As much as I enjoy and agree with the writings of Daniel Greenfield in his Sultan Knish blog, but I must take exception to this article:
"How the Media, the UN and the Diplomats Saved Hamas 18 Years Ago"
Found at:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-media-un-and-diplomats-saved-hamas.html
The facts as Mr. Greenfield states them are accurate but there’s one assumption within it that I think is faulty. The assumption that he maintains is that Israel has been “forced” to accept terrorists and terrorism by other countries or by the nations. In his words:
"... the Bush and Clinton Administrations forced Israel to accept 'contributed to peace' "
"The terrorists that Israel was forced to accept..."
"And so Israel was forced to submit to Islamic terrorism."
Of course the pressure on Israel to comply and the pressure is not insignificant but that doesn’t constitute “force”. No ostensibly friendly country has held the proverbial gun to Israel’s head with conditions that gave Israel literally no other choice between life and death. No country that is an ally or one that is seemingly friendly to Israel has declared that, unless Israel bows to certain conditions, then it will unleash a nuclear holocaust on her. No ally of Israel has said that unless Israel complies with their demands it will cut all relations and boycott Israel entirely like they did with South Africa and regard her as an enemy adversary. The Arabs states have done this but those are Israel’s enemies not countries that claim to be her friend. Instead Israel’s “friends” have been pressuring her to accept weakened and more vulnerable positions with regard to her mortal enemies and she’s been submitting. But this constitutes pressure not “force”.
What would have been the consequences if Israel had not bowed to US pressure to allow Hamas terrorists back? What would have been the consequence of Israel simply saying “No.” to the US when it pressured Israel to accept Yassir Arafat and his terrorist PLO back into Israel? Would the US have severed relations? Would the US have dropped all sales of military hardware to Israel – considering that the loss of those sales would have meant the loss of jobs in their military-industrial complex. Would the US have refused to offer Israeli politicians and military men their perks that influence them to regard the US favorably and thus be open to the influence of the US? I doubt it because the US needs Israel’s state-of-the-art electronic systems very much. When Israel GAVE the Lavi jet fighter – the fighter that was hailed as the fighter so advanced that it was the fighter of the 21st Century – she GAVE the prototype of the aircraft with all the plans and designs to the USG, gratis, with no strings attached. Do you really think that with staggering gifts like that to the United States and the potential for more like that in the future, that the US would just dump Israel if she didn’t bend to pressure? Hardly.
Israel has given a great deal to the US government in the way of intelligence and hardware. Yet the Israeli government now and in the past feels compelled to bow to US pressure, even though Israel has had every option to apply reverse pressure on the US, say, by threatening or actually withholding intelligence that the US has always needed, by deciding to delay indefinitely the delivery of advanced electronic system to the US.
Israel is not “forced” to bend to foreign pressure. She has had every option to say “No.” To demonstrate that I must point out that she has taken unpopular steps in the past knowing that she would receive condemnation from the nations. Israel violated international opinion and when she used violence to rescue our abducted and hijacked airline hostages from Entebbe Uganda in 1976. She was condemned for bombing the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq at the time, and was later thanked by President Bush after the US-Iraq war began. She fought the Six Day War and won despite enormous pressure from the nations to lay down and passively accept annihilation.
I submit that the reason that Israel complies with international pressure by her “friends” is for psychological reasons. Jews have been beaten and abused by the nations for at least the past 2,000 years and we have developed the mentality similar to that of the abused spouse. Now that we have a country like the other nations we have taken our mentality of abuse and applied it to the context of international relations. The Israeli governments and Israeli Jews feel that the big bad world is after them and they feel that there’s no other choice but to submit. They feel handicapped and restricted by the rest of the world. The result is that their assumption is that if they give-in to the nations and do whatever they want, they will please them that they will like us in return, and let us take an accepted place among the nations. They feel handicapped in the sphere of international relations and so Israel tries very hard – overly hard – to please. Since I am an Israeli and have lived in Israel for over 31 years I have heard this theme from my fellow Israelis time and time again. The average Israeli wants Israel to be liked, if not LOVED, by the nations and the gentile world. Since the ghetto walls were torn down in Europe Jews have craved the acceptance by gentiles, and that craving has continued to this day in the Diaspora and in Israel. So that craving has been carried over to Israel’s approach to international relations. When we established the State of Israel the mentality that craves acceptance by gentiles on the individual level has been carried over the international level. The Israeli government’s unspoken goal in international relations is to get the world to like us, if not love us. They have probably not announced this explicitly but by the behavior and reactions of the Israeli government demonstrate this as their operating principle in international relations. And this attitude is part and parcel of Jewish Israelis. Morning radio talk-shows in Israel air callers who ask ‘when will the nations/UN/US/x-nation like or LOVE us?’ This kind of caller gets on especially after Israel has been condemned by one or more nations for another defensive action or reaction – mostly when Israel tries to take reasonable steps to defend her people from terrorists. Yet, ask the average Israeli Jew how strongly he/she wants Israel to be accepted by the nations and they will typically put that at a high priority. Religious Jews tend to value acceptance by the nations at a lower level than non-observant Jews. One of the signs of an “extremist” Israeli right-winger is that he says he doesn’t give a fig about what the nations think and that Israel should do whatever directly needful to defend herself. Extremists don’t care about what the world thinks, while the average Israeli Jew craves that acceptance.
If one studies the typical reactions, feelings and behaviors of abused spouses Israel fits this extremely well into this picture. Abused spouses feel that the abusing spouse must be appeased in order that the abuser will like or love the abusee. The abusee will endure physical and emotional pain and suffering in order to court the good graces of the abuser, but the abuser will never approve of the abusee and if the abusee successfully satisfies the demands of the abuser, then the abuser increases the demands to more demanding levels. The abusee always tries to meet the expectations of the abuser but the abuser makes impossible demands. Thus is the situation Israel has found herself for decades. In international relations the standards for Israel are absurdly high while the nations support the abuse of Israel by supporting and courting to her declared enemies. The nations, as the abusers, don’t necessarily abuse Israel directly; they rather pressure Israel in ways that weaken her to make her more vulnerable. Nations that claim to be her “friend” but are hostile to her under the table don’t directly abuse her, instead they try to manipulate Israel into positions that make it easier for terrorists to do their job of murdering Jews and destroying the Jewish state. Those “friends” support Israel by pushing her to surrender territory to the PLO even though the PLO has yet to change their covenant that explicitly says that they are engaging in the “armed struggle.” They object to Israeli defense operations into Gaza against Hamas, when Hamas makes no secret of trying to destroy Israel. Those “friends” not only accept the destructive rhetoric of Hamas they, turn a blind eye as Hamas has fired over 8,000 rockets into the Israel’s Coastal Plain. Those “friends” abuse Israel indirectly by assisting Israel’s sworn enemies. Because Israel craves to be liked or loved by the nations, she chooses to submit to her “friends”. Israel chooses to bend to the desires of western nations that display overt friendliness but also show underlying hostility to Israel. Because Israelis crave acceptance, crave to be liked someday, crave to be loved someday by the nations, they accept the abuse in hopes that if we give they what they want that they’ll like or love them. The cruel reality is that the nations have never liked Israel, and will never like Israel. If Israel would satisfy their demands exactly, Israel would be so vulnerable that the Arab states would overrun Israel and destroy her. But Israelis have this emotional block to seeing this. Just like the abused spouse who can not emotionally comprehend that the abuser can not love back but can only abuse, Israelis can’t comprehend that it’s impossible to get the Arabs states and terror organizations, and those nations that are friendly to terrorists, to like or love Israel.
Those who are emotionally accepting of or addicted to abuse will always go back to the abusers - just as Israel has been doing for decades.
20 July 2010
20 February 2010
What Is It Like To Live In Israel?
This is an excellent question, one that I’ve been asked numerous times and so I have made the time to commit it to writing.
First, let’s compare Israel with the USA from a perspective of size as well as resources. For those of us who are used to growing up and living in a huge country, the US, living in Israel means appreciating living in a country that is tiny, a speck actually. Size-wise, Israel ranks between the states of Rhode Island and Delaware. Israel is a land of many contrasts with the coldest area in the far north, the Hermon Mountains on the Armistice Line with Syria. In the winter one can go skiing in morning in the ski resorts on the Hermon and then drive 5 hours south through the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the earth, to the Gulf of Eilat and enjoy scuba diving in balmy tropical, magnificent coral reefs that abound there. Before I moved out here my wife and I took a 10,000 mile trip around the US which took some 7 weeks. After living here in Israel for about 10 years and having traveled extensively throughout, I came to the conclusion that there were only 2 things that we saw in our trip around the US that Israel didn’t have: 1). A river the scale of the Mississippi and 2.) caverns with the beauty of Carlsbad. About that time there was some routine blasting done at a limestone quarry a few miles from us and a cave opened up in the mountain side. When it was entered it had some magnificent formations and a world expert in such things was called in to give his opinion. This was named the Soreq Cave and is only one dinky acre in size. One acre in area – however in that acre the stalagmites and stalactites were judged by that expert to be far more beautiful and varied than all of the formations in what is known in the 40+ miles of passages at Carlsbad. In all the time I’ve lived here I’ve discovered that this is typical of Israel. Tiny, compact, compressed but equally and at times even more beautiful than what is in the US. The Judean Dessert has colors equaling and exceeding the beauty of those of the Painted Dessert and the Grand Canyon. Ok, so it’s smaller than similar places in the rest of the world, Israel is a tiny country, that should be obvious, but there’s lots packed into a small country. So I don’t lack places of natural beauty for Israel has a great many such places all compressed into a land smaller than the size of Delaware.
As far as natural resources go, the United States is a rich land, full of mineral wealth and fuels such as natural gas, coal and crude oil. Israel has almost none of these. Oh, there’s a bit of phosphates and magnesium that come from the salts of the Dead Sea but nothing to write home about. There is some copper ore in the dessert near Eilat that was mined in King Solomon’s days but today the price of copper has dropped to the point where it’s not profitable to mine the copper there. There is some iron in the basalt rock of the Golan Heights, but that is also not a profitable ore these days.
When it comes to crude oil and natural gas the Land of Israel hasn’t got any. Nuthin’, zilch, nada – period. In fact, even drinking water is in very short supply and we’re paying an absurd price for water to our households, about 4-cents a gallon, and that’s mostly due to 20 years of lower-than-average rainfall that has depleted the aquifers to critical levels. In the US and Europe rain is normal and expected, in Israel every drop of rain is a blessing and regarded as a gift from Heaven.
As far as energy resources, Israel has been searching for oil and gas for years, and of late there are hints that there may be a very small crude oil deposit near Tel-Aviv but that has yet to be confirmed. There has been a discovery of a large natural gas deposit off the Gaza coast and Israeli government promptly gave that to the Arabs in the Gaza Strip as a “good will gesture” supposedly to ingratiate ourselves to the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza.
So Israel is a country that doesn’t live off of natural resources because there aren’t any of significance. What keeps this country going economically are both the brains of the Jews living here and its strategic location. As far as brains go, Jews constitute the smartest people on the planet when it comes to the sciences, technology, the arts and the humanities. Considering that Jews are 0.2% of the world’s population and have received 20% of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences and technologies. Israel is second in rank in the number of hi-tech start-ups and business investment start-ups – second only in rank to the United States. So living here means that I rub elbows with lots of intelligent, if not brilliant people. Just on my street alone may illustrate this. My next door neighbor has a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry and works as the Chief Accountant for a municipality of 40,000 people. My neighbor on the other side has a doctorate in Chemical Engineering but works as a computer programmer. Another is an architect, two others are crack computer programmers for a hospital chain. Yet another is a social worker, another is a furniture designer, another is in the Israeli Air Force and we’re not supposed to know what he does on a day to day basis, one is a chemist for a top pharmaceutical corp, another owns a business supplying oil products. Many of their wives are nurses, midwives (two of our kids were delivered by the midwife down the street and our latest grandchild was delivered by another midwife in our neighborhood) or they own and run small businesses. So if I have a question about things many different areas there are neighbors nearby that can answer them, of if they can’t then they probably direct me to someone who can.
Since Israel is located in the confluence of the African, European and Asian continents we are a geo-political gem that everyone wants. The country that controls the Land of Israel controls the easiest land-route among those 3 continents and just from a transportation standpoint controlling this would mean being able to transport goods more cheaply overland. There still exists an oil pipeline that runs from Iraq to Israel and its outlet at the Israeli city of Haifa on the Med Sea. When the State of Israel was established in 1948 the Iraqis decided to shut down that line because they wouldn’t have anything to do with Israel. Pity, as both Iraq and Israel they could have made a lot of money having a Middle-Eastern oil terminal that would have filled oil tankers on the Med and so reduced transport costs for everyone. Yet Iraq would rather hurt the nose on it’s own face than give Israel any benefit. The other advantage that Israel has is that it’s a convenient base of operations for intelligence gathering, not only deep into ME countries but the Israel Defense Forces listens in to what’s cooking in Russia and the other countries in the region. So sometimes we know stuff here on the street that it takes you people in the US a year or so to finally get wind of.
