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

Picture: Ynet
With all the ‘combinations’ of precipitation and lower temperatures coming into form, “Jerusalem the Golden” became all white as the winter season’s first snow storm blanked the city with 2 to 3 inches of snow. The snowfall is always a welcome diversion to the city’s children, though more a nuisance to their parents since the municipality announced that schools in the Holy City will be closed on Wednesday due to the Frosty the Snowman’s visit. The snowy weather also reached some higher elevations in the Galilee and really hit the northern Golan Heights, especially the ski site at Mt. Hermon, which had been unused for that purpose so far this year. With a little more snow in next few days, the site will probably be at least partially open to both skiers and people who just want to bring their kids to frolic in the “sheleg” the Hebrew word for snow.

The moisture for both the snow and the rains that have reached Israel is welcome relief to the country’s chronic water problems, and anyone who has visit the Kineret lately must have noticed that the lake level is a bit low – even to the point where fishing boats are sitting in the mud instead of floating in their mooring berths. The lake should receive enough water from both the melting snows on Mr. Hermon and from feeder streams (including the Jordan) to raise the water level at least half a meter. Even so, the lake level will still be about 2 meters below the accepted level to not cause any water shortage problems during the long dry season of April through October.

Not much rain has reached Israel so far this year, and what has arrived previously is far below what the country should have received by late January. Israel’s “rainy season” if one were to call it that, is only from December to March, although some rain does fall occasionally in October and November; and even some freak rain storms come as late as mid May.

But getting back to Jerusalem, a winter snowfall adds a special beauty and charm to an already beautiful and charming city. Seeing pictures of a snowy blanket on the Old City and the Mt. of Olives is especially enchanting, and despite any temporary inconveniences, I’m sure the citizens of Jerusalem will agree. It is written in Jewish daily prayer, referring to God’s divine assistance to the Land of Israel: “Thou causest the winds to blow and the rains to fall”.

8000 Police in the streets
2 Planes
20 Helicopters
8 Limos
5 Cooks
15 Bomb Detection Canine Units
250 Secret Service Agents
200 Government Employees
150 National Security Advisers
50 White House Staff Members
9 Kassam Rockets shot towards the Negev this morning
All Major Highways to Jerusalem Shut Down
All Main Streets in Jerusalem Closed
…..He’s here……

Picture: Ynet News - Chaim Tzach
Israeli athletes and sportsmen may be making big gains abroad, but recent miss-conduct occurrences on the home front is beginning to give local sporting events a very bad P.R. image. Sunday, November 11 was one of the worst days, from a conduct standpoint, in Israeli sporting match history. And coincidentally enough, both incidents involved teams sponsored by the Haopoel Sports Organization.

The first incident occurred during a derby match between the Hapoel and Macabbee Tel Aviv football teams. While always a bit of a bedlam series, Sunday’s match, in which several Haopoel fans ran onto pitch and a variety of smoke bombs and other objects were thrown at the players, ended with Hapoel winning by one point. This might have been end of that problem at this annual rivalry match, except that later that evening, another and even worse incident occurred at a basketball game between Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Holon. With less than two minutes left to play a large firecracker suddenly exploded next to the Hapoel Holon bench, wounding a security guard and blowing off three fingers in front of a shocked stadium. The event was captured on film and plastered on all the major newspapers this morning.

The game was stopped instantly and the outcome of it has been placed in suspension, even though the Jerusalem side was ahead 94-89. Haopoel Jerusalem’s chairman, Danny Klein was furious and announced later that his club will not play another match until the perpetrator is found. Klein even went further and said that if the ones responsible for this act are Hapoel Jerusalem fans he will quit his position with the club. A 20 year old suspect from Holon was arrested on Monday.

