It’s in your hands
Filed under: design, Environment, General, Movies, Pop Culture
Well, if Rafael’s Bollywood advertisement made you give up hope that Israelis could ever do marketing, then hopefully this advert will make you think again.
Created free by the ad agency, Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Young & Rubican for EcoOcean, a non-profit organization dedicated to marine education, it’s a touching but simple advert that gets its environmental message – about saving Israel’s turtles – across cleanly and powerfully.
The Hebrew message at the end: “Life is in your hands.”
No baby turtles were hurt during the shooting of this video.
Israeli arms dealer goes Bollywood – uh oh
Sometimes, just now and again, a YouTube video comes along that is so crummy, that it’s almost a masterpiece. Dubbed the worst marketing movie ever made by the blogosphere, an honor it undoubtedly deserves, this piece by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has got to be one of the most ill advised advertisements an Israeli company has ever made.
Undoubtedly, if you’re a defense company it must be hard to keep coming up with new and interesting ways to sell your products. I mean how many ways can you sell a missile?
Rafael execs decided they had to do something different, and so for last month’s Aero India 2009 show, they took their weapons, sprinkled them liberally with a seasoning of Bollywood and voila! A Bollywood-style movie featuring a man (Israel), and four dancing girls (India) in full Bollywood costumes dancing between a range of Rafael’s phallic shaped missiles.
I guess most missiles are shaped like this, but it’s not usually something you think about until you see men and women skipping suggestively between them.
The women sings: “I need to feel safe and sheltered. Security and protection. Commitment and perfection. Defense and dedication.” And the man chimes in: “I promise to defend you, fulfill your expectations. Shield you and support you. Meet my obligations.”
And the unforgettable chorus to this meaningful exchange? “Dinga dinga dee…”
Oh dear, oh dear.
The truth is Israel’s defense relationship with India is pretty darn strong these days – Israel recently became the country’s main defense supplier. And the government-owned Rafael is in a particularly good position. Just last August Rafael and Israel’s IAI signed a joint $2.5 billion deal with the Indian Ministry of Defense.
After a period of circling one another tentatively, the two countries have realized they have much in common – particularly in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack last November.
But that still leaves us with a question. Whatever possessed Rafael to make this movie? It’s a question Saurabh Joshi of the Web site StratPost asked a company representative at the Rafael stall. He was told that the video was intended to “help build familiarity between India and Israel and Rafael.”
Not everyone sees it like that. On Wired’s Danger room blog, Noah Shachtman called it “the most atrocious defense video of all time.” While on the blog DEW line, Stephen Trimble, called it a “catastrophic collision of Bollywood and the arms industry, and dared his readers to watch the video “and, if you’re able, immediately erase the awful tune from your brain.”
It’s harder than you think. Dinga dinga dee.
Happy Purim to all
It’s Purim tomorrow, and the mayhem has already begun. Kids across the country dressed up this morning ready to take to school in whatever outfits they had dreamed up – anything from male tooth fairies, to hippies, football stars, or dinosaurs.
After a wild weekend of raiding cupboards, empty toy shops, and friends’ homes, we were up at 6am, brushing wigs, combing out beards, and drawing wrinkles with my best eye liner on one child, and nuclear disarmament symbols on another. Ah, I love this holiday.
So in honor of Purim, here’s a video ISRAEL21c took last year, which gives you a flavor of what this whacky holiday is about.
Waiting to see if Bashir wins
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Movies, Pop Culture, War
Anticipation is already building in Israel today, as people across the country wait to discover if the Israeli movie Waltz with Bashir will win an Oscar at tonight’s ceremony in Los Angeles.
Certainly things look pretty good for the critically acclaimed movie by Ari Folman. It’s already won a string of prestigious awards – from a Golden Globe to an award for the best documentary from the Writers Guild of America, and gambling Web sites are predicting that the Israeli contender for the best foreign film is the most likely of all the entries to win the award.
Critics have also indicated that the movie, which deals with Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, is their favorite for the prize as – aside from its moving and powerful story – it also breaks new cinematic ground. Critic David Carr, from The New York Times, urged readers to “Put a nickel on Bashir, and keep it there.”
We all love it here when an Israeli film (musician, artist, model etc. etc.) makes good. Last year hopes were high for Beaufort, another moving anti-war film also set in Lebanon, but it was pipped at the post.
For all the success of Folman’s movie, however, there are rumblings of discontent amongst certain sectors of society who feel this, the eighth Israeli Oscar contender, but the one most likely to win, is an anti-Israeli movie.
Folman’s effort to piece together his memories as a combat soldier of the Lebanon War, and particularly the massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp in Beirut, are regarded as unjustly demonizing Israel.
Stung by the criticism, one of the film’s backers, the US Foundation for Jewish Culture and Makom, has put out a study guide explaining why the film isn’t unfair. The guide is based on Israel’s own investigation into Sabra and Shatilla, gives the history of the battle, and charts its aftermath.
But why does criticism of Israel’s actions or behavior in a war have to be anti-Israeli? Folman’s film, like Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort before it, is a profound attempt by a soldier to examine a very painful part of his own history and that of his country. It’s soul-searching at its deepest level. And what it reveals about Israel is that this soul searching, doubt and regret is a fundamental part of who we are.
In the media, particularly during the Gaza war, but in many wars and conflicts, Israel is often portrayed as a militaristic nation that doesn’t really give a damn about who gets hurt. Films like Beaufort, and Waltz with Bashir, may not be easy viewing, but they show a completely different truth.
Golden Globe for Waltz with Bashir
Bashir still dancing
In need of rain? Ask a government minister
Filed under: Environment, General, Israeliness, Life, Religion
I feel like a fish that has been left out of water too long. I’m literally gasping for rain. Being one of those foreign transplants from grey, rainy Britain, Israel’s warm climate is a frequent source of joy. But while I enjoy the heat and the sunshine, I still need the storms and rain of winter to help me get through the long, hot, barren, endlessly blue and sunny summers where I seem to suffer a kind of reverse seasonal affect disorder.
Oh for a good heavy rainstorm...
This year I’m not the only one. Even the most hardened Israeli sun-lovers, who normally complain of depression after just one day of rain, are protesting. And with reason. It’s been the driest January since Israeli records began, and it comes after four other exceptionally dry years.
From 1980 to 2007, the available volume of water in Lake Kinneret was 328 million cubic meters a year. This year it will be just 45 million cubic meters. Prof. Uri Shani, head of the Water Authority said the probability of Israel having such a dry winter, after a series of four dry years, was practically zero – but when did probability enter into global warming.
There are all sorts of plans afoot on how to deal with this water crisis – plans which quite frankly should have been put in place a year or two ago, but possibly the most kooky of the lot comes from Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon, who has come up with the idea of changing all the mezuzot in the Israel Water Authority offices.
Under Jewish tradition, a mezuzah is a piece of parchment inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah, which is put inside a special case and attached to doorframes as a kind of blessing. Some people like to kiss their hand and touch the case as they go in and out of the building, for good luck.
Simhon’s big plan, then, is to change the blessings inside these mezuzot in an effort to change Israel’s luck with rainfall patterns. The minister explained his logic by telling other ministers that when Labor was at an all-time low in the polls, he changed the mezuzot at the Labor House, and the party doubled its strength.
Good to know the water crisis is in capable hands, eh? Perhaps we should also consider bringing a tribe of native Indians across to do a rainfall dance. Of course water rationing, and a desalination plant or two might also help. But hell, what would I know, I’m not a government minister.
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