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Is this a drill?

I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried by the government’s decision to hold a large-scale nationwide drill next Tuesday. Relieved, because the government is clearly preparing us all for missile attacks, which is very responsible and forward thinking; and worried, well because the government is clearly preparing us all for missile attacks.

With the war of words between Israel and Iran heating up, it’s hard not to feel a little jumpy even when you’re an optimistic sort.

The government’s idea is to hold a nationwide civil defense exercise, called Turning Point 3 (I presume we’ve already had Turning Point 1 and 2). During the exercise sirens will go off across the country. And this time, instead of ignoring them, the entire population will have to head for the nearest shelter or protected site.

For my kids it’s a trip to a rather dank and smelly underground shelter at the school. For my husband it’s going to be interesting since the shelters in his high-rise office block are rented out for storage. For me, well with no one around to notice, it’s probably not worth making the effort to amble down the stairs to my son’s bedroom cum shelter. Even though it’s got wireless Internet.

In a meeting at the Knesset, Dep. Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said the exercise was based on the presumption of a missile assault from three or four directions, some with unconventional weapons, synchronized with large-scale terrorist attacks up and down the country.

This, he stressed, was no fantastic scenario made up by Hollywood scriptwriters, but a highly credible development in the event of war. I can’t help but wonder what drill they have planned for us in the event of a nuclear strike.

My village started preparing for the drill last week, when the sirens suddenly went off early in the morning. No one seemed particularly concerned, however, and just went about their business as normal. Finally someone raised their head and said: “Do you think that’s a drill?”

Anyway, good to know we’re prepared. Gas masks to be handed out later this year. Ah, the good life.

The gloves are on for Israeli boxers

The Philadephia Daily News recently ran a compelling profile of international Israeli boxers Ran Nakash (pictured) and Elad Shmouel.

The main thrust of the piece is that being raised in the Middle East makes one a particularly hard brand of badass, making Israel an emerging source for fighting talent:

“Israel is becoming what Russia was 10 years ago when the Klitschkos [current heavyweight titlists Vitali and Wladimir] were starting out,” said [matchmaker Don] Elbaum, who believes Nakash will fight for some version of a world championship before too long. “In the next couple of years, I think you’ll see an exodus of incredible boxing talent coming out of Israel.”

Some of the piece’s hyped-out tone is grounded in hyperbole (calling Israel “an area where to end any day alive qualifies as a small triumph” might be a bit of a stretch), but overall, these two guys do come off as seriously dangerous. Shmouel speaks about how his experiences witnessing a suicide bomb attack in a shopping mall when he was in his teens have made him tough. Nakash maintains a successful career as a Krav Maga instructor for the IDF.

And they discuss their impressions of the recent Gaza war and assess the prospects for real regional peace. But politics and punching prowess aside, what’s life in Israel really like?

Shmouel, who recently concluded his mandatory 3-year military service obligation as a first sergeant, said many Americans can’t begin to fathom the reality of the Middle East situation from what they see on television.

“You have to experience it to understand,” Shmouel said. “You have to be there. It would change people’s perspective, that’s for sure.”

Victims donating to victims

Throughout the recent Gaza war and its ongoing aftermath, Israelis and Palestinians have been trying to paint themselves as “the real victims” and the other side as “the real perpetrators.” But if we’re all victims, then how can we possibly take responsibility for war spearheaded by our leaders? And if we’re all perpetrators, then why would we care?

The fact is, Operation Cast Lead has meant horrible levels of destruction for the infrastructure and people of the Gaza Strip, destruction which could have been avoided if Hamas hadn’t hidden behind the human shield of one of the most densely populated areas in the world. And as we’ve seen on ISRAELITY before, just because Israelis support our government’s recent war against a terrorist regime that’s been shooting rockets at us for years doesn’t mean that we’re numb to the damage done.

Two grassroots activists are trying to organize Israeli sympathy into material support for Gazan families whose lives and homes were recently under severe fire by the region’s military superpower. 27-year-old peacenik Lee Ziv and Sapir Academic College 25-year-old student Hadas Balas (pictured, doubling as a not-so-shabby singer-songwriter) decided to collect clothing, bedding, nourishment and other essentials from donors to bring them in to Gaza.

Ziv spoke with the Jerusalem Post this week:

“There is no connection to politics,” said Ziv. “We don’t represent a side, we just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat.”

Since a short radio interview on Sunday morning, Ziv said her phone had been ringing off the hook. “Within two minutes of the interview, I had 40 voice messages. The response has been overwhelming. Schools have called asking how they can help. A father called who had three sons serving in the IDF in Gaza. A woman called who had a mortar fall on her house.”

The duo thought they’d be bringing one or two truckloads of supplies in today, but thanks to the viral snowball of their email campaign, media interest like the radio interview last week, and the bandwagoning on their efforts by some key human rights organizations, the donations have been so numerous that they’re spearheading a fleet of 10 full trucks.

