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

While the Democratic Party Presidential candidate race still appears to be a close call, the Republican one has formed ranks around U.S. Senator John McCain from Arizona. McCain, who is a former U.S. Navy pilot and prisoner of war, Also contended for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2007, before losing to U.S. President George W. Bush. Now that McCain is the definite GOP choice for the presidency, many Jews, both in America and in Israel, wonder how the 4 term senator’s policies will be towards Israel.

McCain comes from a family of professional naval officers, and both his father and grandfather were naval admirals. His own military record, largely centered around his experiences during the Vietnam War, is exemplary with his receiving virtually every distinguished service award except the Congressional Medal of Honor. His five and half years of captivity in what became known as the “Hanoi Hilton” resulted in his having serious physical limitations, including not being able to comb his hair. This hasn’t limited his ability, nor his desire to lead his country in the capacity of Commander in Chief.

Though his official policies toward Israel are still to be unveiled, his private feelings have been expressed on several occasions, including a speech he made in St. Louis during the time of the 2006 war in Lebanon:

“My dear friends, you have probably seen our European friends say, ‘Well, the Israelis have got to stop.’ But what would we do if somebody came across our borders and killed our soldiers and captured our soldiers? Do you think we would be exercising total restraint?”

If one were to examine John McCain’s military service record, in which he flew more than 27 combat missions against the North Vietnamese, it is easy to see that he has more military experience than any U.S. President since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

McCain, probably more even than President Bush, appreciates the fight against terrorism and aggression by totalitarian Middle Eastern countries that Israel has been involved in since it’s inception in 1948. His five and a half years as a POW in North Vietnam, much of it involving torture that contributed to the his disabilities, also gives him great sympathy towards the families of Israeli solders who have been captured by Israel’s adversaries, including the Palestinians and the Hezbollah.. McCain is considered to be a “hawk” in regards to his feelings towards containing foreign aggression, which is another reason why he is surely an admirer of Israeli military actions against people who are also enemies of the USA.

And judging from his remarks concerning the situation in Iraq, and of course his own personal experiences as a POW, he’s not likely to have much sympathy towards organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah.

Taking these factors into account, John McCain will certainly have Israel’s strategic security problems on his agenda should he be elected president in the upcoming elections in November.

Remember this guy? He used to be President of the State of Israel, who resigned his position lest than a month before his term was to officially end. That’s right, he’s none other than Moshe Katsav, now private citizen Katsav, whose legal consuls appeared in court today in order for the Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz (to determine whether the former President should actually face charges for a number of sexual related crimes, including rape.

The issue centered around six petitions that had been presented in order to convince Mazuz to cancel the plea bargaining agreement made last July with Katsav in which he would formerly resign the Presidency, be given a one year suspended sentence and pay a fine of NS 50,000 to the women he has been accused of harming. Beinish upheld Maziz’s agreement with Katsav, which dropped virtually all the serious allegations against Katsav including at least two allegations of rape. These include the ones by the lady known as “A” who claims he had his way with her during the period she worked for him in the Tourism Ministry office.

Katsav had been suspended from formerly serving the last six months of his presidency, and Knesset speaker Dalia Itzick had filled in for him in this post until the new president, Shimon Peres, took office in July, 2007. Beinish was reported to have been in favor of at least two of the petitions, but in the end, a majority of the Justices voted to uphold the plea bargaining agreement. There still appears to be an air of questionability concerning the entire issue, and in the end, Katsav appears to have had more influence in having his way than the women he is accused of having indecent relationships with, who tried to get organizations like the Rape Crises Center on their side.

All this goes to show is that men still have the edge over women in Israel when it comes to sexually related crimes; especially if the perpetrator happens to be a government official. The Haim Ramon case is a good example of this kind of situation as Ramon not only got off very lightly for his advances to a female Army officer, but is even back in the government. Katsav appearing in court might have proven to be too much of an embarrassment to the government and this is part of the reason why the decision appears to have been made to shelve the issue, especially since Katsav would have bought many people to court, including members of his own family to act as character witnesses on his behalf. Requiring the former President’s alleged victims to “take the stand” might have been too much of an embarrassment as well. The moral to this story is that, in Israel anyway, it’s still a man’s world.

Finally, the voting of the Hollywood Film Arts Academy is in and the Israeli movie Beaufort didn’t win the Oscar. Losing out to another foreign language film entitled The Counter Fitters, many members of the Israeli film arts industry are perhaps a bit disappointed that this movie, based on the experiences of an IDF combat unit in a bunker atop the ancient Lebanese Crusader fortress of Beaufort, didn’t result in Producer David Silver and Director Joseph Cedar mounting the stage for the first time to give their acceptance speech for the coveted award.

