Turkey Day in Tel Aviv

"Right now we're looking at about twelve people," Chris said over the phone.

Twelve?! Ma pitom!

"Twelve people?" I repeated, a bit of incredulity creeping into voice. "I was thinking there would be no more than eight. I'm not sure we have enough food for that many people."

"Well I invited a few of my friends. Plus you've got my roommate and his lady friend," Chris explained. "But that is true. I don't know how much food my mom sent over here."

"Yea, my Aunt Jeanie sent a box of food, but it hasn't come in yet either. I imagine it's meant for maybe five or six folks."

There was a very brief silence.

"Ah crap..." Chris said with a sigh.

***

I tore through the tape and popped open the cardboard flaps like I was a six year old opening the first round of Christmas gifts.

"Dude! Bubble wrap! Sweet!" I yelled as I rummaged through the contents of Aunt Scout's supply crate. "Two boxes of taters! Four boxes of stuffing! Gravy! Beef jerky! Cookies! Aunt Dorenda sent cookies! Dude, this is awesome!" I exclaimed from the kitchen of our dorm.

I turned around, expecting to find Dominique or Ryan coming out to see what all the fuss was about.

Empty.

I rapped on Ryan's door. No one.

I poked my head into the bathroom. Vacant.

I unlocked my bedroom door to find everything precisely as it had been that morning. No sign of Dominique.

It was just me.

Glancing around one more time just to be on the safe side, I snatched a sleeve of Aunt Dorenda's molasses cookies and tucked them behind the cereal boxes on my computer desk.

""Score!!!" I yelled again, confident my voice was ringing out from the top of our building, carrying through all of Ramat Aviv, and bouncing off the very skyscrapers of downtown Tel Aviv and beyond.

***

Chris had moved out of the dorms a couple of months ago after the Ulpan had finished. As part of his research with Save A Child's Heart, he needed to be closer to the hospital where he would be pulling on and off 24 hour shifts for the better part of six months. Fortunately for Chris and for all of us, he had managed to secure an apartment only one block from the Mediterranean Sea and the Tel Aviv beach promenade.

Count it.

Dustin and I opened up the iron gate. I had emptied my backpack of every piece of academic kitsch and replaced it with all of Aunt Jeanie and Aunt Dorenda's Thanksgiving contents. I tried to open the door into the apartment complex, but found it unsurprisingly locked. The electronic security device on it made sure that tenants and tenants only could access it.

There were call buttons for all of the apartments off to the right. I reached up and pressed the #1 button without thinking.

"You sure that's Chris' apartment number?" Dustin asked.

"I think it is, yea..." I responded as the front security door was opened by a churlish, grizzled Israeli man. He looked like his bad day was having a bad day.

"Sorry, we're going to the other apartment," I offered in a vain effort to ameliorate the man's irritation.

He let us step inside. Then he muttered something indecipherable as he went back into his apartment and slammed the door shut.

I looked back at Dustin as we approached Chris' door.

"Idiot," he said with a half-grin. "You should have just called Ryan."

"Ah, he'll get over it."

We knocked on Chris' door. Beyond we could hear some sort of music blaring. It was either Christmas music or classical music or a combination of the two. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. Ryan had already come over to the apartment to start preparing the turkey that Liz had managed to secure.

We knocked again. No answer.

Dustin pulled out his phone and dialed Ryan's number repeatedly. I rang the doorbell. There was no response. Except for the opening of the door behind us.

Another very upset tenant, easily in his 70's, glowered at us.

"Ma?!" he asked with a raised voice.

"Ani mits'taer," I replied.

He shut the door once he realized that we were retarded Americans trying to get into the apartment being occupied by our absent-minded American friends.

"No answer," Dustin said. "Are you sure Ryan's in there?"

"He's gotta be, man. I hear music. It's Ryan. You know he's cooking Thanksgiving dinner to music." I responded.