According to coverage in Haaretz, the duo has accomplished this feat thanks to key help from organizations like Hashomer Hatzair in Jerusalem, Beit Hachesed in Haifa and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the Qassam-battered community which has offered up its warehouses as a depot for the donations.

More information on donating to the operation can be found here.

IBA’s Close Up feeds news jones

Earlier this week, the relatively new free daily nationalist tabloid Yisrael Hayom (Hebrew-only informational website viewable here) reported that mainstream Israeli news websites have been experiencing around a 30% spike in traffic since the start of the current Gaza conflict – hardly a surprise, and hardly a trend relegated to the video-heavy, Hebrew-language outlets cited in their stats.

With the thirst for Zionist-friendly war-related information peaking even among English speakers, the Israel Broadcasting Authority has been wise to initiate the launch of a new English news program called Close Up. Airing Wednesdays at 5:25 PM on the IBA’s Channel 33, the live in-depth weekly analysis magazine Close Up premiered this week with a half hour’s worth of content headed by IBA talking heads Steve Leibowitz and Leah Zinder.

The program joins the growing stable of English-language IBA news reports, which includes the ten-minute weekday News Bulletin and the 20-minute daily IBA News, all of which streams over the web on-demand at the IBA’s video mini-site (like most Israeli websites, works best in the Explorer browser).

For the inaugural episode, Zinder and Leibowitz were joined at the news desk by panelists Effi Eitam, a controversial MK from the hawkish religious National Union, and left-of-center David Horovitz, the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. Eitam remarked on the high levels of motivation among IDF, proclaiming that “The spirit of confidence will prevail amongst the soldiers, and, I might add, amongst the citizens.” Horovitz commented on pragmatic goals for ceasefire arrangements.

In other segments, Hebrew University’s Dr. Robbie Sabel, a former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, spoke about the ethical issues of the war, reporter Leah Stern gave over a timeline for how diplomacy breakdown led to the current battles, and a visit to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s office yielded a predictably “I told you so”-style statement.

Fred Teng Gets It

Given the avalanche of hate against Israel on the internet, at anti-Israel protests around the world, and in the media (of course!), it’s easy to believe that “nobody” likes us. By “nobody,” I mean, of course, folks from the wide world. And even if they are willing to overlook our “crimes” in Gaza (no, of course I don’t mean that), they still don’t “get it” – they just can’t understand what we’re up against.

So I wanted to share with you a message I got from a friend who’s in New York right now. There was a big pro-Israel rally this past Sunday, featuring speakers from the Jewish and general community. According to the message I got,

“The most powerful speaker at Sunday’s massive rally for Israel was Fred Teng, president of the Chinese Community Relations Council of NY. His words would have been exceptional even coming from an Israeli — and how much more striking for having come from the heart of a New Yorker and a member of the Chinese community.”

Suffice to say Mr. Teng “gets it.” He’s got Hamas’ number – comparing them to the gangs of big American cities who get their jollies running drive by shootings against innocent people. In the words of Mr. Teng,

“Enough is enough”

“These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like Drive-by Shootings. We have to put every gang member away for good, not just the ones that did the shooting. These Qassam Rockets and the people behind them are like a Fire in the Forest, You can’t STOP only half of the fire in the forest, and thinking you will be safe. If your house is next to the fire, you won’t think so. It is not the Qassam Rockets; it is the people behind the Qassam Rockets that we need to go after. This is an epidemic threat to the entire world.

“In the last 60 years, every gesture of peace by Israel only met with escalated violence. Every peace proposal, whether it is multi-lateral, bi-lateral, or uni-lateral was never honored by the terrorists. However, in this time of extreme difficulties, we shall not lose hope. We shall say yes to Peace. We shall say yes to Life. And we shall forever say yes to an eternal Israel Am Yisrael Chai.

Maybe someone should tell this guy we have an election coming up? Sounds like he’d make a good prime minister!

The reality of teenage life in the south

Last week I wrote about Eye 2 Israel, blogs authored by students of Ort which offered a rare glimpse into the real life of young people who are experiencing the onslaught of missile attacks in the south. Eye 2 Israel is not alone. There are several other initiatives as well, one of the most high profile being, Join My Life, an initiative started by Nir Kouris, founder of Ecamp.

In his own words:

The blog entries were initially in Hebrew only but several are being translated into English. Join My Life will also be donating free webcams to youth in the south to make it easier for them to tell their stories. Living in the center of the country, it’s hard to imagine what it is like down south right now – or what’s it’s been like for the past several years. Blog posts like one authored by a thirteen year old girl in Ashdod give perspective. When I was thirteen all I care about was ninjas.

Yesterday, around nine o’clock in the evening, imagine you’re having a quiet night. After a day without alarms and sirens, thinking you’re going for a long tiring day at school.

