If you follow international news about the Middle East, you will know that there has been an escalation of violence between Hamas and the IDF in the Gaza strip. You will also know, that there was an exchange of fire between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights for the first time since 1973.

Very likely, this is spillover from the civil war and not actually intended for us, but you know, we fired warning shots back.

All of the above made think of the song "Love Is All Around" by The Troggs:


Only with alternate lyrics, which you can read under the cut.

Come on everyone, sing it with me. Consider this my pre-Local-Elections fanfare and transformative art, the prosody is a bit meh with my changes, but you'll cut me some slack on that one, right?

( War Is All Around )

Despite focusing lately on things not relating to the occupation in a direct manner, I still access the media and am as big a News junkie as ever.

As some of you may or may not know, today is Land Day, which is a commemorative day marking the strikes and protests Palestinians held in 1967 after the state (Israel) appropriated privately held Palestinian land. Thousands of dunams were basically stolen from under the owners feet.

This appropriation is still happening today, obviously.

But Land Day is a big event and such there are more demonstrators and many more wounded.

It's been a while since I've been involved in anti-occupation politics as I am focusing on more organised LGBT activism and, well, my life, but I don't think one can really separate the issues, as they colour every fraction of my life one way or another.

For instance, what does it mean that Israel cut ties with the UN Human Rights Commission, because they dared open up a probe regarding the building of settlements in the West Bank.

Apropos land appropriation. If I cared one whit about Israel's image I'd say we shoot ourselves in the foot, but seriously, we commit flagrant human rights violations every day, all the time. I can't say I'm surprised the foreign ministry started talking about Al-Qaeda (your guess is as good as mine as to why) and about how it's the Palestinian Authority committing - wait for it - diplomatic terrorism on Israel.

Because the state terrorism Israel commits on a regular basis is really not a part of the discourse.

Speaking of state sanctioned terror, and another reason why the IDF is a hierarchical, masculine-supremacist, racist and patriarchal institution of the worst kind?

(Trigger Warning: Rape Culture, Encouragement Of Rape, Overt Racism): IDF Colonel-Rabbi implies Rape is Permitted in War.

If you read the body of the text (heed the trigger warnings, my god!) you will see that when they write "imply", they actually mean "clearly states" that raping female prisoners is not only permitted, but actually encouraged!

...even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime (under the specific terms) out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil urge...

As the author of the article writes, this is the face of the IDF of 2012.

The fact that this kind of religious doctrine is actually published by the IDF is telling. Mainly, they they really can't see anything beyond their weeping national erection.

Despite the above, or possibly because of the above, I must mention Adrienne Rich's passing.

Her writing has been an inspiration to me for many years, both her poetry and essays - all of which have been a great aid to me when it came to my own feminism, even if I didn't agree with everything she had to say (her gender essentialism was and is notorious, despite the way she leveraged it so beautifully in the political and theoretical spheres).

She was also a Jewish woman who spoke out against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a supporter of BDS, which, you know, is special.

She also spoke of the role and the responsibility of the poet, the writer, the artist to be political and proactive and not shy away from social justice in their work.

Someone is Writing a Poem

...But most often someone writing a poem believes in, depends on, a delicate, vibrating range of difference, that an “I” can become a “we” without extinguishing others, that a partly common language exists to which strangers can bring their own heartbeat, memories, images. A language that itself has learned from the heartbeat, memories, images of strangers...

May her memory be blessed.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm far too critical to be a sceptic, but also too sceptical for relativism.

Where is the balance?

I just read a comment in a friend's journal, and I haven't decided whether I'm going to reply, because I hate having these kind of discussions online. It never leads to any good, because more often than not, we arrive to a discussion like this with our heels dug in and construe any disagreement as attack.

I'm very much in the belief that people should be able to live their lives in a way that makes them content and does not harm others.
That is wishful thinking. Beyond being critical, I am also cynical. And as a Westerner of the Middle Class, my very existence, from the clothes that I wear, the food that I eat, the water I drink and the computer I used, all of them come at the expense of someone else.

