1989

Interview: 21 Years in Israel (4)

[-Tell me your impressions of where you live now. Can you tell me something about the ethnic situation there?]

As for the North African and former kibbutz member population, it seems to me that there are only vestiges left. When I moved here eight years ago, it was often said that many veteran residents had left. So the Russian influence is very strong,especially in neighborhood and specialty food stores.

There is a community of Ethiopian immigrants, but not very big. As far as I know, there are two groups, Amharic and Geez. From personal experience, I know that they don't like to be confused with each other. But, have to admit that I've never been able to discern what the difference is. In general, the Ethiopian community here in this small Negev town seems very different from people I knew in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Ethiopian community was a lot more varied - educated, professional as well as village people. Here the Ethiopian community seems older and less absorbed.

-As a person of African descent yourself, how has this affected your experience?

My African descent is a very interesting point. And that's where attitudes and prejudices diverge from American ones. On the surface, Ethiopians would often expect me to identify with them. As a Black American, I naturally felt obliged. But as expected, we had little in common and had to struggle to find a common ground. Israelis, on the other hand, after picking up my American accent, immediately related to us differently - the color was more a 'cosmetic' issue for Israelis. That goes for any Israeli perceptions of me and any persons of African descent. Here's a great example:

When I first came to Israel, I was a permanent resident for several years. Just as I'd decided to change my status to new immigrant, my father passed away in the USA so I went right away to the States. As fate would have it, my residency papers expired while there, but of course I still had an American passport. When I returned to Israel, found myself going through immigration at the same time as a young Nigerian man. Immigration could see from my passport that I'd been here several years and of course I showed them the expired residency papers & explained the situation in grammatically correct Hebrew. The immigration official then moved on to the Nigerian man, who spoke no Hebrew, followed his request in English to enter on a tourist visa as best he could, then called a supervisor. I explained my story again in Hebrew, the supervisor gave the officer a strange look, and asked in Hebrew, 'What's the problem? Let her in.' The Nigerian man was sent away. Never did find out what the issue was with him, probably fear of an illegal worker.

A personal note on the ethnic thing. Since coming to Israel, I've often been in work situations with immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Since we both grew up during and have memories of the Cold War years, we often start to compare notes. I've come to the conclusion that this 'neurosis' about being taken over or outdone has given us a lot in common regarding work ethic and a systemic approach to work and problem solving. More often than not, I've felt that we focus on achieving a particular goal, logical thinking and consistency. Israelis, at least from my point of view, focus more on the 'hevrey', the esprit de corp. Have to admit that I've never mastered the art of following Israeli logic. But can usually follow the logic Russian immigrants. Maybe we were two sides of the same coin after all.

Godwin's Chosen People

Al-Monitor:

A new “silencing bill” (a series of laws issued by Netanyahu’s governmental majority seeking to limit the rights of the press, the Supreme Court and the Arab minority in Israel) was to be raised for discussion Wednesday, May 30 in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. There are in fact four different bills submitted by Knesset members from Kadima, Ha'ihud Ha'Leumi (the National Union, an alliance of nationalist parties) and Ha'Bayit Ha'Yehudi (the Jewish Home, a new right-wing national religious Zionist party). All these bills, although variously formulated, propose that under various conditions, the use of Nazi or Holocaust-related symbols be deemed a criminal offense entailing imprisonment. In addition, some of the proposals seek to ban the use of the term "Nazi," defined as the word "Nazi," including all its inflections, as well as any term related to Nazism, the Third Reich regime in Germany or any of its leaders or any word sounding similarly to the word "Nazi," used because of such similarity. ...

Mead on German - Russian Relations

Via Meadia:

Putin is certainly likely to enjoy some geopolitical benefits as the European Union writhes in its currency woes. But it takes more than weakened neighbors to make a great power. Putin’s Russia is essentially a limited and secondary power in the sense that its own wealth depends large on the prosperity of others. If the world economy slows, the price of oil and gas fall, and the position of whoever rules Russia weakens. The EU might suffer in such a scenario but Russia’s ability to capitalize on its neighbors’ distress will be limited by its own financial weakness. ...