One of the differences between living in the US and Israel is that the US has two neighbors, Canada and Mexico, that you’ve been on very good terms with for at least a100 years. Here, Israel still has 7 countries that are formally at war with her. Jordan and Egypt have signed formal peace treaties with Israel but they both have very frigid relations with us. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and at the first excuse pulled diplomatic relations. Jordan still has diplomatic relations but they make it clear that they prefer not to have Israelis visiting. Opinion polls were taken in Egypt before and after the Egyptian government signed a peace treaty with Israel and, oddly enough, the polls after the signing showed a substantial increase in the hate the average Egyptian held for Jews and Israelis. Seems that the result of the treaty was to increase the hate of Egyptians toward Israelis, which just tells you what good signing a piece of paper does. It is possible for an Israeli to visit Egypt and see the Pyramids and the archeological sites, but outward hostility toward Jews and Israelis is evident on the streets and in the bazaars of Cairo, so lots of Israelis don’t go there. The Sinai Dessert was taken by Israel in 1967 in the Six Day War and was given up in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Israelis can still visit the Sinai and the Gulf of Eilat where scuba diving and tours into the dessert is fantastic, but there have been terrorist attacks aimed at Israelis in the Egyptian Sinai. Those attacks happened but the Egyptian government made sure that no medical help arrived to treat the wounded for hours afterwards and those in critical condition died as a result. So I’d love to travel down into the Sinai but the Israeli government puts out warnings about potential terrorist attacks down there so I dare not go. To bad as the scenery is fantastic there.
Another contrast with Israel and the United States is in the amount of history that is connected with the land. The Land of Israel is extremely historic and Israel has more archeological sites that have exposed more history than in any other country in the world. In the Old City of Jerusalem as anywhere one digs means going through layers of rubble that go back centuries any digging, even for things as mundane as putting in a new water pipe, requires coordination with the Israel Archeological Ministry and they excavate the place before the pipes are laid down. Every square mile in Israel has at least 3 interesting items of historical or archeological interest. And lots of towns, villages and hamlets are named after their former biblical names.
Take my own town, Elazar which is located between Bethlehem and Hebron for example. Some 2,160-some years ago the Assyrian Greeks invaded and were challenged by the Macabees, a rag-tag guerrilla force that succeeded in ultimately driving back the Assyrians. However in the Battle of Beth Zechariah that occurred nearby the son of Judah the Macabee the leader of the Macabees, Elazar, ran up in front of an elephant that the Assyrians used as heavy transport vehicles and that one had a royal seal. So with the expectation that the elephant was carrying someone important, Elazar ran up, laid down and pointed his spear into the soft underbelly of the elephant. The paciderm was killed and rolled over Elazar killing him. That battle which occurred nearby ended in defeat for the Macabees but overall they were able to drive out the invaders, a miracle considering that they were an unorganized guerrilla force with no military experience. The holiday of Hanukah commemorates the victory of the Macabees in the face of the Asyrian Greeks.
In addition, there are caves within a mile from my home where archeological artifacts such as coins, clothing and evidence of people having lived there in the period of the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans in 115 C.E.
And a hundred meters from there is a ruin of a Byzantine church dated at 630 C.E. Here are pictures of the church ruin.
http://picasaweb.google.com/rabelad/ByzantineChurchRuinOnKibbutzMigdalOzMarch2008?authkey=zz0w8IDjnr0
Since our area is wine country, grapes have been growing here for the last 5,000 years (we’re told that mankind started viticulture in these mountains) and the terraces that are all over the hill sides here were built by Jews in order to raise vines and other vegetables 2,000 years ago during the Second Temple Period. There are many ancient grape presses that are carved into the bedrock and boulders in these parts. The presses are really press-pans that were cut out of the limestone with the lower corner emptying into a pit. The grapes were dumped on the pans, stomped, and the juice ran into the pit where clay jars were filled with the juice. There are a great many press-pans sprinkled throughout the hills here and that testifies to the amount of viticulture that was extant 2,000 years back. As it happened the screw-press made its appearance into this area around 700 C.E. so all those press-pans must be older than 1,300 years old.
Along with those, I have found coins that date back to the Roman period, and one very nice coin I found is a Byzantine coin from 630 C.E. which was minted in honor of the Byzantines having conquered Jerusalem from the Persians. I have also found pieces of glass bottles from the Roman Period and a piece of pottery fragment that an archeologist has dated to at least the Late Bronze Age which goes back to at least the time of the Exodus from Egypt some 3,200 years ago.
Our community includes the ancient highway that used to run from the Galilee to the original Beth-El, to Jerusalem, Bethlehem through our area and then on to Hebron and then to Beersheba. The highway followed the hilltops and because the climate was much wetter and much more lush 2200+ years ago lions were still a problem. In addition, the highway ran the hilltops and ridges so that it would be harder for lions to get a running start uphill and thus be more dissuaded from attacking. There is a ritual immersion pool that was discovered along the highway. The pool was cut out of the limestone in the hillside and it was used for travelers who needed to dunk in order to be ritually clean as from that point it was a 5 hour walk to Jerusalem and those who were going to the Temple had to be dunk the night before. In any case, every traveler back then used that highway, both the great and the small. History says that King David ruled in Hebron, about 5 miles south of us, for a number of years and then was invited to assume the kingship in Jerusalem. It stands to reason that when he transferred the locus of his reign to Jerusalem, King David along with his entourage, traveled up that very highway a couple of stone’s throws from our house.
So living in Israel we develop a feeling and appreciation for history that Americans simply cannot fathom. When I lived in Illinois the nearest archeological site was some 250 miles away and was the Cahokia Indian Burial Mounds. Those mounds were only 1000 years old. Before I moved here my wife and I took a 10,000 mile trip around the US and the most ancient site we saw was the Cave Dweller Indians in New Mexico and the remains of their settlement was only 600 years old.
The Arab-Jewish conflict is part of life out here. Much can be written about this, but I don’t care to get into the details of the conflict in this article, however if asked I will go into depth in another article. However, I must note that what the media reports and the impressions it gives has little to do with the facts on the ground and the realities of life out here. The media has their own agenda, and the politicians have their agendas that they do not reveal openly, yet none of their agendas correspond to reality out here. In fact, the very reason that this conflict continues is that none of them have a clue what’s flying out here and what the realities are. The fact is that they can’t fix the problem because they have no idea what the cultural mentalities of the peoples are and why it exists from the onset. As a result they keep trying the same old tired formulas, with tiny and insignificant variations, time and time again. The formula centers on Israel surrendering territory supposedly in exchange for peace. Well, Israel has surrendered territory a number of times, the most recent was when Israel “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, expelled 10,000 Jews, destroyed their beautiful homes and businesses and have essentially left them in their shattered lives, with compensation to only a small percentage of their loss. Yet the Arabs responded to that surrender by using the territory Israel withdrew from to launch thousands of rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel-proper causing significant property damage, injuries and deaths as well as enduring psychological trauma. You probably never heard about the Arabs shooting missiles into Israel-proper because it’s not on the agenda of the world’s news media to tell of the suffering of Jews as a result of giving the Arabs what they want. The editors in the media would rather ignore this and instead project the impression that the Arabs are the only ones suffering in this conflict. In any case, world leaders have pushed Israel to surrender territory time and time again, Israel responded by doing so, as well as dozens of “good will gestures” and the Arabs still want more and more. No amount of concessions, no amount of territory offered is good enough for the Arabs. They say explicitly that they want it all. Period. Funny, if there’s a problem and a normal person wants to solve it he tries something, once or twice, if it doesn’t work he tries something completely different. No normal individual will try the same thing dozens of times to try to solve a problem, but unfortunately that’s what the world’s leaders push Israel to do despite the repeated failures. I must mention that President Obama seems to have realized that the Arab nations will not leave Israel in peace, no matter what concessions or surrender terms Israel offers unless Israel decides to pack it up and decide to willingly self-destruct. Obama seems to have seen that reality and the up side to that is good - yet the down-side is that even though he recognizes that the Arabs states will not give Israeli peace he nonetheless is putting enormous pressure on the Israeli government to make even greater and more far-reaching surrender terms with which Israel should expect nothing but more war and conflict than before.
As part of my experience here I was required to join the Israeli Army at the tender age of 32. Basic training was abbreviated for us old codgers but after that I was assigned to courses and a reserve unit. My first assignment was in a communications unit based in the Galilee and that meant yearly month-long reserve stints up in one of the most beautiful parts of Israel. After a number of years in that unit I was transferred to a more local unit where I received counter-terrorist training and did patrols in my immediate area.
Another impression that the media and governments convey is that Jewish "settlers" in Judea and Samara (often referred to as the "West Bank") are the most intolerant and violent people, and that these people and their "settlements" are responsible for the ongoing conflict. Well, having lived on just one such community for the last 30 years I can say unequivocally that the "settlers" are some of the most willing to get along with their Arab neighbors. After all, we live nearby and have good relations with the local Arabs, we employ them to build our homes and work in our shops, work on our farms and factories. It's also true that the Arab economy depends almost exclusively on Arabs working for Jews, for there are no natural resources in these parts and agriculture is limited to growing grapes and olives, and the prices of those commodities are very low overall. Without Arab labor and Jewish employers the Arabs in these parts would probably starve. In addition, I know many Jewish "settlers" that have the utmost confidence that someday terrorism will be over and done with and that some day Jews and Arabs will live in peace and harmony. I know one such "settler" who knows some 15 friends and neighbors who've been victims of Arab terror yet he holds out the hope that 'It'll be ok" in the end. Personally, I don't entertain such a level of optimism but my POV is not typical and my US non-Jewish mentality shows itself so I take a harder line than many of the Jews around me.
One curious thing is that despite the conflict, I’ve noticed that people here in Israel are really happy and content with life. There is a curious fatalism here, not fatalism in the negative sense but fatalism in the positive sense. When Israelis are beset with an intractable problem they typically say “It’ll be ok” even when there’s clearly no hope. This sense of positive fatalism is reflected in the one of the lowest suicide rates in the world combined with one of the highest birth rates, as Spengler has noted in his fascinating Asia Times article “Why Israel is the world's happiest country” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE13Ak01.html
I guess that one reason for the “it’ll be ok” attitude is due to the fact that the mere existence of the Jewish people’s survival despite centuries of persecution as a tiny minority is plain miraculous. On top of it the existence of the State of Israel is just as miraculous and even secular and dyed-in-the-wool anti-religious types will admit to the many miracles that have occurred over the 60 years of Israel’s existence. Here in Israel even the atheists admit to miracles.
In the end, I can’t help concluding that one of the best things I’ve ever done was to move here to Israel, and this remains such after 30 years of living in this country.
First, let’s compare Israel with the USA from a perspective of size as well as resources. For those of us who are used to growing up and living in a huge country, the US, living in Israel means appreciating living in a country that is tiny, a speck actually. Size-wise, Israel ranks between the states of Rhode Island and Delaware. Israel is a land of many contrasts with the coldest area in the far north, the Hermon Mountains on the Armistice Line with Syria. In the winter one can go skiing in morning in the ski resorts on the Hermon and then drive 5 hours south through the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the earth, to the Gulf of Eilat and enjoy scuba diving in balmy tropical, magnificent coral reefs that abound there. Before I moved out here my wife and I took a 10,000 mile trip around the US which took some 7 weeks. After living here in Israel for about 10 years and having traveled extensively throughout, I came to the conclusion that there were only 2 things that we saw in our trip around the US that Israel didn’t have: 1). A river the scale of the Mississippi and 2.) caverns with the beauty of Carlsbad. About that time there was some routine blasting done at a limestone quarry a few miles from us and a cave opened up in the mountain side. When it was entered it had some magnificent formations and a world expert in such things was called in to give his opinion. This was named the Soreq Cave and is only one dinky acre in size. One acre in area – however in that acre the stalagmites and stalactites were judged by that expert to be far more beautiful and varied than all of the formations in what is known in the 40+ miles of passages at Carlsbad. In all the time I’ve lived here I’ve discovered that this is typical of Israel. Tiny, compact, compressed but equally and at times even more beautiful than what is in the US. The Judean Dessert has colors equaling and exceeding the beauty of those of the Painted Dessert and the Grand Canyon. Ok, so it’s smaller than similar places in the rest of the world, Israel is a tiny country, that should be obvious, but there’s lots packed into a small country. So I don’t lack places of natural beauty for Israel has a great many such places all compressed into a land smaller than the size of Delaware.
As far as natural resources go, the United States is a rich land, full of mineral wealth and fuels such as natural gas, coal and crude oil. Israel has almost none of these. Oh, there’s a bit of phosphates and magnesium that come from the salts of the Dead Sea but nothing to write home about. There is some copper ore in the dessert near Eilat that was mined in King Solomon’s days but today the price of copper has dropped to the point where it’s not profitable to mine the copper there. There is some iron in the basalt rock of the Golan Heights, but that is also not a profitable ore these days.
When it comes to crude oil and natural gas the Land of Israel hasn’t got any. Nuthin’, zilch, nada – period. In fact, even drinking water is in very short supply and we’re paying an absurd price for water to our households, about 4-cents a gallon, and that’s mostly due to 20 years of lower-than-average rainfall that has depleted the aquifers to critical levels. In the US and Europe rain is normal and expected, in Israel every drop of rain is a blessing and regarded as a gift from Heaven.
As far as energy resources, Israel has been searching for oil and gas for years, and of late there are hints that there may be a very small crude oil deposit near Tel-Aviv but that has yet to be confirmed. There has been a discovery of a large natural gas deposit off the Gaza coast and Israeli government promptly gave that to the Arabs in the Gaza Strip as a “good will gesture” supposedly to ingratiate ourselves to the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza.
So Israel is a country that doesn’t live off of natural resources because there aren’t any of significance. What keeps this country going economically are both the brains of the Jews living here and its strategic location. As far as brains go, Jews constitute the smartest people on the planet when it comes to the sciences, technology, the arts and the humanities. Considering that Jews are 0.2% of the world’s population and have received 20% of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences and technologies. Israel is second in rank in the number of hi-tech start-ups and business investment start-ups – second only in rank to the United States. So living here means that I rub elbows with lots of intelligent, if not brilliant people. Just on my street alone may illustrate this. My next door neighbor has a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry and works as the Chief Accountant for a municipality of 40,000 people. My neighbor on the other side has a doctorate in Chemical Engineering but works as a computer programmer. Another is an architect, two others are crack computer programmers for a hospital chain. Yet another is a social worker, another is a furniture designer, another is in the Israeli Air Force and we’re not supposed to know what he does on a day to day basis, one is a chemist for a top pharmaceutical corp, another owns a business supplying oil products. Many of their wives are nurses, midwives (two of our kids were delivered by the midwife down the street and our latest grandchild was delivered by another midwife in our neighborhood) or they own and run small businesses. So if I have a question about things many different areas there are neighbors nearby that can answer them, of if they can’t then they probably direct me to someone who can.
Since Israel is located in the confluence of the African, European and Asian continents we are a geo-political gem that everyone wants. The country that controls the Land of Israel controls the easiest land-route among those 3 continents and just from a transportation standpoint controlling this would mean being able to transport goods more cheaply overland. There still exists an oil pipeline that runs from Iraq to Israel and its outlet at the Israeli city of Haifa on the Med Sea. When the State of Israel was established in 1948 the Iraqis decided to shut down that line because they wouldn’t have anything to do with Israel. Pity, as both Iraq and Israel they could have made a lot of money having a Middle-Eastern oil terminal that would have filled oil tankers on the Med and so reduced transport costs for everyone. Yet Iraq would rather hurt the nose on it’s own face than give Israel any benefit. The other advantage that Israel has is that it’s a convenient base of operations for intelligence gathering, not only deep into ME countries but the Israel Defense Forces listens in to what’s cooking in Russia and the other countries in the region. So sometimes we know stuff here on the street that it takes you people in the US a year or so to finally get wind of.
One of the differences between living in the US and Israel is that the US has two neighbors, Canada and Mexico, that you’ve been on very good terms with for at least a100 years. Here, Israel still has 7 countries that are formally at war with her. Jordan and Egypt have signed formal peace treaties with Israel but they both have very frigid relations with us. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and at the first excuse pulled diplomatic relations. Jordan still has diplomatic relations but they make it clear that they prefer not to have Israelis visiting. Opinion polls were taken in Egypt before and after the Egyptian government signed a peace treaty with Israel and, oddly enough, the polls after the signing showed a substantial increase in the hate the average Egyptian held for Jews and Israelis. Seems that the result of the treaty was to increase the hate of Egyptians toward Israelis, which just tells you what good signing a piece of paper does. It is possible for an Israeli to visit Egypt and see the Pyramids and the archeological sites, but outward hostility toward Jews and Israelis is evident on the streets and in the bazaars of Cairo, so lots of Israelis don’t go there. The Sinai Dessert was taken by Israel in 1967 in the Six Day War and was given up in the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. Israelis can still visit the Sinai and the Gulf of Eilat where scuba diving and tours into the dessert is fantastic, but there have been terrorist attacks aimed at Israelis in the Egyptian Sinai. Those attacks happened but the Egyptian government made sure that no medical help arrived to treat the wounded for hours afterwards and those in critical condition died as a result. So I’d love to travel down into the Sinai but the Israeli government puts out warnings about potential terrorist attacks down there so I dare not go. To bad as the scenery is fantastic there.
Another contrast with Israel and the United States is in the amount of history that is connected with the land. The Land of Israel is extremely historic and Israel has more archeological sites that have exposed more history than in any other country in the world. In the Old City of Jerusalem as anywhere one digs means going through layers of rubble that go back centuries any digging, even for things as mundane as putting in a new water pipe, requires coordination with the Israel Archeological Ministry and they excavate the place before the pipes are laid down. Every square mile in Israel has at least 3 interesting items of historical or archeological interest. And lots of towns, villages and hamlets are named after their former biblical names.
Take my own town, Elazar which is located between Bethlehem and Hebron for example. Some 2,160-some years ago the Assyrian Greeks invaded and were challenged by the Macabees, a rag-tag guerrilla force that succeeded in ultimately driving back the Assyrians. However in the Battle of Beth Zechariah that occurred nearby the son of Judah the Macabee the leader of the Macabees, Elazar, ran up in front of an elephant that the Assyrians used as heavy transport vehicles and that one had a royal seal. So with the expectation that the elephant was carrying someone important, Elazar ran up, laid down and pointed his spear into the soft underbelly of the elephant. The paciderm was killed and rolled over Elazar killing him. That battle which occurred nearby ended in defeat for the Macabees but overall they were able to drive out the invaders, a miracle considering that they were an unorganized guerrilla force with no military experience. The holiday of Hanukah commemorates the victory of the Macabees in the face of the Asyrian Greeks.
In addition, there are caves within a mile from my home where archeological artifacts such as coins, clothing and evidence of people having lived there in the period of the Bar Kochba Revolt against the Romans in 115 C.E.
And a hundred meters from there is a ruin of a Byzantine church dated at 630 C.E. Here are pictures of the church ruin.
http://picasaweb.google.com/rabelad/ByzantineChurchRuinOnKibbutzMigdalOzMarch2008?authkey=zz0w8IDjnr0
Since our area is wine country, grapes have been growing here for the last 5,000 years (we’re told that mankind started viticulture in these mountains) and the terraces that are all over the hill sides here were built by Jews in order to raise vines and other vegetables 2,000 years ago during the Second Temple Period. There are many ancient grape presses that are carved into the bedrock and boulders in these parts. The presses are really press-pans that were cut out of the limestone with the lower corner emptying into a pit. The grapes were dumped on the pans, stomped, and the juice ran into the pit where clay jars were filled with the juice. There are a great many press-pans sprinkled throughout the hills here and that testifies to the amount of viticulture that was extant 2,000 years back. As it happened the screw-press made its appearance into this area around 700 C.E. so all those press-pans must be older than 1,300 years old.
Along with those, I have found coins that date back to the Roman period, and one very nice coin I found is a Byzantine coin from 630 C.E. which was minted in honor of the Byzantines having conquered Jerusalem from the Persians. I have also found pieces of glass bottles from the Roman Period and a piece of pottery fragment that an archeologist has dated to at least the Late Bronze Age which goes back to at least the time of the Exodus from Egypt some 3,200 years ago.
Our community includes the ancient highway that used to run from the Galilee to the original Beth-El, to Jerusalem, Bethlehem through our area and then on to Hebron and then to Beersheba. The highway followed the hilltops and because the climate was much wetter and much more lush 2200+ years ago lions were still a problem. In addition, the highway ran the hilltops and ridges so that it would be harder for lions to get a running start uphill and thus be more dissuaded from attacking. There is a ritual immersion pool that was discovered along the highway. The pool was cut out of the limestone in the hillside and it was used for travelers who needed to dunk in order to be ritually clean as from that point it was a 5 hour walk to Jerusalem and those who were going to the Temple had to be dunk the night before. In any case, every traveler back then used that highway, both the great and the small. History says that King David ruled in Hebron, about 5 miles south of us, for a number of years and then was invited to assume the kingship in Jerusalem. It stands to reason that when he transferred the locus of his reign to Jerusalem, King David along with his entourage, traveled up that very highway a couple of stone’s throws from our house.
So living in Israel we develop a feeling and appreciation for history that Americans simply cannot fathom. When I lived in Illinois the nearest archeological site was some 250 miles away and was the Cahokia Indian Burial Mounds. Those mounds were only 1000 years old. Before I moved here my wife and I took a 10,000 mile trip around the US and the most ancient site we saw was the Cave Dweller Indians in New Mexico and the remains of their settlement was only 600 years old.
The Arab-Jewish conflict is part of life out here. Much can be written about this, but I don’t care to get into the details of the conflict in this article, however if asked I will go into depth in another article. However, I must note that what the media reports and the impressions it gives has little to do with the facts on the ground and the realities of life out here. The media has their own agenda, and the politicians have their agendas that they do not reveal openly, yet none of their agendas correspond to reality out here. In fact, the very reason that this conflict continues is that none of them have a clue what’s flying out here and what the realities are. The fact is that they can’t fix the problem because they have no idea what the cultural mentalities of the peoples are and why it exists from the onset. As a result they keep trying the same old tired formulas, with tiny and insignificant variations, time and time again. The formula centers on Israel surrendering territory supposedly in exchange for peace. Well, Israel has surrendered territory a number of times, the most recent was when Israel “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, expelled 10,000 Jews, destroyed their beautiful homes and businesses and have essentially left them in their shattered lives, with compensation to only a small percentage of their loss. Yet the Arabs responded to that surrender by using the territory Israel withdrew from to launch thousands of rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel-proper causing significant property damage, injuries and deaths as well as enduring psychological trauma. You probably never heard about the Arabs shooting missiles into Israel-proper because it’s not on the agenda of the world’s news media to tell of the suffering of Jews as a result of giving the Arabs what they want. The editors in the media would rather ignore this and instead project the impression that the Arabs are the only ones suffering in this conflict. In any case, world leaders have pushed Israel to surrender territory time and time again, Israel responded by doing so, as well as dozens of “good will gestures” and the Arabs still want more and more. No amount of concessions, no amount of territory offered is good enough for the Arabs. They say explicitly that they want it all. Period. Funny, if there’s a problem and a normal person wants to solve it he tries something, once or twice, if it doesn’t work he tries something completely different. No normal individual will try the same thing dozens of times to try to solve a problem, but unfortunately that’s what the world’s leaders push Israel to do despite the repeated failures. I must mention that President Obama seems to have realized that the Arab nations will not leave Israel in peace, no matter what concessions or surrender terms Israel offers unless Israel decides to pack it up and decide to willingly self-destruct. Obama seems to have seen that reality and the up side to that is good - yet the down-side is that even though he recognizes that the Arabs states will not give Israeli peace he nonetheless is putting enormous pressure on the Israeli government to make even greater and more far-reaching surrender terms with which Israel should expect nothing but more war and conflict than before.
As part of my experience here I was required to join the Israeli Army at the tender age of 32. Basic training was abbreviated for us old codgers but after that I was assigned to courses and a reserve unit. My first assignment was in a communications unit based in the Galilee and that meant yearly month-long reserve stints up in one of the most beautiful parts of Israel. After a number of years in that unit I was transferred to a more local unit where I received counter-terrorist training and did patrols in my immediate area.
Another impression that the media and governments convey is that Jewish "settlers" in Judea and Samara (often referred to as the "West Bank") are the most intolerant and violent people, and that these people and their "settlements" are responsible for the ongoing conflict. Well, having lived on just one such community for the last 30 years I can say unequivocally that the "settlers" are some of the most willing to get along with their Arab neighbors. After all, we live nearby and have good relations with the local Arabs, we employ them to build our homes and work in our shops, work on our farms and factories. It's also true that the Arab economy depends almost exclusively on Arabs working for Jews, for there are no natural resources in these parts and agriculture is limited to growing grapes and olives, and the prices of those commodities are very low overall. Without Arab labor and Jewish employers the Arabs in these parts would probably starve. In addition, I know many Jewish "settlers" that have the utmost confidence that someday terrorism will be over and done with and that some day Jews and Arabs will live in peace and harmony. I know one such "settler" who knows some 15 friends and neighbors who've been victims of Arab terror yet he holds out the hope that 'It'll be ok" in the end. Personally, I don't entertain such a level of optimism but my POV is not typical and my US non-Jewish mentality shows itself so I take a harder line than many of the Jews around me.
One curious thing is that despite the conflict, I’ve noticed that people here in Israel are really happy and content with life. There is a curious fatalism here, not fatalism in the negative sense but fatalism in the positive sense. When Israelis are beset with an intractable problem they typically say “It’ll be ok” even when there’s clearly no hope. This sense of positive fatalism is reflected in the one of the lowest suicide rates in the world combined with one of the highest birth rates, as Spengler has noted in his fascinating Asia Times article “Why Israel is the world's happiest country” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE13Ak01.html
I guess that one reason for the “it’ll be ok” attitude is due to the fact that the mere existence of the Jewish people’s survival despite centuries of persecution as a tiny minority is plain miraculous. On top of it the existence of the State of Israel is just as miraculous and even secular and dyed-in-the-wool anti-religious types will admit to the many miracles that have occurred over the 60 years of Israel’s existence. Here in Israel even the atheists admit to miracles.
In the end, I can’t help concluding that one of the best things I’ve ever done was to move here to Israel, and this remains such after 30 years of living in this country.
28 August 2007
Re: J. T. Who was GOD talking to?
Re: J. T. Who was GOD talking to?
Posted by: Dale Baranowski
Date: Sun Aug 26, 2007 4:01 pm ((PDT))
Dear Gang,
I don't often get the time to catch up on the postings until well
after they've been posted on the Hornet's Nest List, and it's
difficult finding time to respond, but this one caught my eye and
may be able squeeze the time to provide insight in to the discussion
of the verse: " .... And GOD ("Eloheem") said 'let US make man in
OUR image and after OUR likeness...' "
There's no need to go back to ancient Sumerian texts for an
understanding of this passage nor does one need to use an
Christological interpretation.
What is needed is to simply realize that the Hebrew Bible (the "Old
Testament", as Christians call it) was written in Hebrew and that
there are always problems when translating one language into
another. There are peculiarities in every language that are either
impossible to translate or come off in looking strange when even the
best, most honest and most sincere scholars take up the task.
Translating is made much more complicated or even impossible when
words and ideas of significance originate from a different culture
and especially when separated by 2-3,000 years. The Italians have a
catchy expression "Traduttori-Traditori." which means "Translators
are traitors" for even they were aware that no matter how well of a
translation one can produce it's always a far cry from the words and
ideas in the original language.
This issue regarding Gen. 1:26 where it says "... And GOD said 'let
US make man in OUR image and after OUR likeness..." is accurate
from a literal standpoint but comes off looking strange in English
as many read the translation and thought it portrays God as a
plurality. This issue partly centers on the apparent plural suffix
that is attached to the Hebrew word for "God." That Hebrew seems
to have a masculine-plural form which is a suffix of "-eem". For
example: the word for dog is "kelev" while the word for dogs
is "klaveem" and the Hebrew word for bottle is "bakbook" so the
plural for that is "bakbookeem". Then there is one of the words used
to denote God which is "Eloheem" and in this verse it would appear
that the suffix -"eem" is in the plural form. Now those with only
know a smattering of Hebrew (or those who have a certain agenda to
promote) see the -eem-ending on Eloheem and assume that it is the
word for God and so the -eem suffix also indicates a plurality, so
from this they reason that God is a plurality of some sort. This is
not the case. For though the -eem ending is often used to denote a
plural, the word "eloheem" is an exception to this rule as it is not
a word for God specifically, but rather it's used to denote some
person or some being with great power. For the most part, in the
Hebrew Bible the word "eloheem" is used to denote God Himself but it
is not used exclusively as a noun indicating God, but rather it's a
word that denotes 'a being of great power' even though those with
great power are occasionally human beings. Exodus 7:1 illustrates
this concept as this was an occasion where God was speaking to Moses
and said to him: "See, I have made you as if a god unto Pharaoh"
(RSV). That's the way the translators render it, (except that
the "as if" part was added by the translator) and rightly so, but
realize that the literal reading of that verse is "See, I have made
you an ELOHEEM unto Pharaoh." God said that he made Moses
an "eloheem" -- but wait, if that word really means "God" and the - eem suffix really denotes a plurality then it should have meant that
Moses was to become not only a god but, by the logic that this "eem"
suffix indicates plurality, so with this logic it should be rendered
as gods (plural!) in Pharaoh's eyes! But from even a cursory
reading of the Hebrew Bible never says that Pharaoh thought of Moses
as God nor did he think Moses as having a developed an exact
clone. The truth is that the Hebrew uses "eloheem" for human
beings of great power and that included God as well as humans, and
in some translations of the Hebrew Scriptures the translators
sometimes render "eloheem" into "judges" .
To make this issue more complicated, Hebrew grammar has a rule where
the verbs and their objects must agree in matters of singularity or
plurality. So where the object of a verb is singular, so must the
verb be singular and where the verb is plural so must it's object be
plural. For example, in Hebrew one would correctly say "She go to
the store" and "we goes to the store." In English the same thing
applies but only in reverse. We say "She (singular object) goes
(plural verb?) to the store." And: "We (plural object) go
(singular verb?) to the store." The same principle applies but
it's reversed in English. (My wife is an English teacher and
Israelis being to learn English have a hard time getting used to
this reverse verb-object agreement. The keep falling back to the
more logical structure found in Hebrew and tend to say "They goes to
the store" and "she go to the store.' Because it's much more logical
as well as habitual to carry on a verb-object agreement with
them.) So when this verse is translated "...let US make man in OUR
image and after OUR likeness" there's simply a grammatical feature
expressing itself that has been awkwardly translated. If one reads
is fluent in Hebrew and understands the conventions of the language
and the grammatical forms God does not come off as a plurality in
this verse, it's only because this verse doesn't come off well in
translation under the best of circumstances.
Ok, so the reader will no doubt be curious as to how this verse can
be understood in ways that do not suggest that God is a plurality.
Well, Judaism has a number of ways to understand this verse, some
more esoteric than others, but one basic way to understand this
verse is to not take it literally but rather see it as a literary
devise. To understand it this way, notice what God created up to
that point in the narrative. The Hebrew Bible says that the earth
and the universe was put into place by that stage, but what is not
explicitly mentioned is that angels were also created, but they were
created before our physical universe was created. So it this verse
is figuratively understood as God talking to both the angels as well
as physical universe and saying that man should be created in both
their image(s). Fact is that's what happened. Man was created in
the image of the angels, in the sense that angels are wholly
spiritual beings, while the physical universe is wholly based upon
matter. So mankind is a combination of these two features of the
created universe, part spiritual and part physical. The next few
verses it says God then created man is His own image, well that
means that He gave us features similar to Himself which neither the
angels nor the physical universe possess. He gave us an intellect,
as well as a moral sense as well as free will. So this verse is
seen couched in a literary devise that tells that mankind is
composed of spirituality, physicality, intellect and free will. It
does not have to be taken literally, it does not have to be
understood with Christological overtones, in fact taking this verse
literally leads to more problems than it's worth.
If one wants to promote the notion that God is a plurality from
verse 24 the (faulty) English rendering of God-as-a-plurality lends
support to it quite nicely, however this notion is contradicted a
bit farther down in verse 27 where the simple reading states quite
clearly: "And God (Eloheem) created (singular verb) him: male and
female He created (again, this is a singular verb) him." So if God
in this passage would be a plurality or somehow a multiple this
verse would have had plural verbs for "create" but even in the
English they're rendered in the singular. There are other verses in
the Hebrew Bible that make a nonsense of this idea that God is a
plurality. In Isaiah 44:6 God says "And besides Me there is no
Eloheem ("plural"?) " yet in 44:8 God says "Is there a God (Eloha
= "singular") besides Me?" Ok, so if Eloheem is plural, as many
missionaries claim and Eloha is singular then what is God? Is He a
plurality one verse and a singularity the next? C'mon, such a
doctrine of the plurality of God is contradicted within 2 verses.
Not to mention that there are verses that explicitly contradict idea
of God other than one and a pure singularity as in Is 44:6: "I am
the first and I am the last and besides Me there is no God."
One other thought: It strikes me as odd that Christians are
promoting this notion of God being in the multiple in order to
support their doctrine of a trinity for it seems that to do so will
only backfire in their faces sooner or later. After all, they are
trying to push the idea of a trinity -- as they see it, there is one
God as a singularity somehow subdivided into 3 separate parts.
Well, for them to use Gen 1:26 in this way is kinda dumb, for we all
know that a plurality is too general of an idea to describe their
notion of a trinity. Ya know, in early grade school we were all
taught a plural simply means 2 or more. So by claiming that this
verse shows God as a plurality they are putting forth only a weak
support for a trinity and, at the same time, unwittingly giving a
lot of fuel to polytheist beliefs which say that there are multiple
gods or multiple parts of the godhead! The ancient Persians had
the godhead as a duality with a good god and a bad god and with that
they explained the existence of good and evil. Then there are the
religious that support pantheons such that existed in the
Greco-Roman world as well as in present-day Hinduism. So when Christians
claim Gen 1:26 supports the idea of God as a plurality then it gives
lots more credence to polytheist beliefs than it does to their own
trinity. Is this what Christians really want to do? Is this
smart??
As far as my credentials on the Hebrew language go the above is NOT
just a theoretical understanding of Hebrew. For Hebrew is a daily
part of my life, as I moved here to Israel in 1980 been living here
continuously for the past 27 years (in the Judean Mountains between
Bethlehem and Hebron) and in that time I've become fluent in
Hebrew. It's an extremely logical language, a beautifully DESIGNED
language structured so logically that it's easy to get one's point
across with few words. Writing is without vowels and very concise
besides so English books translated into Hebrew are generally 30-40%
shorter. And when it comes to reading the Bible in Hebrew the
meanings and intentions of the Biblical text can have quite
different from the meanings and nuances than come off in English.
Now and then there are separate nuances within a Bible verse that
are simply impossible to covey in English. Frankly, reading the
Bible in Hebrew is a different world compared to the way the
translators render it into English, and many translators for the
churches do it with a mind to promote their own doctrines and
agendas.
So best regards to all!
Dale Baranowski
Posted by: Dale Baranowski
Date: Sun Aug 26, 2007 4:01 pm ((PDT))
Dear Gang,
I don't often get the time to catch up on the postings until well
after they've been posted on the Hornet's Nest List, and it's
difficult finding time to respond, but this one caught my eye and
may be able squeeze the time to provide insight in to the discussion
of the verse: " .... And GOD ("Eloheem") said 'let US make man in
OUR image and after OUR likeness...' "
There's no need to go back to ancient Sumerian texts for an
understanding of this passage nor does one need to use an
Christological interpretation.
What is needed is to simply realize that the Hebrew Bible (the "Old
Testament", as Christians call it) was written in Hebrew and that
there are always problems when translating one language into
another. There are peculiarities in every language that are either
impossible to translate or come off in looking strange when even the
best, most honest and most sincere scholars take up the task.
Translating is made much more complicated or even impossible when
words and ideas of significance originate from a different culture
and especially when separated by 2-3,000 years. The Italians have a
catchy expression "Traduttori-Traditori." which means "Translators
are traitors" for even they were aware that no matter how well of a
translation one can produce it's always a far cry from the words and
ideas in the original language.
This issue regarding Gen. 1:26 where it says "... And GOD said 'let
US make man in OUR image and after OUR likeness..." is accurate
from a literal standpoint but comes off looking strange in English
as many read the translation and thought it portrays God as a
plurality. This issue partly centers on the apparent plural suffix
that is attached to the Hebrew word for "God." That Hebrew seems
to have a masculine-plural form which is a suffix of "-eem". For
example: the word for dog is "kelev" while the word for dogs
is "klaveem" and the Hebrew word for bottle is "bakbook" so the
plural for that is "bakbookeem". Then there is one of the words used
to denote God which is "Eloheem" and in this verse it would appear
that the suffix -"eem" is in the plural form. Now those with only
know a smattering of Hebrew (or those who have a certain agenda to
promote) see the -eem-ending on Eloheem and assume that it is the
word for God and so the -eem suffix also indicates a plurality, so
from this they reason that God is a plurality of some sort. This is
not the case. For though the -eem ending is often used to denote a
plural, the word "eloheem" is an exception to this rule as it is not
a word for God specifically, but rather it's used to denote some
person or some being with great power. For the most part, in the
Hebrew Bible the word "eloheem" is used to denote God Himself but it
is not used exclusively as a noun indicating God, but rather it's a
word that denotes 'a being of great power' even though those with
great power are occasionally human beings. Exodus 7:1 illustrates
this concept as this was an occasion where God was speaking to Moses
and said to him: "See, I have made you as if a god unto Pharaoh"
(RSV). That's the way the translators render it, (except that
the "as if" part was added by the translator) and rightly so, but
realize that the literal reading of that verse is "See, I have made
you an ELOHEEM unto Pharaoh." God said that he made Moses
an "eloheem" -- but wait, if that word really means "God" and the - eem suffix really denotes a plurality then it should have meant that
Moses was to become not only a god but, by the logic that this "eem"
suffix indicates plurality, so with this logic it should be rendered
as gods (plural!) in Pharaoh's eyes! But from even a cursory
reading of the Hebrew Bible never says that Pharaoh thought of Moses
as God nor did he think Moses as having a developed an exact
clone. The truth is that the Hebrew uses "eloheem" for human
beings of great power and that included God as well as humans, and
in some translations of the Hebrew Scriptures the translators
sometimes render "eloheem" into "judges" .
To make this issue more complicated, Hebrew grammar has a rule where
the verbs and their objects must agree in matters of singularity or
plurality. So where the object of a verb is singular, so must the
verb be singular and where the verb is plural so must it's object be
plural. For example, in Hebrew one would correctly say "She go to
the store" and "we goes to the store." In English the same thing
applies but only in reverse. We say "She (singular object) goes
(plural verb?) to the store." And: "We (plural object) go
(singular verb?) to the store." The same principle applies but
it's reversed in English. (My wife is an English teacher and
Israelis being to learn English have a hard time getting used to
this reverse verb-object agreement. The keep falling back to the
more logical structure found in Hebrew and tend to say "They goes to
the store" and "she go to the store.' Because it's much more logical
as well as habitual to carry on a verb-object agreement with
them.) So when this verse is translated "...let US make man in OUR
image and after OUR likeness" there's simply a grammatical feature
expressing itself that has been awkwardly translated. If one reads
is fluent in Hebrew and understands the conventions of the language
and the grammatical forms God does not come off as a plurality in
this verse, it's only because this verse doesn't come off well in
translation under the best of circumstances.
Ok, so the reader will no doubt be curious as to how this verse can
be understood in ways that do not suggest that God is a plurality.
Well, Judaism has a number of ways to understand this verse, some
more esoteric than others, but one basic way to understand this
verse is to not take it literally but rather see it as a literary
devise. To understand it this way, notice what God created up to
that point in the narrative. The Hebrew Bible says that the earth
and the universe was put into place by that stage, but what is not
explicitly mentioned is that angels were also created, but they were
created before our physical universe was created. So it this verse
is figuratively understood as God talking to both the angels as well
as physical universe and saying that man should be created in both
their image(s). Fact is that's what happened. Man was created in
the image of the angels, in the sense that angels are wholly
spiritual beings, while the physical universe is wholly based upon
matter. So mankind is a combination of these two features of the
created universe, part spiritual and part physical. The next few
verses it says God then created man is His own image, well that
means that He gave us features similar to Himself which neither the
angels nor the physical universe possess. He gave us an intellect,
as well as a moral sense as well as free will. So this verse is
seen couched in a literary devise that tells that mankind is
composed of spirituality, physicality, intellect and free will. It
does not have to be taken literally, it does not have to be
understood with Christological overtones, in fact taking this verse
literally leads to more problems than it's worth.
If one wants to promote the notion that God is a plurality from
verse 24 the (faulty) English rendering of God-as-a-plurality lends
support to it quite nicely, however this notion is contradicted a
bit farther down in verse 27 where the simple reading states quite
clearly: "And God (Eloheem) created (singular verb) him: male and
female He created (again, this is a singular verb) him." So if God
in this passage would be a plurality or somehow a multiple this
verse would have had plural verbs for "create" but even in the
English they're rendered in the singular. There are other verses in
the Hebrew Bible that make a nonsense of this idea that God is a
plurality. In Isaiah 44:6 God says "And besides Me there is no
Eloheem ("plural"?) " yet in 44:8 God says "Is there a God (Eloha
= "singular") besides Me?" Ok, so if Eloheem is plural, as many
missionaries claim and Eloha is singular then what is God? Is He a
plurality one verse and a singularity the next? C'mon, such a
doctrine of the plurality of God is contradicted within 2 verses.
Not to mention that there are verses that explicitly contradict idea
of God other than one and a pure singularity as in Is 44:6: "I am
the first and I am the last and besides Me there is no God."
One other thought: It strikes me as odd that Christians are
promoting this notion of God being in the multiple in order to
support their doctrine of a trinity for it seems that to do so will
only backfire in their faces sooner or later. After all, they are
trying to push the idea of a trinity -- as they see it, there is one
God as a singularity somehow subdivided into 3 separate parts.
Well, for them to use Gen 1:26 in this way is kinda dumb, for we all
know that a plurality is too general of an idea to describe their
notion of a trinity. Ya know, in early grade school we were all
taught a plural simply means 2 or more. So by claiming that this
verse shows God as a plurality they are putting forth only a weak
support for a trinity and, at the same time, unwittingly giving a
lot of fuel to polytheist beliefs which say that there are multiple
gods or multiple parts of the godhead! The ancient Persians had
the godhead as a duality with a good god and a bad god and with that
they explained the existence of good and evil. Then there are the
religious that support pantheons such that existed in the
Greco-Roman world as well as in present-day Hinduism. So when Christians
claim Gen 1:26 supports the idea of God as a plurality then it gives
lots more credence to polytheist beliefs than it does to their own
trinity. Is this what Christians really want to do? Is this
smart??
As far as my credentials on the Hebrew language go the above is NOT
just a theoretical understanding of Hebrew. For Hebrew is a daily
part of my life, as I moved here to Israel in 1980 been living here
continuously for the past 27 years (in the Judean Mountains between
Bethlehem and Hebron) and in that time I've become fluent in
Hebrew. It's an extremely logical language, a beautifully DESIGNED
language structured so logically that it's easy to get one's point
across with few words. Writing is without vowels and very concise
besides so English books translated into Hebrew are generally 30-40%
shorter. And when it comes to reading the Bible in Hebrew the
meanings and intentions of the Biblical text can have quite
different from the meanings and nuances than come off in English.
Now and then there are separate nuances within a Bible verse that
are simply impossible to covey in English. Frankly, reading the
Bible in Hebrew is a different world compared to the way the
translators render it into English, and many translators for the
churches do it with a mind to promote their own doctrines and
agendas.
So best regards to all!
Dale Baranowski
Astrology: Fate In The Stars Or In Our DNA?
"Dale: I just heard this: 'One's future is not in the stars but in our DNA.' What is your reaction?"
People have serious misunderstandings about astrology as they think it has to do with event prediction or discerning fate.
Several hundred years back astrology was only about event prediction issues. Astrologers were reputed to be very accurate in predicting events back then and it doesn’t surprise me as society was a lot simpler then. Four hundred years ago, if the astrological forecast was for a major life upheaval in a person then there were not very many ways that this could be expressed. So it was easy to predict the events that were expected to occur. OTOH, our society is now far more complex with so many more options that the upheaval can be expressed in a lot different events. So today we can’t even do what astrologers could do back in the 1600s because society is different. However, the events as they unfold in a person’s life may differ but the psychological impact on the person during the upheaval is far more predictable so for that reason the astrologer should confine his/her predictions to that of the process of change and transformation rather than events.
In any case, astrology was able to predict events at one time but it has never been able to tell of our fate. Event prediction is something that may be done when the astrologer knows a lot about the context of the client’s life and fits the symbols into the context of a person’s life, but as far as discerning fate, NO WAY! Events come and go in a person’s life, while fate is the ultimate destiny and purpose of a person’s life as expressed in the events that we experience. God determines our fate and the planets are great indicators of personality traits in personality dynamics within oneself and between couples, and it can warn of POTENTIAL upheavals in life, but there is not now and never has been a way that astrologers can see the fate of a person.
As far as our future lying in our DNA, that’s about as intelligent as saying that the future of a building lies in its blueprints.
People have serious misunderstandings about astrology as they think it has to do with event prediction or discerning fate.
Several hundred years back astrology was only about event prediction issues. Astrologers were reputed to be very accurate in predicting events back then and it doesn’t surprise me as society was a lot simpler then. Four hundred years ago, if the astrological forecast was for a major life upheaval in a person then there were not very many ways that this could be expressed. So it was easy to predict the events that were expected to occur. OTOH, our society is now far more complex with so many more options that the upheaval can be expressed in a lot different events. So today we can’t even do what astrologers could do back in the 1600s because society is different. However, the events as they unfold in a person’s life may differ but the psychological impact on the person during the upheaval is far more predictable so for that reason the astrologer should confine his/her predictions to that of the process of change and transformation rather than events.
In any case, astrology was able to predict events at one time but it has never been able to tell of our fate. Event prediction is something that may be done when the astrologer knows a lot about the context of the client’s life and fits the symbols into the context of a person’s life, but as far as discerning fate, NO WAY! Events come and go in a person’s life, while fate is the ultimate destiny and purpose of a person’s life as expressed in the events that we experience. God determines our fate and the planets are great indicators of personality traits in personality dynamics within oneself and between couples, and it can warn of POTENTIAL upheavals in life, but there is not now and never has been a way that astrologers can see the fate of a person.
As far as our future lying in our DNA, that’s about as intelligent as saying that the future of a building lies in its blueprints.
25 June 2007
Miracles and Their Consequences to the Jewish People in the Land of Israel
From: Dale Baranowski [mailto:rabelad@zahav.net.il]
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 10:27 PM
To: (Undisclosed Recipients)
>
> As an officer in the IDF, he found himself with a "shadow"
> - an officer from a foreign (friendly) army was attached to
> him, to learn about tactics, equipment, strategy,
> organization, etc. After a few months , the officier said
> to Rabbi M. : " This is impossible. I have been to
> Finland, to other European countries to study their army
> and their military work, and I have learned tremendously.
> But from you Israelis, I cannot learn a single thing.
> Not one thing."
>
> Rabbi M . asked : "How is that? " And the man answered:
> " Each rocket that fell last summer in the north contained
> an average of 100 kilograms of explosives. With over 4000
> such rockets falling on Northern Israel, we could expect
> vast devastation, cities and towns in ruins, thousands of
> casualties. We are talking about 400,000 kilos of
> explosives, over 400 tons !!! But no... and your life goes
> on. We just can't learn from you, because nothing here is
> normal. You guys are living on sheer, huge, obvious
> miracles!!!"
I've been saying this for years.
And I might add that Jews, though brilliant in the sciences, arts, humanities and technology, are complete and blithering idiots when it comes to knowing how to act in order to survive in the real world. We do things that would be regarded as insane by the rest of the world in order to make 'peace' We Jews do wildly irrational things to supposedly enhance our security which only ends up eroding it even more. For instance, no gentile in his right mind would even dream of empowering his enemies by giving them great hunks of land AND providing them with lots of weapons without having made peace first. It’s a fact and I long pondered over why this is so. After reading the accounts of our previous wars and having been in Israel during the Gulf War, the Lebanese war and now seen how this country handled the most recent outbreak of hostilities last summer, I came to the conclusion that this is due to the fact that our people and country have been shielded by miracle after miracle over decades and millennia.
I understand that David ben-Gurion once said something to the effect that if anyone lives in this area and doesn't believe in miracles he simply doesn't have a grasp of reality.
If we were to experience the real consequences of our actions, and live according to the rules as the rest of the world does Israel wouldn’t have survived 6 months. We would have been swiftly slaughtered by our enemies in a killing frenzy when all the surrounding Arab states attacked Israel at once, a day after her creation in 1948. If the Arabs would have known better and would have had a modicum of self-control they would have held off and we would have quickly run ourselves and our state into the ground with our incompetence and corruption within months after it's creation in 1948. The reason our country survives our enemies within, without and the perpetual blundering incompetence is simply miraculous. The thing that makes it even more miraculous is that Israel doesn’t just survive, she flourishes despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Arabs who are hankering for our blood and, quite arguably, have one of the most barbaric cultures on this earth
Miracles have happened to Jews in the Land of Israel to the extent that we have never gotten normal exposure to the way the real world works. We've never had to deal with real life as the rest of humanity experiences it, and this fact profoundly affects our outlook and whole mentality. Miracles are a fundamental part of our lives and, as a result, we take insane risks that we think will enhance our security but they would require even bigger miracles for them to actually succeed.
The truth is that the success of Jews in life is always a gift, and this is especially so here in the Land of Israel as here the gifts are much more open and blatant. Well, it’s because the average Israeli has seen so many miracles and so often that they appear to be "normal" after a while. Many Israelis have developed this annoying assumption that they are natural experts in fields to which they have no knowledge, no education nor experience. This is usually interpreted as arrogance or irrationality by someone who comes from other countries where someone with no education, no experience and no knowledge is quickly snuffed out even the earliest attempt to succeed in an endeavor. Yet here in Israel many Jews have succeeded brilliantly without essential qualifications. Not just once but Israelis have done so often and again, and as a result they think that this sort of thing is normal (!). Truth is that it's NOT normal, it's the result of blatant divine intervention, but we're so much a part of this scene, so used to miracles happening daily, we’re so buried within it, that we don't have the broader perspective and can't see it even when non-Jews come here and see them first-hand.
Dale
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 10:27 PM
To: (Undisclosed Recipients)
>
> As an officer in the IDF, he found himself with a "shadow"
> - an officer from a foreign (friendly) army was attached to
> him, to learn about tactics, equipment, strategy,
> organization, etc. After a few months , the officier said
> to Rabbi M. : " This is impossible. I have been to
> Finland, to other European countries to study their army
> and their military work, and I have learned tremendously.
> But from you Israelis, I cannot learn a single thing.
> Not one thing."
>
> Rabbi M . asked : "How is that? " And the man answered:
> " Each rocket that fell last summer in the north contained
> an average of 100 kilograms of explosives. With over 4000
> such rockets falling on Northern Israel, we could expect
> vast devastation, cities and towns in ruins, thousands of
> casualties. We are talking about 400,000 kilos of
> explosives, over 400 tons !!! But no... and your life goes
> on. We just can't learn from you, because nothing here is
> normal. You guys are living on sheer, huge, obvious
> miracles!!!"
I've been saying this for years.
And I might add that Jews, though brilliant in the sciences, arts, humanities and technology, are complete and blithering idiots when it comes to knowing how to act in order to survive in the real world. We do things that would be regarded as insane by the rest of the world in order to make 'peace' We Jews do wildly irrational things to supposedly enhance our security which only ends up eroding it even more. For instance, no gentile in his right mind would even dream of empowering his enemies by giving them great hunks of land AND providing them with lots of weapons without having made peace first. It’s a fact and I long pondered over why this is so. After reading the accounts of our previous wars and having been in Israel during the Gulf War, the Lebanese war and now seen how this country handled the most recent outbreak of hostilities last summer, I came to the conclusion that this is due to the fact that our people and country have been shielded by miracle after miracle over decades and millennia.
I understand that David ben-Gurion once said something to the effect that if anyone lives in this area and doesn't believe in miracles he simply doesn't have a grasp of reality.
If we were to experience the real consequences of our actions, and live according to the rules as the rest of the world does Israel wouldn’t have survived 6 months. We would have been swiftly slaughtered by our enemies in a killing frenzy when all the surrounding Arab states attacked Israel at once, a day after her creation in 1948. If the Arabs would have known better and would have had a modicum of self-control they would have held off and we would have quickly run ourselves and our state into the ground with our incompetence and corruption within months after it's creation in 1948. The reason our country survives our enemies within, without and the perpetual blundering incompetence is simply miraculous. The thing that makes it even more miraculous is that Israel doesn’t just survive, she flourishes despite being surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Arabs who are hankering for our blood and, quite arguably, have one of the most barbaric cultures on this earth
Miracles have happened to Jews in the Land of Israel to the extent that we have never gotten normal exposure to the way the real world works. We've never had to deal with real life as the rest of humanity experiences it, and this fact profoundly affects our outlook and whole mentality. Miracles are a fundamental part of our lives and, as a result, we take insane risks that we think will enhance our security but they would require even bigger miracles for them to actually succeed.
The truth is that the success of Jews in life is always a gift, and this is especially so here in the Land of Israel as here the gifts are much more open and blatant. Well, it’s because the average Israeli has seen so many miracles and so often that they appear to be "normal" after a while. Many Israelis have developed this annoying assumption that they are natural experts in fields to which they have no knowledge, no education nor experience. This is usually interpreted as arrogance or irrationality by someone who comes from other countries where someone with no education, no experience and no knowledge is quickly snuffed out even the earliest attempt to succeed in an endeavor. Yet here in Israel many Jews have succeeded brilliantly without essential qualifications. Not just once but Israelis have done so often and again, and as a result they think that this sort of thing is normal (!). Truth is that it's NOT normal, it's the result of blatant divine intervention, but we're so much a part of this scene, so used to miracles happening daily, we’re so buried within it, that we don't have the broader perspective and can't see it even when non-Jews come here and see them first-hand.
Dale
14 June 2007
An account of Arab cultural norms, mentality and behavior from the 1920s & 30s
One issue that always seems to re-enter the international news is how Fatah & Hezbollah have rounds of fighting in these parts that many think will end in a mass civil war. For all the times that we’ve seen those periods they always seem to cool down and not end in the bloodbath of terrorists that many hope will reduce the numbers of those who are out to kill Jews. It seems that Fatah leaders use these periods of fighting to beg for weapons from the US and since their more image-conscious leaders claim that they are “moderate” the US swallows this hook, line & sinker and provides Fatah will lots of small arms, ostensibly to fight the Hezbollah. In the end those weapons are shared beteen Hezbollah and Fatah because, deep down, they're really brothers who have little spats now and then, but they hate Jews the most.
Well, I am reading Clark Hopkins work: "The Discovery of Dura-Europus" which is an account written by the head archeologist who excavated the city of Dura-Europus in Syria along the Euphrates River which was one of the richest archeological finds in the mid-East. Clark Hopkins was in charge of the dig which took place in Syria the 1920s and 1930s. The following paragraphs are taken verbatim from that book. They contain a description of the mentality and behavior of the Arabs. I wish to point out that Hopkins noticed that a cycle of violence (he called it a “cycle of murder and revenge”) that exists within Arab society and that the Arabs of his day got adventurous, stepped on another Arab group’s toes, violence erupted in reaction, someone got injured or killed in the encounter, and then the opposing group did seek blood revenge on the (perceived?) offenders. And this pattern, this cycle of violence, went on and on and on in those days between Arab and Arab. Oddly enough, that mentality seems to persist unchanged today among them. It’s a frequent occurrence for in these parts clans have clan wars and outbreaks of fighting among other groups. And then Fatah & Hezbollah have their frequent violent tiffs. This behavior is another expression of what Clark refers to in the second paragraph as “childlike simplicity”. That’s a very positive spin on some very destructive attitudes and behavior when it erupts in adults who are angry or carry a grudge. When children are hurt they react quickly, emotionally, and lash out in revenge at the one they perceive as having done the harm. Culturally speaking, when Arabs feel sighted or hurt it’s typical for them to react childishly and lash out to each other, and especially toward Jews. When adult reacts the same way, particularly one carrying firearms, death and destruction result.
All in all, their mentality remains constant and there’s little hope for them to change toward more civilized ways. So liberals: give up thy ideals, hopes and illusions, ye who enter the Middle-East!
Dale
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following excerpt is from Clark Hopkins book, ‘The Discovery of Dura-Europus’, Yale University Press, 1979, pp 43-48:
“The desert offered little opportunity for remunerative work beyond raising the flocks and herds. When times were hard with famine, the villages were crowded with desert Arabs seeking any means to earn subsistence. There were no fat men in the desert, while in town the Arab put on flesh easily enough. The desert Arab knew bitter cold in winter and unrelenting heat in summer; he fought the climate and indigenous diseases—particularly anemia, syphilis, and ringworm—and he subsisted on a minimum of nourishment. Rice and bread, dates, figs, and nuts were the unvarying staples, but meat remained a luxury. For a special feast, a sheep was killed and the flesh roasted. Milk and sour cream were added in season, eggs and chicken occasionally, and a desert bird would be served as a special treat when the shot from a whirling sling found its mark.
“The Arabs displayed their pleasure with childlike simplicity when they came to the pay table, singing noisily and brandishing their shovels and picks as if they were guns and all were off on a hunting party. Their dance was the Turkish line of men with arms around each other's shoulders, with the end man performing fancy bends and turns. The music was high and wild or melancholy and elusive.
“A man bought his bride from a family within the tribe, and he settled down in his own tent, keeping his sheep in the common herd. There was no opportunity for school, for the herdsmen were constantly on the move. When the French insisted on an elementary school in one village, the tribal units gave money for a building, a teacher, and books, but providing the children was a different matter. The boys could not be spared from the flocks they tended, and the girls had no need for education. Schooling, if there was to be any, was only possible when the tribes remained in one place: in the spring when they settled by the river, and in the winter when the thick desert mud made migrations impossible.
“The movement of tribes was to the northern highlands for the summer and to the south for the winter. Modern political frontiers were ignored, for the desert had always been free and movement unchecked, except as the large tribes demarcated their territories and the smaller tribes concluded agreements, usually by marriage alliances and for mutual support. The broad desert was the grazing grounds of the tribes, much as the forest and plains were the hunting grounds of the American Indians, and little sympathy was expected or given between unrelated groups. Recognition of and respect for landmarks were phenomenal, but the ownership of border districts was left vague and came into question only in times of famine or unusual expansion. Raids, however, remained the popular pursuit of the daring younger men on their Arabian ponies, and the raids often evolved into deadly feuds. A rough justice prevailed, and a strong claim of injury, even against a superior tribe, might be honored, but the debt of blood devolved not on the law court but on the next of kin, and in the desert the round of retaliation rarely stopped.
“Passing through Palmyra during one of our later seasons, we found the French officer of the Meharists, the desert police, trying to settle a feud between local tribes. It had begun with a small dawn raid by some impetuous young men eager to show their strength. They had cut out a few sheep and goats and driven them back into their own tribal territory. In a retaliatory raid a few shots had been exchanged at long range, and by chance a man had been injured. This called for more serious retaliation. By the time the Meharists intervened a nephew of one sheik had been wounded, one man had been killed, and to further complicate matters, it was discovered that a woman from one tribe had been carried off by her lover from the other tribe.
“All might have been settled without too much trouble, except the death of one man called for the nearest of his kin to avenge the shooting by killing the murderer. In a raid, who fired a fatal shot is rarely known, but the blood debt could be satisfied if any member of the attacking tribe were dispatched. Of course, without proof that the random victim had committed the original crime, his next of kin was obliged to avenge his death. The CYCLE OF MURDER AND REVENGE (emphasis mine – Dale) went on and on; feuds of small tribes grew in intensity, involving larger allied tribes, until all too often desert wars erupted.
“In the Palmyra case the sheiks of the two tribes were summoned, and the injuries were reckoned in cash: How much for the wounding of a sheik? How much for the abduction of a not unwilling girl? How much for the life of one man killed? The details escape me, but I remember the life of the Arab herdsman, not related by blood or marriage to the sheik, was valued at twenty-five dollars. The French insisted that the amount be paid in silver on the spot and that both sheiks swear that particular feud was over. Life was plain but not entirely simple in the open spaces of the desert.
“Fillet dreaded a native Arab attack on his mission, and he built accordingly. He had the great, wide courtyard surrounded by a solid wall of rubble and cement higher than a man's head. A corridor ran along one side of the staff quarters, and the private rooms opened off it, each long and narrow and lighted by a single small window cut through the thick cement much like an archer's slot.
“One might be amused by his over-anxiety, but there was some justification, as we discovered in later campaigns. In the summer of 1932 the few soldiers comprising the French garrison at Abou Kemal were attacked and as the lieutenant was returning to his fort in an army truck, he was ambushed and killed. One night our foreman's house in the great courtyard became someone’s target. On another occasion, an old and experienced French archaeologist traveling alone at night was signaled to a stop by an Arab, who approached the car with one hand held high, the other behind him. When the car door opened, he pulled up the rifle he had been dragging behind him by the barrel and shot the archaeologist. Whether robbery or a fancied grudge was the motive we never knew. Our own expedition on a special investigation across the Euphrates at Baghouz, close to the Iraq frontier, was saved from attack by a sandstorm that rose at the right moment. Apparently the would-be attackers thought archaeologists carried their wealth with them and that the robbery could be covered by a quick flight across the border.
“On the other hand we drove into Deir-ez-Zor once a week, withdrawing from the bank a thousand dollars in silver and gold to pay the workmen. Our route was well known and we had to drive through one or two narrow, steep passes where a roadblock and attack would have been easy. Although a thousand dollars was a fortune in the desert, we were never molested, nor was there ever any hint that we might be.”
Well, I am reading Clark Hopkins work: "The Discovery of Dura-Europus" which is an account written by the head archeologist who excavated the city of Dura-Europus in Syria along the Euphrates River which was one of the richest archeological finds in the mid-East. Clark Hopkins was in charge of the dig which took place in Syria the 1920s and 1930s. The following paragraphs are taken verbatim from that book. They contain a description of the mentality and behavior of the Arabs. I wish to point out that Hopkins noticed that a cycle of violence (he called it a “cycle of murder and revenge”) that exists within Arab society and that the Arabs of his day got adventurous, stepped on another Arab group’s toes, violence erupted in reaction, someone got injured or killed in the encounter, and then the opposing group did seek blood revenge on the (perceived?) offenders. And this pattern, this cycle of violence, went on and on and on in those days between Arab and Arab. Oddly enough, that mentality seems to persist unchanged today among them. It’s a frequent occurrence for in these parts clans have clan wars and outbreaks of fighting among other groups. And then Fatah & Hezbollah have their frequent violent tiffs. This behavior is another expression of what Clark refers to in the second paragraph as “childlike simplicity”. That’s a very positive spin on some very destructive attitudes and behavior when it erupts in adults who are angry or carry a grudge. When children are hurt they react quickly, emotionally, and lash out in revenge at the one they perceive as having done the harm. Culturally speaking, when Arabs feel sighted or hurt it’s typical for them to react childishly and lash out to each other, and especially toward Jews. When adult reacts the same way, particularly one carrying firearms, death and destruction result.
All in all, their mentality remains constant and there’s little hope for them to change toward more civilized ways. So liberals: give up thy ideals, hopes and illusions, ye who enter the Middle-East!
Dale
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following excerpt is from Clark Hopkins book, ‘The Discovery of Dura-Europus’, Yale University Press, 1979, pp 43-48:
“The desert offered little opportunity for remunerative work beyond raising the flocks and herds. When times were hard with famine, the villages were crowded with desert Arabs seeking any means to earn subsistence. There were no fat men in the desert, while in town the Arab put on flesh easily enough. The desert Arab knew bitter cold in winter and unrelenting heat in summer; he fought the climate and indigenous diseases—particularly anemia, syphilis, and ringworm—and he subsisted on a minimum of nourishment. Rice and bread, dates, figs, and nuts were the unvarying staples, but meat remained a luxury. For a special feast, a sheep was killed and the flesh roasted. Milk and sour cream were added in season, eggs and chicken occasionally, and a desert bird would be served as a special treat when the shot from a whirling sling found its mark.
“The Arabs displayed their pleasure with childlike simplicity when they came to the pay table, singing noisily and brandishing their shovels and picks as if they were guns and all were off on a hunting party. Their dance was the Turkish line of men with arms around each other's shoulders, with the end man performing fancy bends and turns. The music was high and wild or melancholy and elusive.
“A man bought his bride from a family within the tribe, and he settled down in his own tent, keeping his sheep in the common herd. There was no opportunity for school, for the herdsmen were constantly on the move. When the French insisted on an elementary school in one village, the tribal units gave money for a building, a teacher, and books, but providing the children was a different matter. The boys could not be spared from the flocks they tended, and the girls had no need for education. Schooling, if there was to be any, was only possible when the tribes remained in one place: in the spring when they settled by the river, and in the winter when the thick desert mud made migrations impossible.
“The movement of tribes was to the northern highlands for the summer and to the south for the winter. Modern political frontiers were ignored, for the desert had always been free and movement unchecked, except as the large tribes demarcated their territories and the smaller tribes concluded agreements, usually by marriage alliances and for mutual support. The broad desert was the grazing grounds of the tribes, much as the forest and plains were the hunting grounds of the American Indians, and little sympathy was expected or given between unrelated groups. Recognition of and respect for landmarks were phenomenal, but the ownership of border districts was left vague and came into question only in times of famine or unusual expansion. Raids, however, remained the popular pursuit of the daring younger men on their Arabian ponies, and the raids often evolved into deadly feuds. A rough justice prevailed, and a strong claim of injury, even against a superior tribe, might be honored, but the debt of blood devolved not on the law court but on the next of kin, and in the desert the round of retaliation rarely stopped.
“Passing through Palmyra during one of our later seasons, we found the French officer of the Meharists, the desert police, trying to settle a feud between local tribes. It had begun with a small dawn raid by some impetuous young men eager to show their strength. They had cut out a few sheep and goats and driven them back into their own tribal territory. In a retaliatory raid a few shots had been exchanged at long range, and by chance a man had been injured. This called for more serious retaliation. By the time the Meharists intervened a nephew of one sheik had been wounded, one man had been killed, and to further complicate matters, it was discovered that a woman from one tribe had been carried off by her lover from the other tribe.
“All might have been settled without too much trouble, except the death of one man called for the nearest of his kin to avenge the shooting by killing the murderer. In a raid, who fired a fatal shot is rarely known, but the blood debt could be satisfied if any member of the attacking tribe were dispatched. Of course, without proof that the random victim had committed the original crime, his next of kin was obliged to avenge his death. The CYCLE OF MURDER AND REVENGE (emphasis mine – Dale) went on and on; feuds of small tribes grew in intensity, involving larger allied tribes, until all too often desert wars erupted.
“In the Palmyra case the sheiks of the two tribes were summoned, and the injuries were reckoned in cash: How much for the wounding of a sheik? How much for the abduction of a not unwilling girl? How much for the life of one man killed? The details escape me, but I remember the life of the Arab herdsman, not related by blood or marriage to the sheik, was valued at twenty-five dollars. The French insisted that the amount be paid in silver on the spot and that both sheiks swear that particular feud was over. Life was plain but not entirely simple in the open spaces of the desert.
“Fillet dreaded a native Arab attack on his mission, and he built accordingly. He had the great, wide courtyard surrounded by a solid wall of rubble and cement higher than a man's head. A corridor ran along one side of the staff quarters, and the private rooms opened off it, each long and narrow and lighted by a single small window cut through the thick cement much like an archer's slot.
“One might be amused by his over-anxiety, but there was some justification, as we discovered in later campaigns. In the summer of 1932 the few soldiers comprising the French garrison at Abou Kemal were attacked and as the lieutenant was returning to his fort in an army truck, he was ambushed and killed. One night our foreman's house in the great courtyard became someone’s target. On another occasion, an old and experienced French archaeologist traveling alone at night was signaled to a stop by an Arab, who approached the car with one hand held high, the other behind him. When the car door opened, he pulled up the rifle he had been dragging behind him by the barrel and shot the archaeologist. Whether robbery or a fancied grudge was the motive we never knew. Our own expedition on a special investigation across the Euphrates at Baghouz, close to the Iraq frontier, was saved from attack by a sandstorm that rose at the right moment. Apparently the would-be attackers thought archaeologists carried their wealth with them and that the robbery could be covered by a quick flight across the border.
“On the other hand we drove into Deir-ez-Zor once a week, withdrawing from the bank a thousand dollars in silver and gold to pay the workmen. Our route was well known and we had to drive through one or two narrow, steep passes where a roadblock and attack would have been easy. Although a thousand dollars was a fortune in the desert, we were never molested, nor was there ever any hint that we might be.”
07 June 2007
RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
> Cc: 'Efrat List'
> Subject: RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
>
> Ok, so what is our response? I would like to know it.
>
> Those apricot trees were not 20 years old. (I think one man mentioned
> that they had been living off the fruit for 20 years?) But the one
> olivetree we saw destroyed certainly was - so what's the story?
I watched that film.
http://corky.net/~eran/yossi/Ertas%20200507%20Forweb.WMV
First, those apricot trees were not 20 years old, no way in Hades. They were maybe 6 or 7 years old. Anyway, if they were indeed 20 years old then they would be dead, or at least they would be going out of production and arrive at the end of their lives. If they were 20 years old then they'd be huge, in terrible shape and many in the field would have already died and left obvious gaps in the rows and in the field. Apricot trees only produce commercial fruit for 20 years, maximum, under the best of conditions -- and believe me those trees didn't get anything approaching ideal care.
Second, contrary to the claim that those Arabs make a living off those trees, even if they each had 50 or 60 trees each they couldn't possibly live off them. A mature & productive apricot tree can produce 20 maybe 30 kg of commercial quality fruit assuming that it was pruned properly and 90% of the fruit is removed very early when the fruit is at the size of a lima bean or smaller. Such thinning of fruit makes those that remain big, sweet and sale-able. But it's a lot of work. So do the math, multiply the 60 trees that the guy claimed he had that was slated for destruction, times 30 kg/tree times the price of apricots/kg in the stores these days and if any Arab would try to live off the proceeds he'd starve after 2 months at best. They lied about making a living off those trees, as no one can make a living off 60 trees.
Often in propaganda films what is not said and not shown is significant. How many trees over how much of an area did the earthmover actually destroy? 60? 100? 10,000? They didn't say, funny enough. Instead of giving us facts of the extent of the damage they showed us the "heart-rending" scenes of the power shovel uprooting a few trees but they never gave a shot of the final damage - instead they showed one guy bemoaning the loss of his trees and one other making the motion of wiping a tear from his eye, although we couldn't see any tear. I'd be interested in going to that site and see what area was plowed up for the sewerage treatment facility. Let's see how much of an area was affected.
BTW, I understand that a vast majority of Arab towns and villages do not have sewage treatment facilities and they just dump their sewerage in some wadi or each family dumps their excrement down a hole thus allowing it to contaminate the ground water that we all drink. Why aren't they complaining that they don't have sewage treatment for their town and is just contaminating the ground water instead of complaining about the loss of a few trees?
Oh, and the Arabs will be rejoicing when the treatment center starts working because it will release treated water that they will gleefully use to water their trees and other crops. So for the price of a few fruit trees they'll have an abundance of clean water to use for their agriculture, thanks to dem Jooz! But that won't get on TV or on the net!
Kudos to the soldiers who reacted well in front of the cameras, with smiles, with sufficient sensitivity -- but not too much sensitivity. They did well in that they did not enter into a dispute with the Arabs.
> Is it illegally planted land on land officially owned by Jews?
> (Please
> don't tell me we have a Biblical right to all the land, etc.) Was it
> bought out and paid for by the government in order to build the wall,
> and we aren't told that? Has there been stone throwing/shooting from
> that clump of trees necessitating its uprooting? Or what? Forgive my
> utter ignorance.
There are laws in every western country -- Right of Eminent Domain - that gives the government the right to undertake projects for the public good that may involve destroying property of others. If the property destroyed is legitimately owned by another and they can prove it then the government disburses compensation. But the policy everywhere in every country is: "no tickee, no washee" for if they took land without going through official channels and they don't have a deed then they won't get a nickel in compensation. Not just in Israel but in "progressive" countries like the US and Canada.
And ya mean that they didn't take this issue to the highly sympathetic Israeli Supreme Court that bends over backwards to satisfy Arab complaints? Wow, that says a lot about their case right there!
Heck, anyone can get a herd of folks to sit down at a kumzitz and one clown can cry crocodile tears in front of a camera and pull the heartstrings. But then the leftists know that emotion, passion and lies are the things that manipulate the "ignorant and astonished masses" (as Rene Descartes condescendingly referred to all of humanity, except
himself.)
As a former orchardist of some 15 years experience in Gush Etzion, I would like to point out that a number of sections of our orchards that I worked in were wrecked by Arab vandals.
Example #1: Kibbutz Migdal Oz had 5 dunams (1.4 acres) of mature sweet cherry trees in a section that faced Bet-Fajar that were burned to the ground. Arabs from Bet Fajar set an orchard alight -- oh, for anyone who might object to my "assuming" they were Arabs -- we knew that they came from and retuned to Bet-Fajar because the IDF brought in a Arab Bedouin tracker and he was the one who determined that the footprints of the GROUP of 5 people who lit the fires in a number of places simultaneously in the orchard had come from and returned to Bet-Fajar. Somehow a fire like that was not caused by Jewish Girl Scouts selling cookies who stopped to have a campfire to heat a can of baked beans because they were a bit hungry.
Example #2: In another incident a number of years ago, some 35 mature nectarine trees were seriously damaged or destroyed when Arabs entered
Kibbutz Migdal Oz's orchard which faced el-Arub UNRWA Camp. The Arabs,
entered at night, armed with hand saws, they cut through the primary limbs of the trees as the trees were developed into a goblet shape. The Arabs cut through about 85% of the diameter of the limbs and then they jumped on them which caused them to break and the bark was stripped off down the trunks, clear down to ground level. When that kind of damage is done there's no way to cut back the tree to eliminate the damage as the it goes all the way down to the ground so they did so in a way that mostly destroyed the trees. Again, Bedouin trackers determined that a GROUP of individuals who came and retuned to el-Arub did it.
Example #3: It happened that an Arab who deliberately led his herd of some 15 goats into our plum orchard and allowed his beasts to climb into the trees and eat the unripe fruit and leaves. Goats climb, they are heavy animals and when they climb into trees they break primary limbs with each leap. In the 7 minutes those goats were allowed to have their way with our trees the damage looked like some enormous machine went through the rows and smashed the trees with a huge hammer. If I had not seen the goats do the damage I with my own eyes I would have not believed that they were capable of that kind and extent of destruction. In response we "appropriated" a goat and told the sheppard that he'd get it back when money was paid in compensation for the extensive damage. Man, and it took about 6 more years for the trees to regrow to overcome the damage that a mere 7 minutes of goat activity in the orchard caused. That goat should have gone into a kibbutz cholent in order to partially pay for the damage.
Example #4: Before Rabin & Peres signed the Oslo Peace Accords with Arafat and Jimmy "Peanut Brain" Carter the Arabs snuck into our orchards to steal fruit only at night and only when the moon was not visible so to make it harder for our patrols to spot them. The very day after those accursed Oslo Accords were signed the Arabs gained tremendous confidence and went into our orchards and began to brazenly steal fruit in broad daylight while we were also picking in those same sections.
I have no sympathy for Arabs when they bemoan the uprooting of their orchard trees, as they have gone out of their way to inflict damage on our crops just out of meanness and intolerance. They also steal because it's a part of their culture and mentality and religion. Mohammed routinely carried out raids of thefts on specifically to non-Muslims and regarded this as a virtue. His behavior and attitudes were recorded in the Hadith, which is another sacred Muslim book that tells of the deeds of Muhammad and his gang. It records some 75 terrorist attacks that he perpetrated and it illustrates how his evil mental state was a model for succeeding generations of Muslims. Note that the Hadith was written by Mohammed's supporters and NOT by his detractors. I suggest taking seriously the following site: www.prophetofdoom.net that outlines the contents and repercussions of Muslim holy books that promote terror and intolerance.
> Does anyone understand enough Arabic to understand the last 20 seconds
> of monologue at the end? The words were not subtitled. Was that an
> innocent lapse or something the movie makers didn't want non-Arabs to
> understand?
>
> (We should all be making sure our kids learn Arabic. For positive and
> negative reasons.)
Of course, it's good to learn the language of your enemy, it works everywhere else in the world.
Dale
>
> Thanks,
> Yael
> Subject: RE: [efrat] Movie about our neighborhood
>
> Ok, so what is our response? I would like to know it.
>
> Those apricot trees were not 20 years old. (I think one man mentioned
> that they had been living off the fruit for 20 years?) But the one
> olivetree we saw destroyed certainly was - so what's the story?
I watched that film.
http://corky.net/~eran/yossi/Ertas%20200507%20Forweb.WMV
First, those apricot trees were not 20 years old, no way in Hades. They were maybe 6 or 7 years old. Anyway, if they were indeed 20 years old then they would be dead, or at least they would be going out of production and arrive at the end of their lives. If they were 20 years old then they'd be huge, in terrible shape and many in the field would have already died and left obvious gaps in the rows and in the field. Apricot trees only produce commercial fruit for 20 years, maximum, under the best of conditions -- and believe me those trees didn't get anything approaching ideal care.
Second, contrary to the claim that those Arabs make a living off those trees, even if they each had 50 or 60 trees each they couldn't possibly live off them. A mature & productive apricot tree can produce 20 maybe 30 kg of commercial quality fruit assuming that it was pruned properly and 90% of the fruit is removed very early when the fruit is at the size of a lima bean or smaller. Such thinning of fruit makes those that remain big, sweet and sale-able. But it's a lot of work. So do the math, multiply the 60 trees that the guy claimed he had that was slated for destruction, times 30 kg/tree times the price of apricots/kg in the stores these days and if any Arab would try to live off the proceeds he'd starve after 2 months at best. They lied about making a living off those trees, as no one can make a living off 60 trees.
Often in propaganda films what is not said and not shown is significant. How many trees over how much of an area did the earthmover actually destroy? 60? 100? 10,000? They didn't say, funny enough. Instead of giving us facts of the extent of the damage they showed us the "heart-rending" scenes of the power shovel uprooting a few trees but they never gave a shot of the final damage - instead they showed one guy bemoaning the loss of his trees and one other making the motion of wiping a tear from his eye, although we couldn't see any tear. I'd be interested in going to that site and see what area was plowed up for the sewerage treatment facility. Let's see how much of an area was affected.
BTW, I understand that a vast majority of Arab towns and villages do not have sewage treatment facilities and they just dump their sewerage in some wadi or each family dumps their excrement down a hole thus allowing it to contaminate the ground water that we all drink. Why aren't they complaining that they don't have sewage treatment for their town and is just contaminating the ground water instead of complaining about the loss of a few trees?
Oh, and the Arabs will be rejoicing when the treatment center starts working because it will release treated water that they will gleefully use to water their trees and other crops. So for the price of a few fruit trees they'll have an abundance of clean water to use for their agriculture, thanks to dem Jooz! But that won't get on TV or on the net!
Kudos to the soldiers who reacted well in front of the cameras, with smiles, with sufficient sensitivity -- but not too much sensitivity. They did well in that they did not enter into a dispute with the Arabs.
> Is it illegally planted land on land officially owned by Jews?
> (Please
> don't tell me we have a Biblical right to all the land, etc.) Was it
> bought out and paid for by the government in order to build the wall,
> and we aren't told that? Has there been stone throwing/shooting from
> that clump of trees necessitating its uprooting? Or what? Forgive my
> utter ignorance.
There are laws in every western country -- Right of Eminent Domain - that gives the government the right to undertake projects for the public good that may involve destroying property of others. If the property destroyed is legitimately owned by another and they can prove it then the government disburses compensation. But the policy everywhere in every country is: "no tickee, no washee" for if they took land without going through official channels and they don't have a deed then they won't get a nickel in compensation. Not just in Israel but in "progressive" countries like the US and Canada.
And ya mean that they didn't take this issue to the highly sympathetic Israeli Supreme Court that bends over backwards to satisfy Arab complaints? Wow, that says a lot about their case right there!
Heck, anyone can get a herd of folks to sit down at a kumzitz and one clown can cry crocodile tears in front of a camera and pull the heartstrings. But then the leftists know that emotion, passion and lies are the things that manipulate the "ignorant and astonished masses" (as Rene Descartes condescendingly referred to all of humanity, except
himself.)
As a former orchardist of some 15 years experience in Gush Etzion, I would like to point out that a number of sections of our orchards that I worked in were wrecked by Arab vandals.
Example #1: Kibbutz Migdal Oz had 5 dunams (1.4 acres) of mature sweet cherry trees in a section that faced Bet-Fajar that were burned to the ground. Arabs from Bet Fajar set an orchard alight -- oh, for anyone who might object to my "assuming" they were Arabs -- we knew that they came from and retuned to Bet-Fajar because the IDF brought in a Arab Bedouin tracker and he was the one who determined that the footprints of the GROUP of 5 people who lit the fires in a number of places simultaneously in the orchard had come from and returned to Bet-Fajar. Somehow a fire like that was not caused by Jewish Girl Scouts selling cookies who stopped to have a campfire to heat a can of baked beans because they were a bit hungry.
Example #2: In another incident a number of years ago, some 35 mature nectarine trees were seriously damaged or destroyed when Arabs entered
Kibbutz Migdal Oz's orchard which faced el-Arub UNRWA Camp. The Arabs,
entered at night, armed with hand saws, they cut through the primary limbs of the trees as the trees were developed into a goblet shape. The Arabs cut through about 85% of the diameter of the limbs and then they jumped on them which caused them to break and the bark was stripped off down the trunks, clear down to ground level. When that kind of damage is done there's no way to cut back the tree to eliminate the damage as the it goes all the way down to the ground so they did so in a way that mostly destroyed the trees. Again, Bedouin trackers determined that a GROUP of individuals who came and retuned to el-Arub did it.
Example #3: It happened that an Arab who deliberately led his herd of some 15 goats into our plum orchard and allowed his beasts to climb into the trees and eat the unripe fruit and leaves. Goats climb, they are heavy animals and when they climb into trees they break primary limbs with each leap. In the 7 minutes those goats were allowed to have their way with our trees the damage looked like some enormous machine went through the rows and smashed the trees with a huge hammer. If I had not seen the goats do the damage I with my own eyes I would have not believed that they were capable of that kind and extent of destruction. In response we "appropriated" a goat and told the sheppard that he'd get it back when money was paid in compensation for the extensive damage. Man, and it took about 6 more years for the trees to regrow to overcome the damage that a mere 7 minutes of goat activity in the orchard caused. That goat should have gone into a kibbutz cholent in order to partially pay for the damage.
Example #4: Before Rabin & Peres signed the Oslo Peace Accords with Arafat and Jimmy "Peanut Brain" Carter the Arabs snuck into our orchards to steal fruit only at night and only when the moon was not visible so to make it harder for our patrols to spot them. The very day after those accursed Oslo Accords were signed the Arabs gained tremendous confidence and went into our orchards and began to brazenly steal fruit in broad daylight while we were also picking in those same sections.
I have no sympathy for Arabs when they bemoan the uprooting of their orchard trees, as they have gone out of their way to inflict damage on our crops just out of meanness and intolerance. They also steal because it's a part of their culture and mentality and religion. Mohammed routinely carried out raids of thefts on specifically to non-Muslims and regarded this as a virtue. His behavior and attitudes were recorded in the Hadith, which is another sacred Muslim book that tells of the deeds of Muhammad and his gang. It records some 75 terrorist attacks that he perpetrated and it illustrates how his evil mental state was a model for succeeding generations of Muslims. Note that the Hadith was written by Mohammed's supporters and NOT by his detractors. I suggest taking seriously the following site: www.prophetofdoom.net that outlines the contents and repercussions of Muslim holy books that promote terror and intolerance.
> Does anyone understand enough Arabic to understand the last 20 seconds
> of monologue at the end? The words were not subtitled. Was that an
> innocent lapse or something the movie makers didn't want non-Arabs to
> understand?
>
> (We should all be making sure our kids learn Arabic. For positive and
> negative reasons.)
Of course, it's good to learn the language of your enemy, it works everywhere else in the world.
Dale
>
> Thanks,
> Yael
06 June 2007
An Appeal To My E-mail List Members
Dearest Listmembers,
I have a gripe that has been slowly festering and it’s gotta come out.
When the most well-intentioned people post their messages on lists, as well as send personal e-mails, the subject line of these MUST be explicit. Posting something with a vague subject line on lists usually means that those who do open them are presented with an irrelevant e-mail and thus waste their time in doing so. Now I personally accept the fact that a better portion of the postings on the Efrat-List are irrelevant to me personally. That’s ok. That’s just the nature of lists and I have no problem deleting these items. The ones that are relevant are so usefull they make deleting the irrelevant ones well worthwhile. I expect that many delete my postings out of hand as irrelevant as well. But what bugs me is that I’d like to know which are relevant or irrelevant ahead of time and would like to discern this from the subject lines. There are subject lines that are often poorly composed and so they actually obfuscate the contents of the e-mails. The following are examples of the same subject line vague enough to apply to a variety of messages, one example below is quite relevant to me and the other completely irrelevant, yet without a specific subject I wouldn’t know whether to open them or not…
Example #1: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “I discovered a great tasting Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce manufactured by Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, from a store in Givat Shaul and it was simply great!! It has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim which relocated to Micronesia in the 1300s. Unfortunately the store in Givat Shaul ran out and they don’t plan to restock this item. Anyone know where I can buy more of this? Thanks!!”
Example #2: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “Wow! What a day! Just yesterday I got a phone call from a lawyer who said that my great uncle Morris had died – he’s not really my uncle, but rather my wife’s, cousin’s brother’s adopted nephew who was somehow also 5x-removed. (He was the one with the left blue eye and the right brown eye.) Anyway, my wife is the closest heir to him and the lawyer said that he willed his entire estate to her, which includes the entire remaining stock of his great Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce from his business called The Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, and this stuff is simply great!! This Waxahatchie sauce has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim who relocated to Micronesia in the early 1300s. --- Oh, and just 5 minutes ago 3 huge tandem semi-tractor trailers pulled up to my house with LOADED TO THE BRIM with the remaining cases of this wonderful tasting Waxahatchie sauce which was specially airlifted to Israel straight from his factory – which was just in the nick of time as the building is about to be condemned to make way for the construction of Nevada State Highway #756A, as it is located just outside of the town of Peoche, Nevada, with a population of 59 souls! WWWOOOOWWWW!!!! SO I’M GIVING ALL THOSE CASES OF SAUCE AWAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF GUSH ETZION, CASE-BY-CASE, ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS, FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! ALL OF IT MUST GO TONIGHT AND I’M GIVING IT ALL AWAY!!! COME AND GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT!!!!!!!!!”
See what I mean?
The problem is that I, too, am overwhelmed with postings that do not apply to me or mine and I’d really appreciate it when people would use the subject line to help me determine whether it’s worth opening. Please, people! Make it worth my while to open your postings by an intelligently composed subject line!
This also applies to the subject lines on personal e-mails. I get spam from all kinds of crazy people or organizations and they seem to delight in giving vague subject lines in order to manipulate me to open their e-mails so I can view their garbage. So I’m quite circumspect about even personal items sent to me. It has happened that I have deleted perfectly good and legitimate personal e-mails from well-intentioned people only because I didn’t recognize the name on the e-mail and the subject line was suspicious or vague.
Please! Compose the subject line in a way that will give list-members a serious reason to open them and read their contents!
Dale
I have a gripe that has been slowly festering and it’s gotta come out.
When the most well-intentioned people post their messages on lists, as well as send personal e-mails, the subject line of these MUST be explicit. Posting something with a vague subject line on lists usually means that those who do open them are presented with an irrelevant e-mail and thus waste their time in doing so. Now I personally accept the fact that a better portion of the postings on the Efrat-List are irrelevant to me personally. That’s ok. That’s just the nature of lists and I have no problem deleting these items. The ones that are relevant are so usefull they make deleting the irrelevant ones well worthwhile. I expect that many delete my postings out of hand as irrelevant as well. But what bugs me is that I’d like to know which are relevant or irrelevant ahead of time and would like to discern this from the subject lines. There are subject lines that are often poorly composed and so they actually obfuscate the contents of the e-mails. The following are examples of the same subject line vague enough to apply to a variety of messages, one example below is quite relevant to me and the other completely irrelevant, yet without a specific subject I wouldn’t know whether to open them or not…
Example #1: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “I discovered a great tasting Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce manufactured by Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, from a store in Givat Shaul and it was simply great!! It has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim which relocated to Micronesia in the 1300s. Unfortunately the store in Givat Shaul ran out and they don’t plan to restock this item. Anyone know where I can buy more of this? Thanks!!”
Example #2: Subject: “Great Sauce”
Text: “Wow! What a day! Just yesterday I got a phone call from a lawyer who said that my great uncle Morris had died – he’s not really my uncle, but rather my wife’s, cousin’s brother’s adopted nephew who was somehow also 5x-removed. (He was the one with the left blue eye and the right brown eye.) Anyway, my wife is the closest heir to him and the lawyer said that he willed his entire estate to her, which includes the entire remaining stock of his great Japanese-style Waxahatchie sauce from his business called The Bald Papoose Packing, Inc, and this stuff is simply great!! This Waxahatchie sauce has a bezootz hechser from the Admore of Tierra del-Fuego Hassidim who relocated to Micronesia in the early 1300s. --- Oh, and just 5 minutes ago 3 huge tandem semi-tractor trailers pulled up to my house with LOADED TO THE BRIM with the remaining cases of this wonderful tasting Waxahatchie sauce which was specially airlifted to Israel straight from his factory – which was just in the nick of time as the building is about to be condemned to make way for the construction of Nevada State Highway #756A, as it is located just outside of the town of Peoche, Nevada, with a population of 59 souls! WWWOOOOWWWW!!!! SO I’M GIVING ALL THOSE CASES OF SAUCE AWAY TO ALL YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF GUSH ETZION, CASE-BY-CASE, ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS, FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! ALL OF IT MUST GO TONIGHT AND I’M GIVING IT ALL AWAY!!! COME AND GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT!!!!!!!!!”
See what I mean?
This also applies to the subject lines on personal e-mails. I get spam from all kinds of crazy people or organizations and they seem to delight in giving vague subject lines in order to manipulate me to open their e-mails so I can view their garbage. So I’m quite circumspect about even personal items sent to me. It has happened that I have deleted perfectly good and legitimate personal e-mails from well-intentioned people only because I didn’t recognize the name on the e-mail and the subject line was suspicious or vague.
Please! Compose the subject line in a way that will give list-members a serious reason to open them and read their contents!
Dale
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