We tried calling and knocking and buzzing for another five minutes. There was no answer. We figured Chris wasn't home yet from the hospital. He had left his key out for Ryan to get into his apartment after we got out of classes because he wasn't sure what time he would get off work.

We walked back outside the apartment complex and took a seat on a bench. A young Israeli couple walked past us. Traffic was relatively light. The commotion of the beach front found during the summer months had given way to a sort of urbanized tranquility that both of us were unfamiliar with.

"Wanna go walk on the beach and grab a beer?" Dustin asked after about a minute.

"Yep."

***

"Yea, we were grabbing some things at the store," Chris replied. "Like I said, you should have just called me, dude."

"Well, we thought you were still at work getting peed on by babies," I quipped. "And I'm pretty sure we pissed off all your neighbors."

"Yea, that's not good."

I unloaded the contents of my backpack. Chris was thoroughly pleased to see the amount of food and seasoning that had been sent over here from my family. Dustin and I were equally pleased to see a glorious turkey, stuffed with vegetables, cooking in the oven.

Ryan had even jury-rigged a pair of forks to keep the legs up.

"That's impressive, Rinoblaster."

"We'll see how it turns out," he said as we all gathered around the oven to stare.

The turkey looked like it had been seasoned well. Ryan had taken the salt and basil that Aunt Jeanie had sent. Liz had bought some thyme and given it to Ryan the day before. We could hear the glorious bird sizzling through the oven window.

Chris broke our reverie with his characteristic humor--a mixture of West Coast wit and dry medical perversion that is truly Chris.

"It looks like it's getting a gynecology examination," he said nonchalantly, his arms crossed over his chest, face contorted in deep scrutiny.

Yea. This is the guy in charge of saving your life should a medical emergency arise.

***

By the time Stefan and Elana entered, things were already in high gear. Liz was in the kitchen making pumpkin pie crust from scratch. Ryan was tending his turkey like it was his child. Dustin and I were trying not to screw up instant mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and gravy.

Liz was brilliant. Doing only what women can do, she was literally handling six things at once. Chris, Dustin, and myself were just trying to stay out of her way or help her as best we could, whilst not letting the instant food explode.

Stefan and Dominique were both fired up to have their first Thanksgiving meal. Already a model for European excellence in his appreciation for his American brothers across the pond, Stefan's sense of child-like wonder has remained firmly intact. He was getting a kick as the five of us scrambled around the kitchen pretending we knew what we were doing.

Soon some of Chris' friends arrived to round out the crew. They were all non-Americans: Eloise from France, Alberto from Spain, and Gabriel from Colombia.

Liz was mixing the pumpkin mix and pouring it into the pie pans. She walked back over to the stove top where I was stirring the mashed potatoes.

"This is where a woman should be, right?" she asked sarcastically. "In the kitchen, cooking?"

"Yea, but you're not preggers and you still have your shoes on," I replied without even looking.

"The only reason I'm not hitting you is because it's Thanksgiving," she replied.

Everything was coming together nearly perfect. Except for Chris accidentally pouring out the first batch of gravy into the sink, the rest of the food was of a quality that surpassed most of our abilities. Ryan pulled the turkey out at around 8:00. It smelled absolutely perfect. He called me over as the official taste tester, no longer a dubious honor associated with monarchical paranoia, to see how he had done.

Mom would have been proud. Ryan knocked it out of the park.

When everything was finished by 8:15, we gathered around. Ryan said a few thoughtful words regarding the meal and Thanksgiving tradition and I rounded it off with a prayer. There were six Americans, two French, a Canadian, a Spaniard, and a Colombian. There was phenomenal food. There were Christians and Jews; all friends in a very far away land.

It wasn't the same as being home. Not by a long shot. But it was definitely something to be thankful for.



Liz, Dustin, and I manning the kitchen. Chris is being relegated to dish duty to make room for more stuffing and potatoes, hence his sad face.