And then…you hear a siren, one that recently we hear once a day, not very frequently and usually a false alarm. You get in the shelter with mom, god knows where dad is now… waiting for the siren to end so that you can find out it fell in north Ashkelon… but then you hear a boom.

The first thing you think is- where’s dad, maybe one of my friends was hurt…was someone killed? You go on the internet and validate your suspicions and worries- someone was killed and as a mater of fact a Grad missile did fall in Ashdod…pretty much in the center, on a bus station.

The lines were down, we can’t locate dad.

Relatives barely managed to call…because the lines were down. Then we hear dad get home, he’s fine. But the fact that dad is fine doesn’t mean someone else is fine. Seven injured, one dead and many that are in shock. Just as you think it’s over, about half an hour after, when you’re on your seventh dream about winning the lottery, the siren goes off…while you’re sleeping.

That’s basically what a non-typical day in Ashdod sounds like.

You can read more entries here.

ISRAEL21C Behind the Filming: Science has no Borders

I recently filmed a news story about the Weizmann Institute and the Davidson Institute opening their doors to children of the south. Since the war with Gaza started schools have been closed forcing children to stay home while rockets rain down on their towns. These kids are not being properly educated about the fundamentals, but rather learning the hard lessons of life under fire. The children who experience the daily barrage of rockets are suffering from emotional trauma and will most likely be scarred for life as they remember their childhood days hiding at home when the sirens went off.

The institutes are currently providing educational refuge on their campuses and will continue to do so until the war is over. Kids of all ages can play outside in their amazing science park (I didn’t get the chance to play but it looked like a lot of fun) or experiment in their science labs. (Note: the science experiment the children are doing in the video is how to make ice cream with dry ice…crazy!)

I interviewed Zvi Paltiel, the Director of Young at Science at the Davidson Institute who spoke with me about the current program geared towards children from the south. For the video I chose a sound bite where he is expressing the importance of having the children learning on campus during this stressful period. However, what I wasn’t able to include was his openness to having the program and the science mobiles (watch the video to learn what those are) available to the children of Gaza as well. I think he put it best when he said that “science has no borders.”

Golden Globe for Waltz with Bashir

The innovative retro-animated documentary Waltz with Bashir won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film yesterday in California, and director Ari Folman did not miss the opportunity to reflect on the poignancy of the victory from the podium.

It’s a big deal when any Israeli film wins a big international award, regardless of how many it won in the past or how much buzz there is over the possibility of an Oscar nod when the nominations are announced in about two weeks.

But with an ongoing conflict in Israel’s south making for a parallel media war battling over the opinion of the world’s citizens, an Israeli victory in Hollywood becomes even more significant – especially given the movie’s introspective soldier’s experience narrative.

The Jerusalem Post today sums up Folman’s acceptance speech thusly:

Folman thanked his team and his wife and dedicated the award to the babies born to his team members over the four years during which the film was made.

Expressing his wish to see peace arrive in the war-torn Middle East, Folman said he hoped one day these babies will regard the film and the war it describes as an old video game with which they had nothing to do.

Sadly, war’s status as hell is a timeless theme, one which speaks to the Israeli experience far more than it ought to, and The Hollywood Reporter managed to get Folman talking about it even more behind the scenes, and thankfully, with a tinge of optimism:

Folman was a man of few words backstage but did say he is sad that his film, about conflict in the Middle East, is relevant in light of the current Gaza incursions. “Unfortunately, this film is always relevant,” he said. “It has only one major statement (one of anti-war). It was relevant two years ago (when I began making it), and it’s still now.” Folman said he hopes for the best for that part of the world. “I am very optimistic (for peace), or I wouldn’t have done this,” he said. “It’s a matter of leadership: A time will come that both sides will have clever leaders who will work it out.”

Image courtesy fuxoft from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Foto Friday – Behind the lens with Israel Press

If a news photographer does the job right, they will render themselves anonymous. Viewers will focus on the image itself and forget that there was someone who created that image. But there are people behind the lens, often a phalanx of them, roasting in the hot sun in hopes of spotting Madonna, Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Refaeli or any other visiting or local celebrity; standing around for hours while police drag the Yarkon river at a crime scene; or, as they have for the second week in a row, laying their lives on the line on the Israel-Gaza border.

Getting the shot, however, involves a great deal of hanging out, watching and waiting, and shutterbugs might click off a few shots of their own to stave off the boredom. Often, the subject is the person standing next to them.

Photo credit: Koko

Tomeriko, photo editor and staff photographer at Yediot Aharonot, is also the founder of a Israel Press, a Flickr page where Israeli news photographers upload the pictures they take of one another. Taken as a whole, the pictures document a tiny brotherhood – including a few sisters – of people who know each other very well.

