bloody Wednesday attacks which was a real setback for the efforts of the Iraqi government to show that it can be in control after the Americans leave, and which the Iraqi prime minister accused Syria of harboring the masterminds of, thus dragging the two countries in a war of words, showing the deep division that was under the surface for some time.
The Turkish role can be effective given that it does not operate like the Arab Leauge with all its usual mishandling of everything that happens in the region (the reasons of which I’ll not discuss, because they are out of the scope of this post), but in my opinion I think Turkey is overestimating its influence on both countries and the outcome depends on far more factors that have to be considered and be dealt with .as for the time being the meetings between the two parts has not gone anywhere.
“We consider this security meeting as the final one. Such a meeting won’t happen in the future unless Syria positively responds to the unchallenged evidence and proof presented by Iraq. This is the final meeting,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press.
via the Associated Press
The Syrian foreign policy is simply confused trying to drag Turkey into many affairs like the peace with Israel and to mend relations with Iraq, the reason for that is that the alliance with Iran is not reliable and Syria doesn’t want to but all its eggs in the Iranian basket, so you find that we give much importance to the Turkish role which is evident in the Syrian president speeches, that will lead to misunderstandings as Turkey will try hard to have a constructive role while all the Syrian policy wants is to find someone to hide behind in order to not be left alone to fend for itself when the alliance with Iran fails.
This not-so-serious approach by Syrian policy makers is evident by the failure of the meetings with the Iraqi delegation and the inflexibility shown by the Syrian part demonstrate that there is no respect to the Turkish mediators.
I think it will be sooner than later that the Turks will discover this game and relinquish their efforts to help out the Syrian foreign policy and then we will find ourselves in square one having to start all over again.
September 10, 2009 at 11:52 pm by Carmel · Filed under Israel, Mideast general
I’m in Hawaii right now, on the other side of the world lagging 12 hrs behind the Middle East. I wake up with the beautiful blue-green Pacific Ocean outside my window watching surfer-newbies take a shot at the waves as tropical birds stop by my porch checking out their food options.
On the street everyone smiles, many girls wear flowers on their necks or behind their ears, vendors open oysters and embed the pearls into jewelry in front of my eyes, and within 10 minutes walk towards the beautiful green mountains, one enters tropical jungle kingdom with fantastic waterfalls straight from the iconography of LOST.
If there’s heaven on earth it must be here: great weather all year, colorful tropical vibe and the best of American consumerism’s abundance. But instead of simply enjoying that, all I can think of is why can’t we have that too? Why are we condemned to fight for territory? why people in our area are so angry and obsessed? Why can’t we focus on joy and happiness as a top priority as well?
I used to blame our religious differences for it, but my Muslim friends say religion is used as political means in a much more basic struggle for money and power. So few people play this game and yet they manage to keep entire populations apart, breeding hate and stereotyping each other through misguided media.
Today, 11.9.09, a day that is remembered as an international trauma, we choose to start melting these stereotypes through the impartial medium of blogs and align with the light, the love and the hope. Thus, we start with the basis needed for all of that to breed, for the bridges to rebuild: we start with trust.
It’s no secret that our administrations don’t trust each other and as people we barely trust our administrations, so can we trust each other, as people? What needs to happen in order for YOU to restore your trust in the other side which you might perceive as an enemy but actually you don’t know too much about? What needs to happen in order for us to be willing to take a chance on that?
One thing I realized about Israelis lately is that we desperately need to be safe, always in the comfort zone. And so it’s really hard for us as to bare the risks of openness for peace: we feel we’ve done that before and all we got was hurt and terror, so we freaked out, closed up and built a wall on our land and in our hearts.
However, the same way we don’t close our hearts after a love gone sour and we’re willing to be hurt again in order to feel love again, we need to keep that gate open for peace even if it’ll be abused by some on the way. I know, I’m afraid too. But to think peace will sneak up on us peacefully on our terms only is a bit childish, isn’t it?
I mean, do we have any other choice but open our hearts in trust even when it’s hard and scary, especially when it’s hard and scary and pray love gets the upper hand?
