it's been a while... again

I've been meaning to post on this blog for months now, and I have no excuse now. Time spent watching Law & Order: Los Angeles can be better used sharing the gems I find online with you.

It's been over a year now, and I'm not any closer to some sense of fulfillment. Returning to Australia from Israel has been difficult, and reentering the Melbourne lifestyle was a rocky adjustment. But now that Superman Cohen and I have finally moved out to our own place, our married life can really begin.

So let's get on to it then. Don't let me fall under a rock again, y'hear?

Meet Tarek Fatah

Hat tip - Israel Matzav (Carl in Jerusalem)

Geopolitical scrimmage over Israel’s Gas Bonanza

An article I wrote a couple months ago... long before we knew how the balance of power will shift and its effects on the region's energy resources. Enjoy...

In an ironic twist of fate, Israel could perhaps become a major Middle East energy producer. Now that we know the news is as reliable as it is optimistic, Israel has discovered one of the world’s largest offshore natural gas fields – with deposits estimated to meet Israel’s energy needs for the next 100 years, and then some.
The gas find has the potential to strengthen Israel’s energy security, enable her to become an important gas exporter and contribute wealth to her economy. At the same time, an energy independent Israel would trigger serious implications for regional realignment and stability.

The massive natural gas field – totalling 450 billion cubic meters – is located off the coast of Haifa in Israel’s north. Named Leviathan, after a biblical whale, the gas field straddles the maritime borders of Israel and Lebanon. The announcement has sent the Tel Aviv stock exchange skyrocketing to a new record high as claims were made that the gas in the new oil field could well be worth approximately US$95 billion.

The Leviathan find raises the chances of other major discoveries in the region, and could impel neighbouring countries, including Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, to explore and possibly develop their own potential gas fields.

Yet energy disputes are already shaking regional relations. Since the gas discoveries, Hezbollah is snarling that Israel wants to rob oil from Lebanese territorial waters and has threatened military action if Israel taps into what it deems Lebanese energy resources.
Iran, seeking to expand its influence into the Levant, has already offered to help the Lebanese develop their potential energy wealth. So too have the Russians, further complicating the geopolitical scrimmage that’s developing over Israel’s gas bonanza.

Concurrently, Greece and Cyprus have hosted high-level discussions on the topic with Israeli leaders – it has led to recently signed maritime zoning agreements between Israel and Cyprus and could possibly lead to a pipeline from Israel to Greece. It is interesting to note that Israel recently acquired ‘air space’ permission from Greece for its air force drills, after she was suddenly denied fly rights over Turkey. Perhaps gas might be the next modern link between the two ancient civilisations.

Should a pipeline be built, Italy and Greece would be particularly eager customers, as most Europeans are unhappy with their over-reliance on Russian energy. However the most affordable option for Israel to export its new wealth is through an existing pipeline through Turkey. If Turkey were to return to its friendly relations with Israel, it would profit from highly lucrative income in transit fees, and thus would re-examine their Israel stance after news of the Leviathan discovery.

Whether foreign companies are prepared to risk investing in such a violence-prone region is questionable, particularly since Israel’s adversaries don’t want to see her strengthened by her newfound energy wealth at the expense of her neighbours.

It is not unimaginable that, in the next regional war, Israeli and Lebanese military elements could target the other's natural gas drills. There is already the worrying concern that Hezbollah could shoot missiles at an oilprocessing plant, causing enormous damage. Additionally, Hezbollah presents a serious naval menace with its submarine and navy commando units, trained by Iranians. Israeli Minister for Infrastructure Uzi Landau cautioned Lebanon if it tried to interfere with Israeli drilling, declaring that Israel would not hesitate using force. If this scenario ever plays out its course, it has the potential to cause a regional ecological catastrophe.

Among the gushing torrent of hyperbolic hopes, ambitious export and alliance-building plans, and aggressive threats from envious neighbours, Israel must “act correctly, level-headedly and responsibly,” as stated by MK Uzi Landau. As the gas boosts Israel’s economic growth, it will lower her energy costs by
US $1 billion annually, while creating jobs for hundreds of engineers and labourers in ensuring domestic distribution.