Photo credit: Koko

“I started it because I had a lot of pictures of photographers from all sorts of events and didn’t know what to do with them,” explains Tomeriko. “At first, I thought I would send the pictures individually but I also wanted other people to see them. So I started the Flickr page and uploaded about 1000 pictures. When the other photographers heard about it, they started to send pictures to me. It’s kind of a family album.”

Photo credit: Koko

“It came from boredom,” laughs photographer Gilad Kavalerchik. “If you look at the beginning of the album, you’ll see a lot of pictures from football games and so on. But it’s become a way of having a souvenir of an event.”

Right now is not at all boring and Kavalerchik is running between jobs in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the front, where he managed to snap a few such mementos.

Photo credit: Gilad Kavalerchik

Photo credit: Gilad Kavalerchik

Tomeriko emphasizes that Israel Press is a non-commercial enterprise, and isn’t intended for people to promote themselves or their news organization. He is very careful, however to credit each image, and provide contact information. He’s also divided Israel Press into disciplines – news, sports, camera-persons, reporters and of couse, the celebrity press. (The t-shirt in this photo says “Caution- Paparazzi before you”).

Photo credit: Tomeriko

Some of the photos are exercises in photographic composition.

Photo credit: Tomeriko

Sometimes, they are opportunities to try out in-camera effects, as in this picture of veteran photographers Koko and Moshe Shai, at the starting line of the Tel Aviv night run this past summer.

Photo credit: Tomeriko

Others document the camaraderie of a particular event – like the DiCaprio-Refaeli paparazzi stakeout – where photographers camped out for days. “This is our work. This is our shared experience,” says Koko.

Photo credit: Tomeriko

Photo credit: Tomeriko

Israel Press is a closed group with membership limited to Israeli photographers both here and abroad. Says Tomeriko: “You have to register to comment. Of course, people are interested in the behind-the-scenes of the media and we want people to see the pictures, but it’s really for us.”

Since the war started, Tomeriko has added some new photos of what the front is like behind the camera. “We’ve gotten some e-mails from people who want to give us encouragement, which is very nice. I posted them on the site.”

A new front in Lebanon?

I must admit, when I went to buy milk this morning and saw the TV in our tiny village makolet (corner shop), tuned to the news and a picture of the Lebanon and Israeli border, I felt a deep sense of foreboding.

I think it’s what we’ve all been frightened of. That the battle in the south, will lead to a new front in the north. As we are all aware, those four or five Katuysha missiles fired at Nahariya this morning, wounding two people, could be a one-off protest, or they could be the opening salvo of a much worse conflict.

I’m one of those people living in the center of the country who have managed to be untouched by either the last Lebanon war, when missiles rained down on the north, or the Gaza crisis, when missiles rain down on the south. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard, however.

This morning I felt it acutely – a kind of moral and emotional exhaustion at the thought of what has been, and what is still to come – with Hizbullah, if not now (with elections in Lebanon in May), then later; and with Iran, looming.

I’m not alone. This morning Larry Rich, the director of development and PR at Emek Medical Center (EMC) in Afula, sent out one of his periodic postings. Every month or so, Rich sends out a report from his hospital, and I always read them with interest. Sometimes it’s about something he overhead, or witnessed at the hospital, often its heart-warming tales about Israeli Arabs and Jews who find that in the face of illness and sometimes death, they share an awful lot more in common than they thought.
This morning, Rich – like me – was in somber mood.

“Two hours ago four Katyusha missiles slammed into the northern Galilee, having been fired from southern Lebanon. It seems that the Iranian forces of darkness are eager to continue their relentless provocation of little Israel. Nobody knows, as these words are being written, just how far this latest act of unprovoked aggression will escalate.”

He goes on to report that EMC is now on high alert.

“An urgent meeting of our emergency preparedness staff led by CEO Dr. Orna Blondheim (still grieving from the tragic death of her nephew, Dagan Vertman, cut down in Gaza) took place as the debris in the Galilee was being cleared. Having unfortunate knowledge stemming from previous wars, EMC is preparing for the worst while hoping that sanity will prevail.
We have opened our bomb shelters and already designated a large shelter adjacent to several empty rooms that will be used (should we need it) by the children of our staff while they are working.

The rooms will be for games & activities while in the event of a missile assault, the children will be only steps away from a large bomb shelter. Our emergency medical supply stores are fully stocked and ready. Our physicians and nurses carry on with their healing, hoping that they will not be, once again, launched into harm’s way.

Adrenalin is rushing, anxiety sets in and we resign ourselves to an indefinite fate.”

A few days ago, the husband of a friend of mine volunteered for the reserves. He’s in his ’40s, and the father of four children. He was sent to the Lebanon border, where troops have been on alert since the start of the conflict with Gaza. “At least he’s miles from the fighting,” she told me then. I saw her briefly this morning. She looked worried.

 

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