I don't believe in individualism, because very often, when one tries to live in the life-style of being responsible only to one self, you end up hurting others in the process, because despite the woo-woo vocabulary, we are connected in ways that go beyond the social interaction. We are connected though economic ties, ties of power and knowledge, interaction that can be said to be cellular.

It really, really grinds my gears when I see someone talk about vaccinations and autism (as though that hasn't been debunked umpteenth times) because that isn't being critical of medical procedures, it is selfishness.
Vaccines rely on the notion that almost everyone (there are those who can't be vaccinated and there are those who are naturally immune) is vaccinated.

Once upon a time, only girls and women were vaccinated for Rubella, because it is asymptomatic in boys and men, but lo, because vaccinations are dead or weak versions of the disease, the body can still succumb to a certain disease if there is a full blown attack from the actual virus or bacteria, which men passed to women and they got sick. The percentage of Rubella dropped drastically once males began to get these vaccinations.

In Israel there was a full blown measles epidemic in various ultra-Orthodox religious neighbourhoods because they don't vaccinate their children. That's not stigma or prejudice, that's down right irresponsibility.
Those communities chose to seclude themselves from various parts of civic life, that's fine, but they don't actually live in a bubble and as such they can create a health hazard.

The critical thinking part of dealing with the fact that preventative medicine doesn't compute for many who live in alternative/intentional communities, not all and certainly not most (I hope) because the medical institution is lazy when it comes to treating people with an agenda that doesn't coincide with the mainstream notion of health - just try explaining Health At Every Size to a GP or the fact that yes, I do in fact need to be screened for STI's despite being a woman who has sex with women.

So, that's the kind of critical thinking needed when it comes to medicine, making it more accessible and reliable for different people, thus making vaccines not an enemy - because I'm looking forward to the day I can get my AIDS vaccine and not have to worry about Mumps when I'm the company of a group of vaccine rejecters.

Still, as a critical thinker, a secular atheist Jew and knowing people first hand who have suffered more under medicine than any other institution on earth I want science to do better job at helping a variety of people and not box us in into criteria that is supposed to be one size fits all. It doesn't.
What I need, isn't what my similarly aged friend needs, our experiences - physical, mental, emotional - affects us just as mush as genetics, congenital baggage and environmental changes.

My point. People are not bubbles. We interact. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, pee out the same ammonia and shit out the waste our body can thankfully live without.
The whole world had to be vaccinated in order to eradicate Small Pox.
The bigger question is, why have they stopped vaccinating us, when all it takes is digging up a grave or letting loose a vial for the world to get sick again?

I'm so sad right now.

Elisabeth Sladen passed away.

I don't even know what to say.

She made me feel part of a bigger world. She was part of a greater world.

Good bye/

Something y'all should know about gay rights in my locale. The majority of them, if not all of them, have come to be due to judicial precedence and not actual Knesset (Parliamentary) bills.

All same sex adoptions rights are due to court room precedence. All spouse benefit packages awarded to one's same sex partner, due to court room precedence.

You get the picture.

Our rights exist, not because we are almost equal, but because the court sees fit that we are human enough for civil rights.

Why am I telling you this?

In a bout of unimaginable cruelty, apathy and down right ignorance, a Judge has declared that gay partners aren't couples under the inheritance law.
I can't even pick out quotes that manage to make sense of this story, so I'm putting the entire article under a cut as well as the rest if my post: ( here )

You discover that Howard Zinn passed away.

Well.

I suppose it's time to read his book, right?

Edited to add 29.01.09: Dude, J.D. Salinger died as well.

Is this supposed to be the year of Authors Dying? I'll keep my eyes open.

I think I may be able to write coherently about what happened.

First of all, thanks you everyone who commented on my previous post, sent me an sms, an email, a phone call, all that.

I was safe and snug at home away from Tel-Aviv.

I didn't go to the impromptu Pride March that took place in the vicinity, nor will I be able to go to any vigil today (possibly tomorrow). I am going to go to the big demo that's going to happen in Rabin Square on Tuesday.