No doubt Israel’s transition to gas, while being environmentally friendlier than coal, will include dramatic political battles with trade unions and industry lobbyists. However, this exciting find means that Israel, with a long history of dependence on foreign energy, and hostility and boycotts from many of the biggest energy powers, could find herself in a much more advantageous position in the coming decade.

i love Begin.

Highlighted by Rick Richman in Commentary:

In July 1977, Zbigniew Brzezinski presented Begin with a draft statement regarding the just-concluded U.S.-Israel meeting. Begin told Brzezinski that the draft was acceptable — “except for two sentences.” Brzezinski asked what they were:

“Please delete ‘The United States affirms Israel’s inherent right to exist.’”

“Why so?”

“Because the United States’ affirmation of Israel’s right to exist is not a favor, nor is it a negotiable concession. I shall not negotiate my existence with anybody, and I need nobody’s affirmation of it.”

Brzezinski’s expression was one of surprise. “But to the best of my knowledge every Israeli prime minister has asked for such a pledge.”

“I sincerely appreciate the president’s sentiment,” said Begin, “but our Hebrew Bible made that pledge and established our right over our land millennia ago. Never, throughout the centuries, did we ever abandon or forfeit that right. Therefore, it would be incompatible with my responsibilities as prime minister of Israel were I not to ask you to erase this sentence.” And then, without pause, “Please delete, too, the language regarding the commitment to Israel’s survival.”

“And in what sense do you find that objectionable?”

“In the sense that we, the Jewish people alone, are responsible for our country’s survival, no one else.”

Riveting Read - an Israeli captive in Libya

34-year old Israeli photograph Rafram “Raphael” Hadad was held captive in Libya for five months last year. For the first time, he has agreed to talk about it.

When the authorities came to arrest Rubashov, the legendary hero from Arthur Koestler’s dystopian novel Darkness at Noon, he had been expecting them. Hadad, on the other hand, had been sitting in his Tripoli hotel room waiting for his flight back home, watching a Simpsons rerun without the slightest idea of what was about to take place. “At 12 o’clock sharp on Saturday, there was a knock at my door,” he recalls. The hotel receptionist and bellhop, escorted by three suited men who introduced themselves as being “with the office,” took Hadad’s luggage and insisted on driving him to a nearby building. “I immediately understood who they were,” Hadad says; they were Libyan officials.

The men started interrogating him about his cameras and his travels in Libya, and they informed him that they were confiscating his film. Apparently more disappointed by the fact that he would not have the chance to taste chraime, Tripoli’s legendary spicy fish stew, than by missing his flight out of Libya, Hadad was then instructed to wait at the hotel for his passport to be returned to him. “At this point, I am still sure everything is all right, and I figure I will just fly out the next morning, and try to get the film back afterwards,” he says. That night, after Hadad missed his flight out, two young men from the security services returned to pick him up. “They had brilliantine in their hair and were wearing black jackets,” he recalls. Unsuspecting, he got with them into the car, as one of the men entered the driver’s seat, and the other sat beside him in the back. Hadad relays what happened next: “Suddenly, as we are driving around Tripoli’s coastline, the guy next to me pushes my head down while the car starts speeding up. The next thing I remember is finding myself in a detention camp. Once there, they started screaming at me to take off my belt and shoes, and ordered me to empty my pockets. The moment the yelling started and they threw me out of the car and into a prison cell is when I understood I was in big trouble.”

...

With the exception of one relatively benign and short interrogation by authorities in the port city of Derna, Hadad’s rigid 10-day schedule in Libya was uneventful. He was able to survey the vast and picturesque desert landscapes across the country and catalog the relics of what had been one of the most culturally affluent Jewish communities in North Africa. During his wide-ranging travels there, he experienced what he now understands to have been a false sense of security. “I eventually came to realize that every second person I met in Libya was working for the secret police,” he says. “At my trial, I even encountered a security agent who had acted as my taxi driver a few days earlier.”