Hapoel’s conduct woes don’t stop here. In a football game played in Croatia earlier in the season, Hapoel fans created a disturbance in that match which resulted in the team being censured by the FA Football Federation. The Hapoel organization is not the only one being plagued by problems of gross misconduct on the part of the fans. Only a week ago, fans from the Beitar Jerusalem Football Club created a disturbance during a pre-game memorial ceremony for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. This incident was so disturbing in the minds of many Israelis that the clubs owner, Arkady Gaydamak appeared later on television to try to make amends for the occurrence. For that incident the Beitar team was censored by the Israel Football Federation and forced to play their next two games without spectators.

These and other incidents seem to indicate a disturbing trend in spectator sporting events in Israel. A survey made of people who watch these games, either at the actual match or on television, seem to agree that violence at these events is on the rise and that football matches in particular are no longer considered to be family participation sporting events. It’s a real shame that this appears to be what is unfortunately occurring; and it appears to mirror a personality trend that is happening among a growing segment of the general public. This “trend” is evident from incidents like fights in nightclubs, some of which have resulted in death and personal injury, increased traffic accidents, and increasing use of alcohol and narcotics by minors; just to name a few.

While there may be many reasons for such goings on, that they also have to happen at sporting matches is a very sad and unfortunate thing. If we can’t behave ourselves at these events, how can we behave ourselves in normal day to day activities as well?

I got this cute email for the New Year - the sign says, “My mother stuck me here to wish you a Happy New Year”

Anybody in Israel who watched the news clip a few days ago about the current situation of the fishing industry in Israel, can see that it has definitely seen better days. Shown on Channel 2, the section included interviews with several commercial fishermen at both the Kishon and Jaffa fishing ports, Israel’s two main fishing ports. The story of the fishermen who berth their boats at the heavily polluted Kishon River (pictured) was especially sad as this port used to provide incomes for both Arab and Jewish fishermen who had sailed into the Mediterranean daily for decades, and perhaps hundreds of years, to catch a variety of fish that were sold in open air fish markets in both Haifa and Acre.

Those few remaining “Diagim” (fisherman) said that their daily catches are now a fraction of what they were even 20 years ago, when fishing was still an economically worthwhile endeavor. Even the types of fish being caught are fewer and fewer, and due to the dangers of the pollution literally pouring into the Kishon from both industrial and municipal waste are making the remaining fish unsafe to eat. It’s understandable that anything being caught in Haifa Bay is contaminated, due to the ‘pristine’ waters of the Kishon flowing into the Mediterranean containing high levels of chemical and metallic substances, including mercury, lead, arsenic, cyanide, and a number of petroleum based pollutants, as well as pesticides. All of these pollutants are in addition to ‘normal’ river pollutants such as detergents, human sewage, and other ‘lovely’ substances such as wastes from food and beverage processing plants.

The situation at the Old Jaffa Port, one of the oldest fishing ports in the world still in operation, is not much better. This port, which has been in existence for perhaps 3,000 years, used to support a large number of families living in historic Jaffa; now a part of metro Tel Aviv. Though there is not the Kishon River to contend with, there is a serious pollution problem from both the Yarkon river, in North Tel Aviv, as well as wholesale dumping of sewage and other pollutants into the Mediterranean from industries who connect their waste piping to the already overloaded municipal sewage disposal network, with frequent disastrous results. Many of the fishing boats in this port sit sadly moored to their pier, and wholesale fish markets located nearby offer less and less varieties of sea fish, with much of their offerings consisting of pond raised fish such as carp, grey mullet, and St. Peters fish (also called ‘musht’ or Amnon).

Even local sport fisherman are complaining that they do not catch nearly what could be found by fishing off the quays and jetties of both Jaffa and Haifa; not to mention numerous locations along Israel’s long Mediterranean seacoast. Many species of fish that were once quite common are now rarely seen or have disappeared altogether.