Dustin gives Chris a Papa Bear hug to make him feel better. Liz is clearly befuddled.



Aside from Elana, everyone else is curious what this American Thanksgiving deal is all about. From Left to Right: Elana, Stefan, The Quebec Cowboy, Eloise, Alberto, and Gabriel.



The masterpiece is done.



The girls getting as much food as they can before Dustin, Dominique, and I tear back into it.



Ryan kicks his feet back. As Master Chef, he earned it.

Toda Raba

There is no doubt that we have entered the shroud of a challenging epoch. The strain of the world bears down on all of us a little more each day. And as this burden increases, it can become easy to forget how fortunate and blessed we are.

Difficult times can sometimes cloud our outlook. A sense of vulnerability and hardship can increase one's tendency to fear, to resent, and to worry. This can in turn cause us to look beyond what we have to what we do not or what we once did.

And once this process begins, it reinforces the very negative qualities that started us down that path in the first place. It is a circle of despair.

It is precisely during the difficult times when we should take heart with what we have--not lament that which is gone. It is this mindset that I'm trying to adopt on this Thanksgiving Day in the Holy Land.

There is nowhere else I'd rather be today than at home, watching football, eating Mom's broccoli casserole, and getting ready for the Iron Bowl tomorrow. But this is not to be. Nor is it likely to be next year either.

I am fortunate to have family and friends that have tried to give us some semblance of a traditional Thanksgiving in this far away land. A few of us are planning on getting together at Chris' house tonight and celebrating with the food that we have.

It's going to be strange sitting in a Tel Aviv apartment absent family, home-cooked food, and fighting the Old Man for whatever is left of the dessert. This is the first Thanksgiving I that spent away from home. I realize it won't be the last. My choices, few of which I regret, make that an unfortunate certainty. However, I take heart knowing that many of you have kept us in your prayers and have kept an interest in this blog and what's going on in my life and in the lives of those in the program.

It has been a very humbling experience and I am extremely thankful for all of the support that I've received. And I'm excited about what the future holds, even if things appear to be daunting in the present.

I'll leave everyone with this picture, taken from our balcony a couple of weeks ago when Israel experienced some much-needed rain. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.



I'll try to have another post up this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Drew

P.S. A special thanks to Aunt Jeanie and Aunt Dorenda for the care package! My inner fat kid couldn't be happier.

Specters of the Past, Keys to the Future

With most of the OSP students away this weekend on a camping excursion to the Golan, few of us remain in the dorms. I elected to stay behind in order to catch up on my readings and to ensure some extra attention to both Arabic and Hebrew. This has made for a quiet and studious weekend absent the typical noise and pablum encouraged by the undergraduates.

A few of the Master's students, like Dustin and Ryan, joined the trip to the north after finishing most of their homework on Thursday. I've been a bit behind on my seminars and thus made the uncharacteristically responsible decision to contain myself to studying and the gym. Fortunately Dominique and Stefan stayed around to provide a much-needed respite from the grind.

In Modern Middle East History, we're currently discussing the Islamic responses to encounters with the West. This is honestly the most interesting class I've taken in years. Dr. Litvak is an amazing professor. The first day he greeted us with this priceless quip:

"I am Dr. Litvak. I'll be your professor for Selected Topics in Modern Middle East History. I am like most Israelis in that I think I'm right. I am not like most Israelis in that I know I'm right."

His teaching style is half-lecture, half-discussion. Despite the obvious fact that he is confident in his conclusions and his analysis, he never discourages other points of view. He is just as quick to tell you that he likes what you have to say as he is to rebuff you. However, he never rebuffs a student without explaining why and providing a litany of historical examples and evidence to bolster his reasoning.