Thrown into his prison cell by the two agents who had picked him up from the hotel, Hadad had plenty of time to reassess the various people he’d met. The cell in the prison where Hadad spent his first weeks of captivity was about 6 by 6 and constructed out of barren concrete. With nothing but a chewed-up mattress with broken springs poking through it, a broken toilet, and no company but the family of cockroaches in the corner, Hadad remained confused but optimistic. A small barred window facing an illuminated hallway allowed him to retain a sense of time.

The initial interrogations, he recalls, were relatively bland, mechanical, almost boring. A young and cologne-scented investigator named Imad questioned him repeatedly about his comings and goings in Libya. Sitting in a room with nothing but two chairs and a desk, Imad would write down every word Hadad said. “The first alarming question he asked me was regarding the last time I visited Israel,” Hadad remembers. Saying that he was currently living in London, Hadad did not veer too far from the truth; he explained he was a Jewish-Tunisian photographer chronicling the remains of the local Jewish community. “I didn’t want to push it, so I admitted that I visited family in Israel a few times,” he says. Rather than dismay him, the questions about Israel apparently only heightened Hadad’s sense of optimism. “From this I understood that they were clueless,” he says. (After all, he had been living in Israel most of his life.) “I started to believe that I would come out of this in a few days.”

...

During Hadad’s first days in prison, not only was he not accused of any specific crime, but even more distressingly, he was not even told where he was or who was detaining him. “All this time, I could only keep thinking about my mom, and how she must be worrying about me,” he recalls. After all, no one had any knowledge of his whereabouts, and for all anyone knew he could be dead. Despite pleading unsuccessfully with his captors to inform his relatives in Tunisia of his arrest, word of his detainment would eventually reach his family by way of another prisoner who was interned with him. Hadad remembers that in one of the adjacent cells, there was a prisoner with a distinct English accent, who was constantly bellowing in pain. Having prompted a conversation with him by singing some choice Beatles hits, Hadad came to learn that the young man, who went by the name of Mathew, was a British citizen who had come to Libya, fallen in love with a Muslim girl, and was now awaiting deportation. On the eve of Mathew’s departure, Hadad had the sense to drill his sister’s email address into Mathew’s memory by repeatedly singing it in a catchy tune. Despite Hadad’s initial suspicions about Mathew’s identity—“I was sure he was planted there by the Libyans,” he says—the British man ended up delivering. The night he returned to England, Mathew sent Hadad’s sister an email that eloquently depicted Hadad’s grave situation. It read: “Your brother is in deep shit.”

Although Hadad’s family eventually got word of his fate and could set in motion the momentous diplomatic pressures that would eventually bring about his release, his immediate fate was about to take a turn for the worse. What Mathew had neglected to tell Hadad for fear of unnerving him was that the Libyan security services had their own diabolical ways of extracting information from their prisoners—as Hadad was about to find out. Having checked a fake email account Hadad had specifically created for the trip and given them, his investigators demanded the password to his real email account. “That’s when I understood it was time to spill it,” he says. “One week exactly after my arrest, I tell Imad, ‘Listen, I have something for you that will knock you off your feet: I am Israeli.’ ”

Read the incredible story here.

Revolution - How Exciting!

Ok, so this blog has been a little quiet since it's birth, and that is due to an incredibly annoying and debilitating back pain that seems to take its sweet ass time in healing.

Get ready for a checkered assortment of treats:

Obama's foreign policy debacle and Egypt - Harvard historian Niall Ferguson schools MSNBC in Revolution 101.



Benny Morris on What Egyptians Really Want. (as I read more and more of his recent articles, my respect for him grows and grows...)

And let's not forget our favourite Jewish actress Natalie Portman, now being labelled "a movie star for a generation of overprogrammed children" here and here. What do you think?

The Speech

Gabriel Latner, a second-year law student at Cambridge University, England, was assigned the affirmative team for the Cambridge Union Society debate that Israel is a Rogue State. His team included Lauren Booth - Tony Blair's ridiculous sister-in-law who converted to Islam after a visit to that shining beacon of democracy and brotherly love, Iran. (Yes, the same Lauren Booth who enjoys being photographed in Gazan supermarkets brimming with food, while she publicly denounces Israel for starving Gazans. My, how her five minutes were up a long time ago.)

