Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and Photos

We went for a few days to a romantic weekend in the North of Israel. We had a great time, met some good people and saw some beautiful places.

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The 17th Maccabiah games (AKA. Jewish Olympics) started this week, an event that happens every 4 years. Over 7,000 athletes from 55 countries will participate in the events. The ceremony was impressive, big, colorful and uniquely Israeli, a real world class events with a reported 30,000 in attendance. Run loosely along Olympic guidelines, the 11-day event includes athletics, swimming, football and tennis as well as lawn bowls, chess, bridge, netball and cricket.

The opening ceremonies were attended by senior members of government, all sitting behind bulletproof glass, of course. Sharon in his address basically tried to encourage Aliyah (a permanent return to Israel) and took the opportunity to blatantly tell the athletes to basically stick around when the games are all done. There is traditionally a certain percentage of athletes that remains after these events and the big man was trying his best convince them to stay.

And now for something completely out there, Shas Party (the main religious party) Chairman, Eli Yishai, attacked the 17th Maccabiah management for desecrating Shabbat by requiring personnel to work on Saturday to prepare for the dress rehearsal of the opening ceremony. He said their actions were a “disgrace” that crossed red lines. Yishai said a worker told him he and his friends had to start preparing for Saturday night’s dress rehearsal before the end of Shabbat.

The worker refused to reveal his identity out of fear they would lose their jobs. Funnily enough it seems that this employee would rather keep his Shabat desecrating job then quit though - interesting. Maccabiah spokespeople responded by saying, “We would be happy to see Yishai among the Knesset Members and government ministers that will partake in this international event.”, in short telling Yishai to take a flying leap.

Unfortunately, the next day after the opening ceremonies a suicide bomber drove into the center of Netanyah, approximately 35 minutes from Tel Aviv, blowing up, killing 4 women and wounding 90 people. The blast took place outside a busy downtown shopping mall.
An hour earlier, the Dutch soccer team attending the Maccabiah games left that same mall for soccer practice. The team is staying at a local Netanyah hotel and after the blast several team members said they wanted to go home. Several forum posts on local news sites suggested the players try London..

Their team manager said, “Most of our players are in shock, and we do not know how they will deal with it. Most of them want to leave Israel as soon as possible, because they are not used to such a thing. I will try to convince them to stay for the games, but it is their individual decision.”

And in all this, a truly great story, an Israeli Arab teenage girl from the town of Sakhnin became one of the first medalists in this year’s Maccabiah Games with a victory in the women’s 200-meter breastroke in the Wingate Institute pool, causing a wave of pride in her father, family and community.

Halaj Shahada, proud father of Asala, 17, said there would be celebrations in Sakhnin following her gold medal win. “The Maccabiah belongs not only to all the Jews, but also to all the Israelis, and I am a proud Israeli,” Asala said.

Israeli Olympics, never a dull moment.

This is an interesting one. An article in “Yediot Ahronot” today was about a report by the Environmental Protection Office in Israel, warning of a potential health hazard brought about as a result of the collapse of water purification plants in several local municipalities.

The report warns that a significant number of water purification plants are on the verge of shut down and that 10 of them have already stopped operating. The reason, local municipalities are not transferring the necessary funds for the operation and maintenance of these facilities, as required by law.
The result is that sewer water is being recycled back into the drinking water reserves and finally the taps at home. Yummy !

Dr. Yael Mason of the Environmental Protection Office claims “an ecological disaster may occur as a result of the flow of millions of cubic meters of sewer water into the Kineret (sea of Galilee) and sources of the Yarkon, potentially causing the pollution of drinking and fresh water sources”.

The report mentions 10 water purification plants that are collapsing or have collapsed due to unpaid financial obligations by the local municipalities.

The ministry of the Interior responded yesterday by saying that based under legal advisement, the ministry can’t force local municipalities to pay their debt to purification plants by holding back their budgets. The Environmental Protection Office can sue and fine the local municipalities that will cause them to improve their payment and fiscal responsibility.

Interesting….you would think that if the local municipalities had any fiscal responsibility to begin with the water purification plants would still be working. Suing the municipalities sounds expensive; I guess there goes the budget of the Environmental Protection Office.

Original article written by Nurit Palter for “Yediot Ahronot“.

These are selected excerpts from an article written by Johann Hari on his blog. Johann is an award winning journalist and play write, he has written for The Independent, the New York Times, CNN and many other intenrational publications. He is also the contributing editor for Attitude (Britain’s main gay magazine) as well as being on the editorial board of The Liberal and other UK publications.

I headed for the East London Mosque – a few minutes’ walk away from the bomb in Aldgate – to watch afternoon prayers. In the stark white prayer hall, there are three hundred Muslim men, some wearing traditional white robes, others in leather jackets and jeans. Chairman Mohammed Bari reaches the podium and says, “Only yesterday, we celebrated getting the Olympics for our city and our country. But a terrible thing happened in our country this morning… Whoever has done this is a friend of no-one and certainly not a friend of Muslims. The whole world will be watching us now. We must give a message of peace”.

As everybody mills outside the mosque, there are groups forming to go and give blood at the Royal London Hospital up the road. Many people make a point of smiling at me, an obvious non-Muslim in their midst. There is an awareness here – although not yet in the rest of the country – that the Bin Ladenists who planned these massacres despise democratic, non-violent Muslims who choose to live in the West as much as they despise the rest of us. Anybody who tells you these bombers are fighting for the rights of Muslims in Iraq, occupied Palestine or Chechnya should look at the places they chose to bomb. Aldgate? The poorest and most Muslim part of the country. Edgware Road? The centre of Muslim and Arab life in London and, arguably, Europe.

This is not a fight between Muslims and the rest of us. It is a civil war within Islam, between democratic Muslims and Wahhabi fundamentalists who want to enslave or kill them. Yassin Dijali, 31, says, “It could have been our children on those trains too. This is where we belong. These people are insane.”

Like Henry, I’ll see you all on the tubes and on the buses Monday morning.

It’s all over the news and I have been watching Sky today and getting the media’s official coverage of events. Interesting people the English. Strong in a polite sort of way. The official death count is 50, 4 attacks on 3 tubes and a bus. A severe hit for a large metropolitan and mostly because of the psychology and stress involved with these attacks. The real “value” for the terror organizations is the disruption of daily life, and I think that for the most part they have failed in London.
I was very impressed by the calm and order that were visible in the streets in the following 24 hours. No crowds or disruptions to the police and an overall sense of cool control. Cool customers these British and good for them. Well handled.

As someone who has lived through a long period of urban terror, its not easy to keep daily life moving along. I spoke to several friends living in London in the hours following the attacks and they were most of all surprised. I think that locals were in a way better prepared. They seemed to have an idea that this was coming and almost knew to expect it. Foreigners working in London were surprised this could happen in a city like London. That sort of raises another thought. Have people living in large cities become the new front line warriers in this world?