We're currently reading about figures like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, an Islamic thinker from the 19th Century who traveled through the Middle East espousing the need for the Muslim people to unite against the West. One of the interesting things about Afghani is that he wasn't one. He was actually born in Iran and was a Shi'ite. But he knew that should this ever be discovered then his message of unification would not be well received throughout the mostly Sunni Middle East. So he crafted an entirely false background and set out on his mission.

The scurrilous part about al-Afghani is that there is a mountain of evidence to suggest that he was actually secular--that he didn't actually believe in the tenets of Islam, but rather believed Islam to be a tool (the perfect tool) to be used for the Muslim people to defeat the West.

The reason why I mention this is because one can draw a direct line from al-Afghani to his disciple Mohammed Abduh (who was a true Islamist believer) to Rashid Rida to Hasan al-Banna. Banna might be a familiar name. He created the infamous Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the early 1930's. The same Muslim Brotherhood that assassinated Anwar Sadat and spawned radical ideologies and terrorist organizations throughout the globe during the last century. The same Muslim Brotherhood that is still very much active in Egypt, Europe, and the United States to this day. The same Muslim Brotherhood with intricate ties to the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The alumni of the Muslim Brotherhood include a veritable Who's Who of Islamic radicals, such as Sayyid Qutb, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Osama bin Laden. So one can extrapolate why studying figures such as Afghani and figuring out his motives is of utmost importance if one is to have any hope of finding answers and coming to conclusions.

This is part of the weekend task--to familiarize myself with all of these various men and figure out why they did what they did, why they said what they said, and what impact it has had on the current state of the Middle East.

Following the massacre at Fort Hood by an Islamic radical within our own military ranks and the subsequent affliction of denial and political correctness that has so enraptured our media and society, there is ever more a sense of urgency.

Fort Hood revealed the greatest danger of all: ourselves. By refusing to call a spade a spade, we invite disaster.

Fort Hood was not a crime. It was an act of terrorism--another declaration of war on the West by a fanatical Islamist. The scandalous attempt by our media to avoid using Major Hasan's name, to ascribe obviously erroneous motivations like PTSD (Hasan had never even been deployed), and to preemptively warn the masses against "rushing to judgment," was nothing less than a premeditated, calculated attempt to hide the truth from an outraged and worried public.

It's like a doctor wanting to enjoy his weekend off by telling his patient that he doesn't have a disease (more like a...biological anomaly) despite the fact that the patient is clearly bleeding from his eye sockets. The nice doctor proscribes a little aspirin and tells his patient to go get some rest because there's nothing more annoying than having a clearly inconsiderate patient interrupting the big fishing excursion. And what's a little hemorrhaging anyway?

And the problem is when we (America and the West) finally come to it, because we obfuscated the truth from the very beginning, we will find our task at applying the right proscription all the more difficult because of our fatally inaccurate diagnosis.

This, of course, is the point of the MAMEH program. One has to learn about the past to understand the present and thus better the future. Hopefully whatever we learn here will help us provide a more accurate diagnosis in the future--one free from the shackles of a misanthropic mindset of misplaced tolerance purveyed by our culturally-misinformed "multicultural" elites. ( <-- Three cheers for academically accentuated alliteration!)



Jamal al-Din al-Afghani: The architect of Modern Islamism or just another snappy dresser?

להתראות

-Drew

Are You A Jewish Boy?

I hit the mat with a thud. My hands were splayed wide with my palms facing the sky. My Israeli opponent stood over me, his face locked in the "take no prisoners" expression that is so common over here.

Welcome back to Krav Maga.

"No, no, no," Avi said as he looked our way.

Looks like he screwed up the take down.

Avi sprang away from a couple of girls who were practicing the take down and came over to our group. I started to get up and much to my surprise he was glaring at me.

"Why your hands facing up?" he asked in his thickly accented and occasionally broken English. "You look like a Christian boy...uh...begging Jesus for help!"

I nodded and laughed.

"This is no joke!" he said, stressing the last word.