I'll post more about Lauren Booth later on. She's like the Sarah Palin of England - a trainwreck you shouldn't watch or ridicule, yet you just can't help yourself as she digs herself deeper and deeper into that hole.


Anyway, Latner assumed the position, which he argued and proved, that Israel is indeed a 'rogue' state.

Read below and be wowed.

This is a war of ideals, and the other speakers here tonight are rightfully, idealists. I’m not. I’m a realist. I’m here to win. I have a single goal this evening – to have at least a plurality of you walk out of the “Aye” door. I face a singular challenge – most, if not all, of you have already made up your minds.

This issue is too polarizing for the vast majority of you not to already have a set opinion. I’d be willing to bet that half of you strongly support the motion, and half of you strongly oppose it. I want to win, and we’re destined for a tie. I’m tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them. And perhaps they’ll even guilt one of you rare undecided into voting for the proposition, or more accurately, against Israel.

It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international “laws” to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that’s been done to death. It would be easier still to play to your sympathy, with personalized stories of Palestinian suffering. And they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is that treating people badly, whether they’re your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state “rogue.” If it did, Canada, the US, and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations. Britain’s treatment of the Irish would easily qualify them to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigor.

More importantly, I just don’t think we can win with those arguments. It won’t change the numbers. Half of you will agree with them, half of you won’t. So I’m going to try something different, something a little unorthodox. I’m going to try and convince the die-hard Zionists and Israel supporters here tonight to vote for the proposition.

By the end of my speech, I will have presented five pro-Israel arguments that show Israel is if not a “rogue state” then at least “rogue-ish.” Let me be clear. I will not be arguing that Israel is “bad.” I will not be arguing that it doesn’t deserve to exist. I won’t be arguing that it behaves worse than every other country. I will only be arguing that Israel is “rogue.”

THE WORD “rogue” has come to have exceptionally damning connotations. But the word itself is value-neutral. The OED defines rogue as “Aberrant, anomalous; misplaced, occurring (esp. in isolation) at an unexpected place or time,” while a dictionary from a far greater institution gives this definition: “behaving in ways that are not expected or not normal, often in a destructive way.”

These definitions and others center on the idea of anomaly – the unexpected or uncommon. Using this definition, a rogue state is one that acts in an unexpected, uncommon or aberrant manner. A state that behaves exactly like Israel.

The first argument is statistical. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state: There are 195 countries in the world. Some are Christian, some Muslim, some are secular. Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish. Or, to speak mathmo for a moment, the chance of any randomly chosen state being Jewish is 0.0051%. In comparison the chance of a UK lottery ticket winning at least £10 is 0.017% – more than twice as likely. Israel’s Jewishness is a statistical aberration.

The second argument concerns Israel’s humanitarianism – in particular, Israel’s response to a refugee crisis. Not the Palestinian refugee crisis – for I am sure that the other speakers will cover that – but the issue of Darfurian refugees. Everyone knows that what happened, and is still happening in Darfur, is genocide, whether or not the UN and the Arab League will call it such. There has been a mass exodus from Darfur as the oppressed seek safety. They have not had much luck. Many have gone north to Egypt – where they are treated despicably. The brave make a run through the desert in a bid to make it to Israel. Not only do they face the natural threats of the Sinai, they are also used for target practice by the Egyptian soldiers patrolling the border.

Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel’s cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world.

But the real point of distinction is this: The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets.

Compare that to the US’s reaction to illegal immigration across their border with Mexico. The American government has arrested private individuals for giving water to border crossers who were dying of thirst – and here the Israeli government is sending out its soldiers to save illegal immigrants. To call that sort of behavior anomalous is an understatement.

My third argument is that the Israeli government engages in an activity which the rest of the world shuns – it negotiates with terrorists. Forget the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, a man who died with blood all over his hands. They’re in the process of negotiating with terrorists as we speak. Yasser Abed Rabbo is one of the lead PLO negotiators that has been sent to the peace talks with Israel. Abed Rabbo also used to be a leader of the PFLP – an organization of “freedom fighters” that engaged in such freedom-promoting activities as killing 22 Israeli high school students. And the Israeli government is sending delegates to sit at a table with this man and talk about peace. And the world applauds.