To combat the substantial decrease of fish along Israel’s seacoast, Ministry of Agriculture and Nature Protection authorities are seriously considering placing a one or two year moratorium on commercial fishing; or until the numbers of local salt water fish can recuperate themselves. This might be a partial solution; but what really needs to be done is find better ways to combat the pollution in a body of water that is almost completely enclosed; and whose only link to the Atlantic Ocean is the very narrow Straits of Gibraltar, making the Mediterranean one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world. Though Israel isn’t entirely responsible for the marked decrease in the “Med’s” marine life, Israeli authorities, and the general public, are responsible for the amount of pollutants which are dumped daily into the sea.

There has to be some way for both Israel and other nations who share sea coasts on the Mediterranean to find ways to restore this body of water to what it was in former years. The fishing dilemmas that our country faces is no less urgent than other Mediterranean countries as we’re all fishing in the same ‘pond’.

Tourism posters for Israel that have adorned the London Underground for the past few months – obviously targeting the male traveler!

This is a cute picture from AFP that caught my eye. An Iraqi kid washing a US jeep in Baakuba. It’s very very hot these days in the Middle East and so every picture which shows water and someone cooling down gets attention (even if its a Hummer)..

On a happier note for Iraqis the gunfire heard there today was actually a good thing:

“celebratory gunfire resounded across Baghdad and revelers poured into the streets after Iraq beat Saudi Arabia to clinch its first Asian Cup soccer championship on Sunday while mosques broadcast calls for the shooting to stop.” “Those heroes have shown the real Iraq. They have done something useful for the people as opposed to the politicians and lawmakers who are stealing or killing each other,” said Sabah Shaiyal, a 43-year-old policeman in Baghdad. “The players have made us proud, not the greedy politicians. Once again, our national team has shown that there is only one, united Iraq.” CNN

Mazal Tov

Moshik’s View of the recent G4 summit..

“Me and Mr. Putin agreed that the solution for Global Warming is a return to the Cold War”

Last Monday afternoon thousands of people were expected to gather in one big hug of love around the Old City of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, though, I don’t really think there were several thousand people who showed up - it seemed more like several hundred to me - but we still evoked stares and curiosity from passers-by. It was a touchy-feely type of thing, a truly spiritual experience, and those who prefer and are used to angry, violent, political demonstrations (which is just WAY too many people) seemed to stay away.

Most of the day, starting from around 12 noon, people of all religions, all “types”, young and old (I’m talking from infants to some incredibly adorable elders who appeared to be in their 80’s or even 90’s), gathered on the luscious, green lawn of Hutzot Hayotzer in preparation for the historic event. Those hours of preparation proved to be no less mystical and significant than the “Hug” itself. It was sort of like Woodstock all over again (only minus the hundreds of thousands of people and the hallucinative drugs).

These people didn’t need the drugs. Some of them were on that “natural, spiritual high” that you hear so much about and can only dream of one day reaching: true ecstasy from a higher level of consciousness - while all the rest were simply high on life. Most of the hours were spent making music, singing, dancing, meditating, practicing capoeira, laughing, smiling and just plain and simple “being”. Oh, and there was hugging. Lots and lots of spontaneous hugging everywhere I looked.

Love was truly in the air. And so was peace, enlightenment and a true and passionate hope for a better world.

Of course, the police were all prepared for the event and were circling the area with weapons in hand. But they, too, were occasionally caught smiling to themselves, observing the serene moment, only to catch themselves in time and keep “doing their jobs”.

At around 5:00 pm, we all set out to circle the Old City, following the beats of the drums which led us, and gathering curious pedestrians along the way. Im not going to get into the Hug itself because no words can describe the sensation you get when you suddenly find yourself One with the people around you, One with the ancient historic walls, One with the world, One with the Universe… One with God. You just simply cannot describe that kind of silence.

Ok, so you might think that all of this is nonsense, or you might think that we are all wackos for choosing to participate in such an event.

But I can tell you one thing I now know for sure:

When you hug the beautiful city of Jerusalem - Jerusalem hugs you back.

Sad but true. Finally Ismail Haniyeh and Abu Mazen are meeting….Moshik! had this