Or, was perhaps losing the Oscar really a blessing in disguise?

The film was produced in 2007 following the book written by Ron Leshem, as is based on true experiences of members of some of Israeli’s top Golani Brigade solders who were literally holed up in a number of bunkers along the ten kilometer “security zone” that Israel held onto for nearly 20 years following the 1982 Peace for Galilee operation, otherwise known as the 1st Lebanese War. Their experiences, followed by the decision by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak to pull all Israeli troops out of Lebanon is a move still being criticized by many in Israel to this day, and rejoiced by many others; especially the families of the soldiers who lost many of their comrades during the final months until the pull back in May, 1999.

Since the film’s script does not portray Israel combat soldiers as the strong, courageous soldiers that used to be appropriate metaphors for the Israeli Defense Forces, winning an Academy Award for a portrayal of a top military combat unit cast in an entirely different light, might have only put “salt on the wound” of a still festering sore. This insight is also very plausible in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanese II war in which Israeli combat units, particularly reserve units were sent into southern Lebanon in the final 48 hours of the war without adequate training and equipment, including basic combat rations and even fresh water.

In a way, in many Israeli peoples’ minds, the fact that this film didn’t win may be better in the long run as present top IDF officers, including the new Chief of Staff, are trying to upgrade and improve the IDF’s image; not only to Israel’s enemies, but to Israeli citizens themselves. Any acclaim over winning an Oscar, despite what it could have done to bolster the local film industry, might wind up doing more harm than good to the country’s national image; an image that Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, repeatedly castigates as being severely weakened in the aftermath of both the 1999 re-engagement and Lebanon II.

This year’s Academy Awards presentation ended with a number of lesser known actors winning the top awards, including best actor and actress. There was some respite for Jews living in Israel and elsewhere when the Cohen brothers won the awards for Best Director and Best Picture. That’s nothing new, as Jews has been very dominant in the Hollywood film industry almost since it’s beginning in the 1920’s.

As for disappointed Israeli actors and film moguls, there’s always next year; and perhaps they can come up with some film subject matter that is a bit less controversial.

The Dollar is up a little today to 3.63 Shekel/Dollar after Stanly Fischer, in what some call a bold move, reduced the interest rates by 0.5% to 3.75%. But take a look at this graph, this is what’s it been doing in the last 12 months…

This has had significant effects on local business, especially if you’re doing any sort of international sales and need to manufacture here and sell abroad. The difference can amount to a drop in 30% in the net revenue, in some case more.

Let’s hope today’s up swing continues…

Snow has not been a word in my vocabulary for about ten years. The only use I’ve ever had for snow was for skiing, which is one thing about America that I truly miss. Other than skiing, its only been a nuisance at best and plain awful at worst.

However, since all this time has past, snow for me has become more of a distant relative who I don’t get to see again and quite frankly, wish to only see in a photo album as opposed to having over for coffee and cake. Yet, in the past ten years sometimes I envision memories I have from years ago growing up on the beach block on Beach 130th Street in Belle Harbor, Queens, NY. One pleasant memory was fresh snowfall in the middle of the night. The air was soft and cold and the sky was a deep purple. The snow, fresh and virgin - no footprints or tracks in it. I remember staring at it from my front porch. It has a silver hue to it in the moonlight. Thousands of layers of sparkling flakes that reflected back upwards gave me the notion that diamonds had to be buried beneath the top layers of snow. Breathing in the cold, soft air was so soothing. It was almost Divine.

So, three weeks ago, for the first time in ten years, I experienced snow. I was in Jerusalem and late for rehearsal. Being no stranger to Jerusalem, I felt like a tourist once again. My eyes were nearly stretching out of my head and marveling at the white football pitch at Gan Sacher and the snow hanging from roofs, balconies and mountain tops. I couldn’t help but be excited while at the same time feeling like a hypocrite because I kept on repeating, “I hate snow! I hate snow! I HATE SNOW”!!

After parking my car, I deliberately stomped into a slush puddle (G-d how I HATED those) and cold wet seeped into my shoes. That familiar cold, wet feeling embraced my feet and I only starting craving a huge mug of “Swiss Miss Instant Hot Coco”. (NOT available in Israel - I assure you).

Before I got to the building where the theater company I was working with rehearsed, I turned around, sighed and thought, “it really isn’t that bad seeing you again”.

in Wikipedia the meaning of Demagogue is;

“a political strategy for obtaining and gaining political power by appealing to the popular prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist or populist themes.”