You would never see the Spanish government in peace talks with the leaders of the ETA – the British government would never negotiate with Thomas Murphy. And if President Obama were to sit down and talk about peace with Osama Bin Laden, the world would view this as insanity. But Israel can do the exact same thing – and earn international praise in the process. That is the dictionary definition of rogue – behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal.

Another part of dictionary definition is behavior or activity “occurring at an unexpected place or time.” When you compare Israel to its regional neighbors, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is.

And here is the fourth argument: Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbors. At no point in history has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle East – except for Israel. Of all the countries in the Middle East, Israel is the only one where the LGBT community enjoys even a small measure of equality. In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded anti-discrimination legislation. Beats a death sentence. In fact, it beats America.

Israel’s protection of its citizens’ civil liberties has earned international recognition. Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as “free,” “partly free” or “not free.” In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a “free” country. Not surprising given the level of freedom afforded to citizens in say, Lebanon – a country designated “partly free,” where there are laws against reporters criticizing not only the Lebanese government, but the Syrian regime as well.

Iran is a country given the rating of “not free,” putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. In Iran, there is a special “press court” which prosecutes journalists for such heinous offenses as criticizing the ayatollah, reporting on stories damaging the “foundations of the Islamic republic,” using “suspicious (i.e., Western) sources,” or insulting Islam. Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every Western journalist during the 2009 election. I guess we can’t really expect more from a theocracy.

Which is what most countries in the Middle East are – theocracies and autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of all the countries in the Middle East, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored.

I have one final argument -- the last nail in the opposition’s coffin – and it’s sitting right across the aisle. Mr. Ran Gidor’s presence here is all the evidence any of us should need to confidently call Israel a rogue state. For those of you who have never heard of him, Mr. Gidor is a political counselor attached to Israel’s embassy in London. He’s the guy the Israeli government sent to represent them to the UN. He knows what he’s doing. And he’s here tonight. And it’s incredible.

Consider, for a moment, what his presence here means. The Israeli government has signed off to allow one of their senior diplomatic representatives to participate in a debate on their very legitimacy. That’s remarkable. Do you think for a minute that any other country would do the same? If the Yale University Debating Society were to have a debate where the motion was “This house believes Britain is a racist, totalitarian state that has done irrevocable harm to the peoples of the world,” would Britain allow any of its officials to participate? No. Would China participate in a debate about the status of Taiwan? Never. And there is no chance in hell that an American government official would ever be permitted to argue in a debate concerning its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But Israel has sent Mr. Gidor to argue tonight against a 19-year-old law student who is entirely unqualified to speak on the issue at hand.

Every government in the world should be laughing at Israel right now, because it forgot rule number one. You never add credence to crackpots by engaging with them. It’s the same reason you won’t see Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins debate David Icke. But Israel is doing precisely that. Once again, behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal. Behaving like a rogue state.

That’s five arguments that have been directed at the supporters of Israel. But I have a minute or two left. And here’s an argument for all of you – Israel willfully and forcefully disregards international law. In 1981 Israel destroyed Osirak – Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb lab. Every government in the world knew that Hussein was building a bomb. And they did nothing. Except for Israel.

Yes, in doing so they broke international law and custom. But they also saved us all from a nuclear Iraq. That rogue action should earn Israel a place of respect in the eyes of all freedom-loving peoples. But it hasn’t.

But tonight, while you listen to us prattle on, I want you to remember something: While you’re here, Khomeini’s Iran is working towards the Bomb. And if you’re honest with yourself, you know that Israel is the only country that can, and will, do something about it. Israel will, out of necessity, act in a way that is the not the norm, and you’d better hope that they do it in a destructive manner. Any sane person would rather a rogue Israel than a nuclear Iran.

Except Ms Booth.

Here’s the link touting the debate:

http://www.cus.org/termcard/event/1141/

And here’s a link about the consequences of his presentation:

http://www.varsity.co.uk/news/2689

Confronting Conversations - Taking a Stand

Ok. So after wallowing in a blogging haitus for over three years (except for the sporadic tale of aliyah adventures spurned by aspirational pangs of literary fame) I've arrived at the conclusion that while I might not be able to offer the world as much as I would desire (yet still believing I possess the potential, as any human does), I can offer those around me something I have acquired of late: Israel knowledge.