He was half-serious and half-kidding, but he was mostly serious. He yelled for one of his Israeli students to come over. The young man jogged up, bowed, and proceeded to take Avi (i.e. Master Splinter) to the ground. He hit the mat and used his hands, palms down, to slap the mat, absorbing some of the shock and putting himself in a position to strike back.

He popped back up and addressed the rest of the class in Hebrew. I caught the gist of the message. When you're going down, don't look like you're about to take communion--even if you're Christian, especially if you're Jewish. It could be the difference between winning and losing the fight.

Splinter was several inches shorter than myself, but was easily the most intimidating person I've ever had the pleasure to be around. Politicians have nothing on this guy.

He turned toward me, his favorite practice dummy, and smiled sinisterly.

This is going to hurt.

"Are you a Jewish boy?" he asked, smile spreading from ear-to-ear.

Stefan stood behind Master Avi, his characteristic grin threatening to explode into uncontrollable laughter.

"Definitely not," I answered with a laugh.

"Then allow me to tell you this story about a boy from Hungary."

Some of the Israelis started to laugh as they crowded around the two of us.

"There was this boy from Hungary, a Jewish boy you see. And he was always in trouble at his Jewish school. One day he was kicked out because he was so bad!"

"And his father came up to him and..." Splinter rapped me on my forehead faster than I could blink. "...and he said 'Moshe, why do you do this?! There is only one other Jewish school for you to go to now!'"

Laughter.

"And so the boy was sent to the other Jewish school. And sure enough, after one, two, three days, he was kicked out again!" Avi said as he shook his head.

"And he came home to his father who could not believe it had happened again. So his father said..." Splinter popped me on the forehead again. "...he said, 'Moshe, why do you do this?! I have to send you away now!'"

Avi paused and looked around at the other students, then back at me. I'm struggling to keep from laughing, knowing full well that he could break me in half in less than three seconds if he so chose.

"And so now the boy had to go to a Christian school--this poor Jewish boy. But after one, two, three weeks, he was the best student in the class!" Avi threw his hands up in the air, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"So his father asked him, 'Moshe, how is it that you do so well now?'"

Avi paused one last time and glared back at me, the sly smile creeping back at the corners of his mouth.

"Because this school...is no joke."

The punchline was a blur--a blur that was in actuality a fist. And it accelerated straight into my abdomen.

Case Endings, Stupid!

"What part of speech is it?" Dr. Hakim asked.

"Adjective." I responded coolly.

"No!" Hakim yelled louder. "Look at the bloody sentence!"

I scanned over the words again. I looked back up as a clearly exasperated Dr. Hakim, a subtle smirk creeping onto his face, held his hands wide.

"Uh, it's a noun."

"Yes! And so what's the ending?!"

"I forgot," I said sheepishly.

"Well think about it and I'm sure it will come to you," he replied. "What part of the sentence is it?"

"It's the subject."

"Yes! And what's the next word?"

"An adjective."

"Yes! So what's the bloody ending?"

"Bana...an."

"No! Lama (why) an accusative?!" he barked.

"I have no idea," I hurried. "Bana...un?"

"Precisely!" he barked loudly. "It's indefinite nominative. So it's an un!"

Arabic. You are the most enjoyable and terrifying thing in my life.

Well There Goes The Western Front!

We wouldn't want to make this too easy now would we?

The Other 'Nasrallah'

Does this look like the face of a killer to you?

"One sting can kill a person or leave them paralyzed for weeks," said Moti Mendelson, a marine researcher. "There are many of them--[just] like Hezbollah soldiers."

Seriously? You're serious?

Academic Rendition

I wanted to ram my head through a cement pillar.

This was not to be an act of preemptive masochism. Nor was this a sudden desire to become one of the tormented youths who routinely inflicts pain on himself for sport--you know, the kid who dyes his hair black, straps a chain to his waist, and writes poems about how all the other kids respond to his misunderstood self-loathing with perfectly timed jokes and conspicuous mockery. No, this was a desire of sheer necessity. Self-anesthetics was the only prescription for enduring the next four hours.