What do YOU need in order to open up to trust? Bloggers from the EuroMed area will blog for trust today as part of the “restore trust, rebuild bridges” campaign. Please join us: add “I blog for trust” to your posts, spread the word or record a video response to our clip.
I would also like to recommend a new blog that attempts to build such a bridge to warm the cold waters of the Israeli-Egyptian peace. Meet Mr. Foul and Mrs. Falafel. I strongly recommend following them as it seems it’ll be both informative and funny.
I blog for trust,
Carmel, Honolulu.
September 10, 2009 at 10:15 am by Yaeli · Filed under Uncategorized
In a situation reminiscent of the last Israeli election aftermath, Saad Hariri has stated that he will step down after being unable to form a governing unity coalition. Hariri, whose party, like Livni’s, won the majority in the election has held “”rounds and rounds of consultations which always ended in obstruction [by Hezbollah, Ed.] I announce to all Lebanese that I told President Suleiman today that I will step down from forming a government, in the hope that this decision will be for the benefit of Lebanon,” Hariri said after a meeting with President Michel Suleiman.
One can hardly guess how such a situation is going to benefit Lebanon. For one thing, it looks as if Hariri will again be elected by the majority to try putting together a coalition –and if he hasn’t had success in the last 10 weeks, what is there to suggest that he would have success in the rounds and rounds that would be forthcoming. The other options, however, it seems would benefit Lebanon even less. Imagine a member from Hezbollah being placed in charge of forming and leading the government, for instance.
Lebanon’s star is getting ever dimmer, shadowed by iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah within and those countries themselves looming from across its borders and trying to get their hands on the strings that make the nation run.
August 9, 2009 at 4:26 am by Carmel · Filed under Israel
Many religious people await the mythic war between the light and darkness without being aware that the war is already being fought and they’re in fact aligning with darkness. It is the war between the people who love only the ones who are similar to them, and the people who love and embrace diversity. The war between people who think there’s only one truth and they’re holding its key and the people who see the complexity of many truths in different contexts and for different people. The war between those focused on exclusion and separatism and the ones focused on inclusion and connectivity.
Last week, an anonymous killer still running loose, started shooting at a community center for gay teen in Tel Aviv. Two teenagers were killed and 15 were wounded. The liberal city of Tel Aviv in the democratic country of Israel was shocked such a hate crime is possible, but some said that they always knew Tel Aviv to be a liberal bubble, inside a country that 46% of its people think being gay is a form of perversion and its formal religion explicitly bans gay relationship, comparing them to animal sex and condemning the parties to death.
These are not the words of God. There are enough God-wannabes spreading disarray through messages “channeled” to different people, only nowadays we take them less seriously than our BC ancestors. God, the spirit and consciousness of all living things, cannot be a fundamentalist, cannot afford to exclude some of its parts. It’s not so divine and barely even makes sense: if God wanted everyone to follow the same rule he/she/it wouldn’t have made everyone so damn different.
God doesn’t live between the pages of a book and doesn’t speak only to the ones who grow beards. god is in the world, it is in the details, in the small things, in everything. So God must love colorfulness, God must love diversity because unity is made of diversity and a ray of light breaks into the colors of the rainbow. This is the true face of God. Indeed, we’re all made of both light and darkness, like the Yin & Yang symbol suggests, but are we aligning ourselves with the light, containing our darkness, or aligning with the dark, swallowing and oppressing our light?
Some of my best friends are gay and I always thought sexual orientation was a private thing and either than that one could hold various opinions on different issues, but I understand now that being a gay activist and having a gay identity is necessarily taking a liberal stand, it must also mean being feminist and respecting minorities etc. We identify with complex identities in order to create bridges: while our national identity might be rivalry, our sexual identity might create something more important in common for us.
I stand with the gay community in Israel these days because it moves me to see them forge a strong political identity due to recent events, showing everyone their true size and true colors, and I’m so proud of them. God has made them a bit different so they could appreciate the beauty in our differences and help fight for the freedom of love, thus I count on this community as a partner for the vision of a new world.
This footage (with English subtitles) is from last night’s memory, pride and tolerance rally held in Rabin Square a week after the brutal shooting.
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Bad Vilbel
Big Pharaoh
Carmel
Dalia
Matin
Shifaa
Yaser
Drima