Happy Birthday, Stephanie

Astronomy

The stars, they are not stars
when you look up;
they are not rocks, but bits of light,
holes in the earth-cloth,
light shining through, like black paper
pin-punched, held up to the sun.
You are not you,
not even a star;
you are a hole through which
I see only shining. I can not guess
the source of the light.
There is a beyond, beyond the cloth-skin,
but so hard to reach,
like touching stars.

Stephanie McLintock 1964 - 1992

"All or Nothing": Puyallup Parents vs. CAIR

Flame

This week, the Russian firm Kaspersky disclosed the existence of a massive computer virus, dubbed Flame, more powerful than Stuxnet and infecting computers around the Middle East, particularly in Iran. Here's a roundup of what we know so far.

Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon hinted that Israel might have had a hand in the creation of Flame. 'Asked about the attack, Ya'alon told IDF Radio: "Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a meaningful threat – it is reasonable he would take various measures, including this one."'

Now the New York Times reports that President Obama ordered an escalation of cyber attacks against Iran begun by President Bush. According to the Times report, the project was codenamed Olympic Games.

Flame was written in LUA, the same language used to create the popular Angry Birds game.

Flame is described as enormously powerful and large, containing some 250,000 lines of code, making it far larger than other such cyberweapons. Yet it was built with gamer code, said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force Intelligence officer who now consults in the national security arena.

“The people who developed the malware … found an ingenious way to use a code not part and parcel of a hacker’s normal arsenal, and that made it harder to detect,” he told Fox News.

But this new weapon is twenty times the size of earlier cyberbombs and far more powerful, making it practically an army on its own, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher with Kaspersky Labs. ...

Mikko Hypponen: Why we missed it.



DIL2 posted about Flame / Olympic Games in today's Morning Report.

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Leaves Space Station

... and heads home.

UPDATE: Splashdown!

Interview: 21 Years in Israel (3)

-What were the factors that prompted you to leave Jerusalem?

To put it simply, meltdown! Financial, health, just being fed up with the stress. The intifada of the early 2000's didn't help either. I'm a desert rat by nature, so the Negev was always a consideration. When I lived in Jerusalem, I'd sometimes just hop a bus & to this town and walk around for an hour or so to chill out & breathe some desert air.

I'd taken a very good computer applications course through the Ministry of Employment in 2003-04. The course was in Hebrew, but as a native English speaker, I've been able to continue to add to my skill set. At the time, had planned to come back to the USA. But the health care/social support system is much more developed here in spite of the the fact that day to day life is much less convient and comfortable. There is more of safety net here. In the long run it's easier to maintain one's health and well-being and continue to work. There's no comparable system in the USA. As an ageing Boomer this scares me terribly. I'd like nothing more than to be able to come back home and be near family. Maybe I'll be able to swing it one day. Believe me, I'm not the only American who feels this way.

-Tell me your impressions of where you live now. Can you tell me something about the ethnic situation there?

The day-to-day here is in a word, quiet routine. Our sleepy Negev town is relatively new. So, it's well-planned, very pleasant and convenient to walk around. The original settlers were North African immigrants, and former kibbutz members. Now 40% of the residents are immigrants from the former Soviet Union, a large number of the mature set. So Russian is commonly spoken & used on signage.

I used to get annoyed by the prevalence of Russian, but now take it in stride. Hey, they're fellow olim (immigrants to Israel), so we're really in the same boat in some ways.

There are a few English speakers, Americans, English, Canadian. Many of the veteran residents have moved away or passed on. They were a rather tight-knit group, so I never got to know them very well. With all that, I do have a few friends among the English speakers.

Totten: Where the Arab Spring Began

Michael Totten has a sobering post on his recent visit to Kasserine, Tunisia:

“Are you Zionists?”

My colleague Armin Rosen and I were supposed to be conducting the interview. Instead, we were put on the defensive before we could even ask our first question.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Nope,” Armin said. “I don’t have a Zionist bone in my body.”

We were at the headquarters for the UGGT, Tunisia’s biggest labor union, in the small city of Kasserine just down the road from Sidi Bouzid where the revolution—and the region-wide Arab Spring generally—began at the tail end of 2010 when fruit vendor Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest crooked and onerous government regulation.

Four men sat in the union office with us. Armin and I wanted to hear about what happened in the early days of the revolt against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s autocratic regime, but they were in no mood to share such information with Zionists.

Our translator Ahmed Medien, a young and—shall we say—more cosmopolitan journalist based in the capital, Tunis, sat with us.

“What if we were Zionists?” I said, directing my question to Ahmed as much as to our interlocutors.

“They wouldn’t talk to you,” he said. ...

And it goes downhill from there. Not to be missed.

Virgin Galactic Gets Experimental FAA Permit

Via Instapundit, FAA grants experimental permit to Virgin Galactic:

Virgin Galactic says it expects to make rocket-powered test flights of its passenger spaceship later this year.

The company said Wednesday its spaceship builder partner has been granted an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration - a move that will allow it to proceed with powered flights. ...

Interview: 21 Years in Israel (2)

[Interview with Paula Gaon, part 2.]

-I am interested in your take on the recent events in the Negev and South TA.

OK, my take on recent events in the Negev & South Tel Aviv. I take it you're referring to incidents involving refugees/immigrants from Sudan. In all honesty, I have not been following the news closely. And when I do catch snippets on the radio, can't help but wonder how accurate the stories are. Also, since I live in the Negev, don't have much feeling for the reality in Tel Aviv. But will give you a few impressions.

From what I see here in this little Negev town, most Sudanese are young men, some with families. From the hours they come and go & the buses they take, looks like they are working in service jobs at the Dead Sea, probably hotels and food services - not jobs people are anxious to take. I have no idea what percentage are employed, or if employed how legal it is. At any given time of day, young men are hanging around the downtown area and in apartment residential areas. But in all honesty, have no idea if they are employed or work night shifts.

When the Sudanese first came here about three years ago, people were suspicious and wondered if they were really refugees or illegals fleeing an awful situation. It looks like some have left, either sent back or decided to go back. But now I get the feeling, at least here, that on the whole, they are hardly noticed. My personal theory is that since this town is more than 40% immigrants, most from the former Soviet Union, residents feel more empathy with people who, for whatever reason, have been displaced.

As you can imagine, Tel Aviv is much more upscale than any town in the Negev. There are a lot more people with a lot more money, more upscale hotels and places of entertainment, more places that would require low-wage employment. The neighborhoods where the African refugees live, as far as I know, have always been poor Israeli neighborhoods with the reputation that many poor neighborhoods have. Get the picture? It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see the potential for some serious friction.

According to news reports, African residents were attacked by young Israelis. Having worked in the school system, I'm not surprised by this. From my experience, politically correct has taken a strange twist here. Schools, for whatever reason, do not teach or enforce the idea of appropriate behaviour in the appropriate place. The idea of impulse control and expressing one's self inteligently, refraining from insults or attacks was not consistently taught or enforced. I've even heard Israelis aged 50 and above say the same. Why this has come to be - can't tell you exactly. But have gotten the feeling that this is a result of tensions in Israeli society among the different Jewish ethnic groups and has caused a kind of 'despair' regarding matters of discipline in the educational system. Nobody wants a fight, or risk an accusation of being against any Jewish ethnic group, so those in the educational system walk on eggs and make excuses.

In any case, it's terribly embarassing. Of course the USA has severly criticized Israel's racism. How soon they forget... But we do expect more from the Jewish State.

OK, now back to why I came to the Negev. It's very simple, actually. I've just always dug the Negev, Here's an interesting piece of trivia my town is almost the same latitude as Tucson.

On a more serious note, I moved to Jerusalem for perceived job opportunity. But personally, I find Jerusalem unlivable. It's terribly expensive. The cheaper areas are far flung, requiring long, nerve-racking bus trips - cars cost 4 times US price. And the security issues are abssolutely grinding. The Negev is cleaner, cheaper, and low-stress. I have a higher quality of life for a little less money.

***