In Israel it’s;

Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert has announced a new plan to bring Israeli and Diaspora Jewish communities closer together. The plan, announced at a special meeting held in the P.M.’s office last Wednesday, involved the establishment of a special tack force to devote itself to helping to bridge the present gap between Jewish communities in the Diaspora, especially in America, and Jews living in Israel. Recent findings that young Jews living abroad are becoming alienated from their Israeli brethren have become more evident in the decline of Jewish visitors to Israel, as well as the numbers of Jews who come to settle in the Jewish State.

“U.S. Jewry is in a crises due to a decrease in Jewish education and identity which is resulting in increased intermarriage and decreasing support for pro-Israel organizations. This is being especially felt in the decrease of donations on behalf of Israel” said an official in the Prime Ministers Office.

Indeed, young American Jews who are under increasing financial pressures, seem to be more concerned with their own well being now days. American Jews in particular do not like having their religion forced upon them like it is in Israel where national policy dictates nearly everything from education to national holidays. Some progress has been made concerning bringing young American Jews to visit Israel, including the very successful Birthright Program; and immigration programs like Nefesh b’Nefesh are not only bringing North Americans, but British and French Olim as well on assisted settlement programs. But in regards to the sheer numbers of American Jews who still have never even visited Israel, these programs has only scratched the surface of these Diaspora communities.

In order to make these plans work, the task force is planning to stage more joint cultural and education projects between the two communities including the establishment of an on-line “Jewish University” that will give Diaspora students academic credits in Jewish Studies at Israeli universities and other academic institutions. The creation of new Jewish organizations are also planned to go beyond the activities of current ones such as the World Jewish Congress and World Zionist Organization.

“Until now, the Jews in the Diaspora invested in Israel; now it’s time for us to “invest” in assisting Jewish Culture abroad” the official said.

Many following Barack Obama’s campaign to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination may still be wondering if the junior senator from Illinois knows much about Israel and the overall problems facing the Jewish State in the Middle East. It now turns out that Obama visited Israel not long after beginning his Senatorial term in 2006. And from what was said afterwards, he not only was very impressed by what he saw here, but he himself left a very good impression on everyone he met during his five day stay.

Obama came here with a delegation from the Chicago Jewish Federation, which included Michael C. Kotzin, Executive Vice President of the federation. In order to give the senator an understanding of the situation on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, he and his delegation were taken to a small Christian Arab village named Fassouta, which is located less than a kilometer from the actual border fence. The village was selected for this visit due to the Chicago Federation’s sponsoring of a project together with the Catholic community of Chicago to equip the schools of this village with computers and other electronic equipment. Obama was introduced to the town’s mayor, Dr. George Ayoub, who had no idea at that time that Obama would one day be running for President. Ayoub said later that he was very impressed by the U.S. Senator, who asked a lot of questions concerning the situation of Ayoub’s village in respect to being a minority Christian Arab village sandwiched between majority Jewish Israeli population and a majority Muslim Lebanese population.

Ayoub’, together with most of the town’s 3,000 population are Roman Catholic, and this seemed to be of great interest to Obama who is Protestant and attended a Catholic school for a time when young. Ayoub also said that Senator Obama said that he is interested a establishing a dialog between peoples of different religions in order help bring about peace. Obama told Ayoub that “in order to remove our problems, we have to sit at the table and talk about peace.” Obama addressed a town meeting in which he talked about “peace with security” for all the peoples of the region.

Obama was also impressed concerning how the villagers of Fassouta got along with a Jewish village named Ma’aleh Yosef, which is located nearby. In fact a number of girls from both villages participated jointly in a dance program put on in Obama’s honor.

Obama also visited several other place in Israel including a school that had a large number of Ethiopian Jewish students attending, and this impressed him very much. Seeing the results of the 2006 war in Lebanon seemed to have an impact on Obama, as he was able to see the situation while the “wounds” were still fresh.

All in all, the general impression was that Barack Obama came away very impressed with Israel and its people, and this resulted in his saying that Israel is very important to America and therefore is deserving of American support. Should he be elected President, his trip here will most likely influence his foreign policy guidelines, which he is still in the process of formatting. Although Barack Obama still has a lot to learn in the realm of foreign affairs, he seems more than willing to learn and appears to be a very good listener.

Okay, so just to be fair this is Obama’s speech in Texas after winning the Wisconsin Primary… Looks like he’s the man to beat and that won’t be easy. A friend asked me what I know about him and honestly not that much. I guess its time for a more in depth piece …. Stay tuned.