In the fourth week of the MAMEH program, there have been several important revelations. The first is that some of my fellow students clearly believe themselves to be the ubermensch. Whether it's the permanent fixture of their noses at a forty-five degree angle or the love affair they have with the sound of their own voice, the preponderance of arrogance amongst these few can be suffocating at times.

The second revelation is the realization that there is little hope of actually finishing this program within the allotted time frame of two years. There is a reason that TAU gives you up to four years to complete your thesis. The research alone consumes at least a year of one's life. I have just as much of a chance of finishing "on time" as Leigh Tiffin does of being considered a male upon first glance.

The third and currently most important revelation is the fact that some classes are good, some classes are okay, and one is the mental equivalent of a leisurely afternoon of waterboarding. You think you're going to drown and after a little while you reach a point where you hope you're going to drown, but really you're just being strung along in a highly creative, albeit sadistic, effort to break you.

That is Selected Topics in Islamic History. See Islamic History is the last seminar on Tuesday, a day that includes an hour and a half of Hebrew, four hours of Ottoman History (a phenomenal class with an equally phenomenal professor), and another four hours of Islamic History. And these classes are all back-to-back-to-back. We start at 8:00 a.m. and we end at 6:00 p.m. If you want to know where to find Satan, look no further than the TAU scheduling department.

One could objectively assert that this seminar suffers from its place within our schedule. And one would be mistaken. The seminar suffers, along with its attendees, because our professor is duller than a butter knife at a logging competition with as much charisma as a Keanu Reeves cardboard cutout.

Bueller? Bueller?

The guy spends an inexorable amount of time on tangential asides whilst never moving from his chair for four hours. His arms are always crossed. He stares straight ahead. He speaks in a droll, monotonous tone that has you scrambling for instruments with which to stab yourself just to focus the pain elsewhere. And should anyone dare ask him a question, expect either a quick rebuff or a long one.

And thus that's where I found myself at 2:00 this afternoon--standing with coffee in hand, eyes glazed over, mental acuity bordering on catatonic, and searching for something headbutt resistant...that I could headbutt.

I wish I could recall what it was that we discussed. I know it was something about Mohammed killing a lot of folks and something about archaeology and then there was that deviation courtesy of Anna as to whether or not Mohammed even existed. But the only thing that I've been able to recollect from those four lost hours of my life is the disjointed geometric symbols I doodled on the right hand margin of page seventeen of my notebook.

I'll talk. If anyone is listening, I swear I'll tell all. Just make it stop.

I'll Take "Amusing Choice of Words" For A Thousand, Alex.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), in yet another riveting display of its comical worthlessness, has approved the Goldstone Report. This means it will now move forward to the Security Council for an official vote on whether to condemn Israel for "war crimes."

More information can be found here:

Goldstone Set to Go to Security Council

As utterly unsurprising as this decision is, there was a bit of an eyebrow raiser during the UNGA meeting itself. I'll leave everyone with the following statement from the floor "debate" at the Assembly:

...such violations defied numerous key international instruments and resolutions. Despite yet another episode of a war of genocide, Israel has, nonetheless, not been able to kill the will and steadfastness of the Palestinian people.

That would be comments made against Israel by Ambassador Adbalmahmood Addalhaleem Mohamed of...Sudan. Yes. The Ambassador of Sudan is displaying his moral outrage at "yet another" war of genocide perpetrated not by his own country, but allegedly by Israel.

That's just good storytelling right there. But I'm a little miffed at Sudan's negativity and lack of constructive criticism.

I mean what the hell, Sudan?! If you're going to get all uppity with another country for committing "genocide," then the least you can do is leave some tips on how to commit it properly next time!

