Egypt involved in another Israeli prisoner release

October 22, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, Social Justice 

Ilan Grapel.

Egypt is certainly busy these days. Only a few days after Egyptian security officials helped to implement the deal that sent IDF soldier Gilad Schalit home in the lopsided prisoner exchange with Hamas, another unjustly held Israeli is about to be freed, according to Egyptian media reports.

Israel and Egypt are putting the “finishing touches” on a list of prisoners to be freed in exchange for Ilan Grapel. Grapel is a US-Israeli dual citizen that Egypt has charged with spying, sedition and inciting Egyptians to violence during the 18-day revolution that unseated president Hosni Mubarak. The 27-year-old’s release was reportedly worked out as part of the deal that brought home Schalit, but it’s unclear when exactly the exchange is going to take place.

Grapel emigrated to Israel in 2005 from New York and served in the IDF during the 2006 Lebanon War, where he was wounded in action. Currently enrolled as a law student at Emory University in Atlanta, Grapel was at the time of his arrest working for Saint Andrew’s Refugee Services, a non-governmental organization, in Cairo. Friends, family and US and Israeli officials have all dismissed the charges against him as “bizarre” and “ludicrous” and some point to photos Grapel posted on his Facebook page of himself in Cairo as proof that he was no spy.

If Grapel is really released this week, it would be fitting for a Schalt-Grapel meeting to take place. I’m sure they’d have something to talk about. And Israelis would have another reason to cheer.

Maybe we should get Egypt involved in the medical residents’ dispute with the Health Ministry.

Tags:

An Israeli son comes home

October 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Social Justice, Travel 

It was one of those surreal days, like during the World Cup when you can hear the games coming out of every window walking down the street. Except this time it wasn’t just a goal at stake, but a human life.

I watched the beginning of the events of the day that IDF soldier Gilad Schalit was released from Hamas imprisonment after almost five and a half years from the cozy confines of my bedroom TV with my wife and one of my sons at around 6:15 am. The three regular TV networks here – Channels 1,2 and 10 provided non-stop coverage and commentary.

Having some errands to do, I dragged myself away from the addicting scenes unfolding (when will Gilad cross from Gaza to Egypt, when will the first photos be shown?) and went to the local mall.

I arrived just in time to join about 30 people crowded in front of a TV at the ice cream parlor in the mall’s central expanse, as we watched that first footage of a pale, thin Schalit being escorted by Hamas and Egyptian handlers to his freedom. There weren’t many comments, aside from an occasional ‘wow’ or a gasp or sigh. We all knew it was a scene that would stick with us for the rest of our lives.

But I had banking to attend to. And when I finished my other errands and returned home, I joined my family (this being Hol Hamoed Succot after all) in driving to the grimy central city of Ramle for a short walkabout its Old City and a (very cool) rowboat ride in a giant Crusader-era giant water cistern.

Walking along the streets after heading back to a recommended hummous restaurant, we stopped at a sidewalk café and watched along with the other patrons the footage of Schalit walking off the helicopter at the Tel Nof Air Force base and being greeted by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who then brought Schalit to a reunion with his father. Again, all eyes riveted, without comment, watching something we hadn’t been convinced would ever happen.

By the time I got to work later in the afternoon, I was able to watch the last part of the journey – Schalit’s homecoming to Mitzpe Hila, where he and his family were greeted by throngs of supporters. It was even better than the World Cup – it was the day Gilad Schalit came home.

Tags:

Welcome home, Gilad

October 17, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Politics 

We’re all thinking about how it’s going to be for Gilad, the Schalits and the greater Israeli reality over the next few days and months.

It’s astounding to think that it’s been five years since he was captured; and what has happened in that space of time. The Schalits have been in a kind of restrained limelight over the course of the last five years, making themselves and their son a well-known issue, and living a very public existence for the last 15 months, as they dwelled in their sukkah — the tent in front of the prime minister’s residence.

As they went home several days ago, their home became a kind of tourist site; mostly for well-wishers, I would hope, but probably for others as well, who wanted to get a glimpse of this couple, this family that has undergone so much for so long.

And so, this photo of a billboard that is being circulated around Facebook is a good reminder for many of us.


It says: A moment before Gilad gets home!…Let’s all take a step back, and give the family the time they need for healing and reclaiming the life that was taken from them five years ago.