It struck me, during a discussion with close friend N, that those in my community - educated, pro-Israel, pro-Jewish and widely read - are somewhat lacking in knowledge of the facts in Israel and current affairs relating to our Moledet, our Homeland. Most read the newspapers, but "news" today is neither objective nor discerning in its scope. So where to next? Online, I would assume, and there is a plethora of blogs and websites collecting all the small details of what goes on around us, keeping the average Melbournian Jew informed. But most information we glean and store is absorbed through conversation. And we're not having enough of it.

The longer I stay in Melbourne, the more I notice that conversations rarely turn to political discussions or debates. I'm not sure if it's Israel exhaustion or a comfort with the status quo of Israel's existence, and by default the status quo of Israel's tattered reputation across the globe. Us Jews are the people of the book, and a people of questions. We argue, we disagree, we are our own worse critics - yet I'm not feeling any of this here in the Melbourne ghetto. There seems to be a consensus among my generation, that talking Israel is passe, relegated to youth group bogrim or our parents. The whole notion of engaging with issues that might be so far out of our control, yet relevant in shaping public opinion, seems to be lost. Conversations, I've found, are the key.

A bothersome and baffling event has crept beneath my skin, the mistruths/half-truths/fabrication and lack of information already spewed by most media outlets, and I was in midst of a conversation with N in the early hours of last Monday morning when I realised that this conversation could open her left-leaning blinkers to a broader scope. N is inspirationally pro-active in her 'hasbara' - using her Youth Leader experience and social media expertise to spread her opinions to all her 1000 friends, she actively engages with people around her - students, fellow bogrim, teachers and communal leaders - and it's incredible. The fact that our politics differ is a side matter. Her engagement is exemplary, and unusual.

Nevertheless, as we were discussing the bothersome and baffling mystery surrounding Jawaher Abu Rahma's deathand allegedly caused by tear gas, I discovered that N had already formed her opinion without knowing the full story. How many news outlets publishing their own version - or the version supplied by the Palestinian Media - failed to consider the facts on the ground? How often does that occur? The mysterious circumstances, causes and reactions surrounding the immediate aftermath of Abu Rahma's death, made by the Palestinian Authority, her family, other Bilin protestors and Ramallah Hospital, revealed that this story was not so clear cut. Then how can we take accusations at face value and spread them as 'truth'?

After poking and prodding at N's interpretion of the tragedy, casually dropping some facts established by the investigating IDF, N's initial accusation and opinion seem to have changed. "Oh, I didn't know that," N remarked, after I mentioned that Abu Rahma's lab test was dated 2.45pm, while she only was admitted to Ramallah Hospital at 3.20pm. Now, a few days after our conversation, the IDF reached the conclusion that Abu Rahma died of medical malpractice, not tear gas for which news outlets typically condemned Israel. (For more info on that, click here and this haaretz piece here - disclaimer: a good haaretz piece. I would never blog gideon levy and the like here.)

Now, when conversations dig and prod at the facts, peeling the layers of information, we find that the truth has long been buried beneath a lazy prejudice that's too comfortable to disrobe. The truth, or perhaps the acquisition of knowledge, or even the ability to raise those uncomfortable questions that might be niggling at the back of your mind, has all but faded and now lies tattered, a distant memory, an abandoned and rejected idea whimpering quietly in the background.

But for those, yearning for youth, longing for that fiery inquisitive passion that seems to consume your soul, desperately seeking an outlet for your frustration, for your ideas, for your unique thinking - while at the same time, burdened by polite conversation and the tightening of lazy, uninformed opinions around the necks of your neighbours and friends - make conversation your weapon of choice. Information is power, and through conversations we glean information. Harness the power of conversations, and soon you'll inform those around you, perhaps even shaping opinions.

Honesty Alert - Gilad Shalit

This powerful animation has touched many across the globe and across the broad political spectrum of those around me. It goes right to the source - no holds barred.