The number of injured rose to 15, at least 7 of them went into surgery during the night. Almost all the injured are minors (i.e. under the age of 18).
The death toll remains two, though over the night there were reports that a third had died but that turned out to be a mistake.
The murder victims are a 16 year old woman/girl and a 26 year old boy/man.

The girl (and all the other minors) went to this little underground floor which for nearly 20 years has acted as the headquarters of the LGBT Rights Association, colloquially known as The Aguda. The place has acted as a place of gathering for various queer groups, including this youth support group. There was no security guard, because this place for more than a decade, has been considered a "safe space" smack in the middle of Midtown Tel Aviv.
Talk about Queer central.

That dead man/boy acted as a councillor to these kids, many of them (if not most) closeted. This was where they came to be themselves, to vent, to get support, to be with others who are like them.
Like us.

During the months leading up to Pride (Fuck, just a month ago!) and during June Pride month, I wrote a bit about various homophobic incidences that happened over the country and one of them was a "random" would-be gay bashing in Tel Aviv, simply because two guys were kissing in the street.

There can really be no doubt that this was anything other than a homophobia motivated attack. Anyone trying to think of alternative scenarios is fooling themselves, or trying to. That little corner in the middle of the alley streets of central Tel Aviv was a known venue. Even if the little piece of shit didn't know it was going to be Teens and Young Adults there last night, the shooter knew damn well that there were going to be queer people there.

The recent entry written at the Israel Left blogging website begins like this:

Something happened in Tel-Aviv tonight, a milestone in the delicate relationship between minority and majority, left and right, and whatever other classifications you may wish to use here.

Honestly, I do not think so.
This is perhaps that most violent incident in scale, and it is overwhelming when an incident like this happens in the supposed cosmopolitan metropolis of "the only Democracy in the Middle East", however, we do not know how many queers do not report incidences of violence against them all year 'round. The statistics of this are very, very iffy. Queer people exist in every single intersecting demography. A large portion of them are closeted.
Just like these kids.

I think it is incredibly naive to believe that this is a milestone in anything. This is a flare of a disease, an acute symptom of a social disfigurement. The violence in which it was committed is alarming and may indicate that the pressure in the melting pot is reaching critical, but homophobia has been and is alive and kicking and only the incredibly clueless would thing otherwise, yes, even in liberal Tel Aviv.

Just last week [Southern!Girl] and I went to a Butch/Femme event, she was the Butch and I was the Femme and it was such a clear dyke event, that just walking in the street we both felt exposed but at the event itself in the Rogatka bar it felt so incredibly safe and good and fucking fun.
I did mention that if we were a little bit more on the South end of Tel Aviv I don't know how safe I would have felt walking down the street in my fancy dress and her in a fancy suit.

That centre is just a few kilometres South-West of where were.

I'm feeling kind of queasy.

The police's response to this was to close down the other LGBT clubs and meeting spaces because the gunman is still at large.
Seriously?
That's your immediate answer? To try and police our movements even more, especially when Queers are fucking everywhere in Tel Aviv and the majority are really not going to be "hanging out" at the community gathering centres unless there is an event.
And that's the point.
We go to the same cafe's as straight people, the same movie theatres, the same bloody streets okay!
This attack was deliberate and for our safety you're telling us you're closing down our other (what we believed) were safe spaces.

Last night I was in shock. Today I'm fucking pissed.
You can follow my Twitter which I used last night to disseminate information.

In Israel, burial rights for the deceased (when they're Jewish) are free of charge - the Hevrah Kadisha live on charitable donations and do everything to enable to a real Jewish funeral.
Plus, like almost every other Jewish-Religious institution in this country, it is under the jurisdiction of the government.

Obviously, not everyone wants a Jewish funeral and of course, not every Jewish person can be buried in a consecrated cemetery, for various reasons.

There are a few alternatives, most of them very expensive; to be buried in a secular or non-religious ceremony and cemetery one would have had to pay 24,000 NIS (just over 6000$), this is over in the Kibbutzim of course.

Well, I'm happy to say that my Home Town has opened up an Alternative Civil Cemetery, which like other religious cemeteries is free to the residents of town and is selling plots to those who live outside the municipality for half the price stated above.
The cemetery is operated by Menucha Nechona - Resting Right/Right Rest.

I know it sounds a tad strange to be excited about choosing how one's death is to be commemorated, but friends, I'm really happy there's an option, close to home, in which my family can chose to be traditional on our own terms and not succumb to the Orthodoxy on matters of death.

The dead, of course, don't care how or where or whatever, but for those living and arranging the funeral, it's great that there is acknowledgment that not only do people want to do things that aren't precisely Orthodox... but that there are people of other faiths who would want to bury their loved ones without succumbing to that Orthodoxy.

Now if only we could separate religion from marriage the same way.

Yesterday at the weekly demonstrations against the wall a man died.
He was shot by the IDF.
There is a demonstration in Tel-Aviv this evening, protesting the excessive violence of the IDF in the West Bank.
Most likely, this protest will not make the News and if it does, it will be written off as a disturbance, because only us Loony Leftists and Anarchists will be there.
The man's name was Bassem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma.
He lived in Bil'in and died in Ramallah.

Last month, in the West Bank village of Nialin Tristan Anderson was critically injured during a weekly demo.
The world was up in arms.
Because he was an "International", a US citizen.
He was taken to an Israeli hospital in Tel Ha'Shomer.
As far as I'm aware, he's still alive (correct me if I'm wrong).

One man comes from a people who are by default considered terrorists and essentially a non-entity in the world (most especially in my country). The other is a man coming from the most powerful country in the world and because of that made the News of being in a dangerous place.

Obviously, both are at fault for being in range of the IDF's fire.

Both of these (mortal) injuries were caused not by guns, but by tear gas canister launcher.

According to IDF spokespeople these demonstrations turned violent.

Having been to Bil'in I can tell you that the soldiers raise their guns and aim them at the people who are armed with rocks.
I dunno about you, but if I had the option of choosing a weapon I'd go for the gun, as a rock wouldn't do much to protect me.

These demonstrations by definition are violent, because these people are protesting the usurping and appropriation of their land by the IDF and according to IDF regulations it is illegal to come close to that fence because it is military property.

The people living in these villages have gone through mainstream channels and appealed to the Supreme Court which did indeed declare the outline of the future wall to be illegal.
This was over a year and a half ago.
Nothing has changed.
Nothing has happened.

There are "scuffles" between the IDF and the demonstrators every week and every week I read about it, talk about with friends and allies, but it doesn't actually register on the average Israeli radar.

"What are they even doing there?" is a question I hear a lot.
Well, they live there.
It's their livelihood.
It's their lives.
Are they just supposed to sit quietly while they're being smothered.

"Why do the demonstration have to be violent?" is another.
They don't, specifically, have to be. But when you're surrounded by guns and national fervour ('cause you don't actually have a Nation on which to stand and the guns come in to your house every night) it makes for volatile situations.
Volatile however, isn't violent.
This is a grass roots opposition movement and yes, they have the right to resist and no, they do not have to recognise those who oppress them as anything other than oppressors and occupiers.
If the Israeli government wants the PA (won't even get into Hamas) to recognise Israel, Israel in turn will have to, yes, in fact, take action regarding the Settlements and the wall/fence.
Yeah, right, I'm pulling my eye at that one.

"Don't you feel sorry for the soldiers?" I'm asked at times as well.
Yeah I do.
I feel sorry that these young boys, who are already indoctrinated in racist and nationalistic discourse, are the ones "guarding" me and mine against the dangerous Palestinian farmers.
I feel sorry that these young boys leave the army either traumatised or full of even more hate.
I feel sorry that I need to even reply to this question because my own loyalty to the "Israeli collective" put in question.

Fuck that.
I'm stopping now, as I'm just getting pissed off.

I just killed the mosquito that sucked my blood ten minutes ago.

*goes to wash hands a second time*