Hear, hear. Wishing the Schalits the most joyous of homecomings, and hopefully a time of peace and respite. That goes for all of us.

Tags: , ,

The best news in 5 years – Gilad Schalit coming home

October 12, 2011 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Politics, War 

We had heard it so many times before, that this time it was hard to believe: a deal to release imprisoned IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas almost 2,000 days ago, was about to be signed.

After more than five years of false alarms, the shuttle diplomacy of German and French mediators, inflated demands by Hamas of Palestinian prisoners to be released, and the heartwrenching images of Schalit’s parents – Noam and Aviva – sitting forlorn in their protest tent outside the Prime Minister’s residence, it didn’t seem likely that the early evening rumors Tuesday night of an imminent deal were likely to see fruition.

But they did! Within a couple hours, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a televised speech explaining that the cabinet was about to convene to approve the deal that would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them murders serving life sentences, in a phased release for Schalit’s freedom. Unbelievable!

Of course, this being Israel, there’s no consensus about the deal that the government passed later that night by a 26-3 vote. Many citizens justifiably feel that the price for Schalit’s freedom is too high, that the released prisoners will return to terror and place Israel in unprecedented danger. And imagine how the families of terror victims must feel, with the deranged murderer who took the life of their loved ones, being set scot free.

But then think about Gilad Schalit, sitting in a room for more than five years, with his life precariously hanging on the line. There doesn’t seem to be much of a choice to me – the freedom of a young man versus the threat of potential terror.

Hamas and the other terror organizations haven’t been successful in kidnapping any other IDF soldiers since Schalit was captured, and there’s no reason to think they will be any more successful after his release.

And terror-wise, well, that’s why we had our security forces. With or without security fences, peace talks, rockets landing in Sderot and Ashkelon, and belligerent talk from the West Bank and Gaza, there have been attempts to carry out terror attacks on Israelis and they will continue. Unfortunately, it’s a fact of life in the neighborhood, as long as we have neighbors like Hamas.

To use the specter of ‘more’ terror as an excuse to keep Schalit in prison just doesn’t pass the muster. The decision has been made, and Israelis should now band together and welcome Schalit home, knowing that the right decision was made – one that should make us all proud to call ourselves Israelis.

Tags:

Revealing the new Arab Israeli woman

October 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture 

Huda Naccache during her photo shoot for Lilac (AFP)

Seeing Israeli models in skimpy bikinis on the covers of magazines around the world is as old hat as… Bar Rephaeli. But there’s still a buzz that’s created when the magazine cover is in Israel and the model is an Israeli Arab.

22-year-old Christian Arab Haifa resident Huda Naccache made history recently when the Nazareth-based women’s magazine Lilac features her on the cover and inside dressed in a bikini.

According to the media reports that followed – in newspapers and on the nightly Channel 10 news – it was the first time an Arabic magazine here has put a model in a bikini on its cover, as well as the first time an Arab-Israeli model has been featured, um, so amply, on a cover.

Naccache, a geography and archaeology student who’s representing Israel in the Miss Earth competition in Thailand in December, told AFP that she was proud of her accomplishment and saw nothing wrong with it.

“I have a family that supports me very much and had no objections whatsoever to me appearing on the cover in a bikini,” she said. “My father was very pleased when he saw it for the first time. He said it was very beautiful and wished me good luck.”

Much of Israel’s Arab minority still holds deeply-traditional values, and some Israeli media suggested that Naccache’s photo shoot was aimed as a challenge to those conservative norms, even dubbing the cover the “Arab bikini revolution.”

Naccache dismissed the hoopla surrounding the cover and the claims that only because she’s a Christian Arab, and not a Muslim, were her photos allowed to be run without incident.

“I am the first Christian to wear a bikini on the front page, but there were two Muslim models who did it,” she said.

Yara Mashour, the editor of Lilac, which was founded in 2000, agreed that it’s a new, more open world for Arab women in Israel, regardless of their religion.

“It had nothing do with religion at all,” she told AFP. “And since her cover, Arab girls from all sorts of different backgrounds have been coming to me and offering to do something similar. The Arab community accepted it in a democratic fashion. I know there were debates about her appearing as she did, but it happened in a modern way: some were in favor and some were against, but there were no problems.”

For Naccache, can a visit to the pages of Sports Illustrated be far behind?

Tags:

Page 30 of 422« First...1020...2829303132...405060...Last »

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap