On the streets of Jerusalem
Last night about two hundred boys and girls belonging to B’nai Akiva, the religious Zionist youth movement, marched up the midrachov singing in support of the troops up north.
They formed a huge hora circle at the intersection of Ben Yehuda and Ben Hillel, and demonstrated their courage and their love of Am Yisrael, dancing and singing at the top of their lungs, drawing others into their circle, and, in their simcha (joy), for a moment, helping others feel that everything was going to be okay.
Michael joined the hora. I stood by, smoking and smiling.
“All they need are machine guns and green bandanas!” I joked to Michael. He was not amused.
“It’s every peacenik’s dream,” he said. “Kids singing and dancing in the streets.”
“That’s why we’ll lose to the Arabs,” I said, switching to my Zionist Stephen Colbert character. “We’re too soft.”
10 minutes later, two hundred more kids, this time arsim (secular Mizrachi youth), ran up the midrachov chanting “mavet l’Aravim” — “death to the Arabs.”
Religious Zionists aren’t so bad after all.
Mobius, I am confused. Do you want Israel to win this thing or not?
win what?
this is not a war that is ever won. it is an ongoing conflict that can only be contained.
In the end, the military cannot solve the security problem Israel faces, he said.”There is no military solution. It’s always diplomatic.”
Arsim – secular mizrahi youth?!
I am sure many of those enlightened lads would consider themselves “traditional” and bristle at the epithet ‘secular” !
donning a kippa for the synagogue services your parents force you to attend does not qualify you as ‘traditional/observant’
Mobi..my daughter is near Tel Aviv for 7 more days. What do you think? Should we bring her home early?What do you feel being there?
Wow. 8 killed in a Haifa rocket attack.
A navy ship badly damaged due to possible negligence.
What was once deemed an impossible war to win (due to an army fighting a rag-tag group of terrorists) has morphed into something more complex. Because you still can’t carpet bomb or fight Hezbollah with traditional means. Yet everyone of our existential fears are coming true i.e. regardless of walls, barriers and peace overtures, Israel is so small, they’ll eventually be able to hit us with rockets. And they are. And I fear it’s only the beginning.
“donning a kippa for the synagogue services your parents force you to attend does not qualify you as ‘traditional/observant’ ”
Sounds like the perfect definition, actually.
Mob, using the word ‘arsim’ as you have would probably be considered an ethnic slur but those people.
However, it’s still possible in polite society to call them ‘those people’ without getting similarly accused… lol.
“In the end, the military cannot solve the security problem Israel faces, he said.â€There is no military solution. It’s always diplomatic.â€
The arabs don’t seem to think so. Maybe it;s time to copy from their playbook. They want to destroy Israel? Let Israel destroy Lebanon. Throw it’s population into Syria and annex the land in its entirety.
The only thing stopping Israel is the weak stomach of Israelis like yourself. Militarily it’s no problem.
They want to destroy Israel? Let Israel destroy Lebanon. Throw it’s population into Syria and annex the land in its entirety.
Right, and then there would be peace and stability. Formermuslim, do you try to be funny with the stuff you post? Or do you go for a more absurdist feel?
donning a kippa for the synagogue services your parents force you to attend does not qualify you as ‘traditional/observant’
That sounds like the typical American Jew.
i mean, i’m aware of the sensitivity to the word ‘arsim’, yet, if you had them drunk, shouting and getting into fistfights outside your bedroom window at 4 am every night, you’d feel entirely justified in calling them arsim as well
oh, and elaine, i think your daughter should stay so long as she feels safe. at the point where she’s getting shaky, by all means, encourage her to come home.
“It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory.”
This according to:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG15Ak02.html
Any truth to this?
As well, just listened to Chomsky, on Democracy Now, blame Israel (surprised), for a “kidnapping” which took place before the Gaza debacle.
8 Canadians Killed
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/07/16/lebanon-canadians.html
Curious if S. Harper will change his tune regarding Israel’s right to self defence.
Could all those going on about how “there is no military solution” kindly explain a few leeeeeeeeeeeeeeetle bitty points:
1) Why hasn’t it worked – despite enormous worldwide support for 20 years of Oslo piece/peace making?
2) Now that Oslo has ended in blood, with every Pali promise broken – what exactly is the basis for Israeli trust in any “diplomatic” solution consisting of more Pali verbiage?
3) Why has the current situation developed specifically from the places in which Israel eschewed a traditional military solution – Lebanon and Gaza? Doesn’t this indicate that the policy of refusing “mere” military solutions emboldens our enemies?
4) What response do you propose to repeated physical attack on our civilians? Another earnest round of “understanding Arab pain”?
To those who are truly “reality based” it is now clear that any diplomatic agreement of value will only come out of a sound enough whupping – with the credible promise of more in the future – to make the Palis and others relinguish their dream of destroying Israel.
That may never happen – in which case the credible threat of massive violence is necessary to deter their violence.
And what if they’re suicidal, in such a fundamentalist frenzy that they are undeterred by their own destruction? Then the obvious, most moral choice is for Israel to kill these madmen to protect their own citizens, leaving a nice big, smoldering hole as a sign to other circling jackals.
This is reality – the schoolyard rules of geopolitics. You don’t arrive at agreements with bullies, or try to “respect their culture” – you show them you’re willing to fight, and if necessary you even get bloodied a bit to drive them off.
Zionism is the notion that the Jews are entitled to use all the tools of geopolitical sovereignty – including violence – to defend themselves and their interests.
Zionism makes no guarantees that you – or any other Jews – will be liked or lionized by the rest of the world. Its goal is to let Jews live without needing to cravenly beg for that acceptance, or live on other’s sufferance.
Remember?
Ben-David…Hezbollah will hit with enough force to cause fear, but not enough to convince Israelis that a full on assault, and loss of Israeli life, will be worth the price. So we agree the “most moral choice is for Israel to kill these madmen to protect their own citizens”, but we won’t do it. If nothing else, those mobile artillery crews are busy blasting empty fields.
hezbollah has 10,000 rockets and the iranian and syrian armies abetting
i just started getting nervous
“Right, and then there would be peace and stability. Formermuslim, do you try to be funny with the stuff you post? Or do you go for a more absurdist feel? ”
There wouldn’t be peace and stability but at least it would be one hell of a deterrent. Besides, Israel has the perfect excuse/reason/pretext at this moment. Why do you think the “world” doesn’t really give a damn at the moment. There aren’t even demonstrations in the capitals of arab states.
Arsim is an accepted term in israel. if you’re not from around here, you wouldn’t know that. but now you do!
besides, they’re proud of the title.
What kills me are the anti-Israel pundits who claim that the root causes of the conflict stem from the occupation. What occupation? Israel left Lebanon in 2000. How is the west bank relevant to hezbollah’s actions? It’s total horseshit. what the pre-67 violence? Speaking of 67, how’d that work for a deterrence-establishing whupping. I’m not convinced you can deter against an ideological powerhouse like radical Islam. One of these days the West will work as hard to fight the ideology itself as it does to control its symptoms.
Still laughing…
Of course I would call them arsim… just not on a blog, or in writing.
Heh. Your stories make me nostalgic, yet happy to be in America. Someday I’ll tell you about the time I went to hear Kahane and got beaten up by a crowd of ‘those people.’
BTW, hope Israelis are still all happy about that decision not to trade all Hezbollah prisoners are few years ago…. way to go! Yay Israel! I can just feel the plastic hammer on my head….
Besides, Israel has the perfect excuse/reason/pretext at this moment.
Pretext for what? You feel that this crisis is an excuse? An opportunity? Sounds like your overall goal isn’t just deterrence, but destruction.
“Arsim” is not “responsible speech.” The word comed from the arabic for pimp- your translation is inaccurate to the degree it fails to provide the connotation.
We need a mix of hard and soft power. It may be true that the new paradigm is conflict management and not conflict resolution but hence the conflict needs to be managed.
Diplomacy and military power are both important.
And Israel is safe. Don’t dare think of leaving or sending your kids back to the states. Would you do the same with your family? Any organized program is bringing people out of the north. America is full of crime. Over a dozen people have been killed in Washington DC over the past week. More (I think) than have been killed in the entire country of Israel over the same period.
“Pretext for what? You feel that this crisis is an excuse? An opportunity? Sounds like your overall goal isn’t just deterrence, but destruction. ”
Same thing.
Kindly refrain from engaging in destructive ethnic stereoptyping by using the term arsim and mistranslating it as “secular mizrachi youth.” First, most Jews in the world are mizrachim and largely secular, and I doubt the majority of Jewish youth run around “shouting death to Arabs.” If you wouldn’t use ethnic slurs in the US, stop using them against your fellow Jews.
can anyone confirm what it claims these kids are writing on these shells:
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/07/17/photo-of-the-day-israeli-kids-sends-gifts-of-love-to-arab-kids
Dear Lebanese/Palestinian/Arab/Muslim/Christians – Kids,
Die with love.
Yours,
Israeli Kids
I guess it’s not claiming they actually wrote that.
I can’t see anywhere anything about the missiles being addressed to “kids”. it does say “Nasralla”, which i think is justified.
the moderator of Sabbah even says that it doesn’t say
“Dear Lebanese/Palestinian/Arab/Muslim/Christians – Kids…”
on the missiles. but when bloggers are emotional, what can you do.
I remember taking an Egged bus down to Eilat. The scene at the station was pandemonium and was made even worse by the presence of a group of about 8 Mizrachi high school aged boys. They refused to stop smoking and pissed off the bus driver. Once on the bus, they all sat in the back and were extremely noisy. 10 minutes out of Jerusalem they yelled ata guy in a kippah next to me:
“Allo, Kippah? Yesh lechah tfilat ha derech?”
Hey, Kippah dude. Do you have the travel prayer?
He did and lent it to them whereupon they loudly, almost at the top of their lungs, read the prayer. Once over, they all answered “Amen!” in unison. In fact, when I quietly read tefilat haderech, when i finished, they also answered Amen together. During the rest of the trip, they were awful. They smoked and drank and just wouldn’t shut up. The bus had to stop several times, I had to physically threaten a couple of them, it was ugly and unpleasant.
But we did get to Eilat safely. Gotta love that arsim spirit. And I can say arsim because I’m Moroccan. Don’t let me catch any of you vus vus using that term in front of me.