Fear Not

Dr. Litvak was halfway through his point on the differences between intelligentsia and intellectuals when the sirens went off. For a few moments, every head in the room turned to the right and the open window. The caterwauling of the incoming missile warning system sounded like a chorus of banshees emitting their spine-tingling death wails.

"It's just a test," Dr. Litvak said placidly. "They told us this morning about it. It's just a test."

And how will we know when it's not...?

Not wanting to follow my own thought to its logical conclusion, I turned back to the front of the classroom. The discussion restarted, albeit slowly, and soon the sirens died down and normalcy returned.

The rays of sunlight coming through the window illuminated a small mosquito buzzing near the side wall in front of Dustin and I. The recent words of Iranian President Ahmadinejad rumbled through my mind.

"...they [West] are like a mosquito."

The girl in front of us leaned against the wall where the mosquito rested.

I think I'll just pretend I didn't see that one.

***

When classes let out for us at 2:00 in the afternoon, Dustin, Tatianna, and myself walked back to the dorms. Yesterday we had learned that Hamas had successfully test-fired an Iranian missile up to 60 kilometers--far enough, distressing as it is to say, to finally reach Tel Aviv. This of course had explained the warning system drills.

Hamas Rockets Capable of Hitting Tel Aviv

What Dustin mentioned next took me by surprise.

"Did you see the ship Israel interdicted earlier today?" he posited to Tatianna. "It contained tons of weapons for use by Hezbollah."

Independent confirmation verified this to be true. It was sixty tons of weapons to be precise.

When I sat down to read Jerusalem Post, the headline article was focused on the incident. Apparently an Iranian vessel flying the Antiguan flag had been boarded by Israeli naval and special forces. The boat was intended to unload its cargo in Lebanon. Hidden behind a facade of civilian containers were sixty tons of anti-aircraft batteries, 122mm katyusha rockets, long-range missiles, anti-tank weapons, mortar systems, and other sophisticated weaponry.

Holy terrorist mother lode, Batman!

As of this moment the vessel is docked in Ashdod, some thirty kilometers to our south. Israeli personnel are plying through the vessel and cataloging the weaponry. News outlets reported that Israel had gone to its "highest level of alert" for fear of terrorist infiltration.

Israeli Navy Seizes Weapons Bound for Hezbollah

All of this information is of considerable interest given that today is the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis when radical Shi'ite Islamists kidnapped American embassy workers and began their 444 day hostage nightmare.

Government-sponsored celebrations occurred throughout Iran today. But so did riots and anti-government protests by Iran's opposition youth movements. Reports are sketchy, as they always are, but early indicators suggest the regime is brutally cracking down on the protesters.

Filtering the information and sifting through for the meaning and implications of these events is tricky enough as it is. But now that I am physically over here and have been for three months, the lens is even murkier due to self-imposed mental restrictions.

On the one hand it is easy to become fixated on these developments in relation to how they affect you on a personal level. On the other hand it is equally as easy to divorce yourself from these events as a necessary precondition for maintaining your sanity. This seems to be a phenomenon that isn't exclusive to any geographic region, but rather to the circumstances associated with war or the potential for war. Or perhaps narrowed down even further, a phenomenon associated with bodily harm or the potential for bodily harm.

People recognize that things are growing more dangerous. And when information concerning one's security and safety is gleaned that potentially bodes ill for it, several things occur. First, one logically places it in his brain's "filing cabinet." It cements the reality of the situation and serves as a storage bin to remind one of the danger lest he forgets. The second thing one does is disassociate himself from it. It is impossible not to imagine a scenario where one is in the middle of a conflict given the information at one's disposal. So what happens is one starts reassuring himself, subconsciously or in some cases consciously, that regardless of what happens he will be fine.

It's a sort of mental embodiment of the passage from Psalms 91:5-7.

You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

This is a common human reaction--the application of a belief in personal invincibility. Despite the fact that I recognize this trait in myself, it is nevertheless something I can scarcely avoid.

Following an afternoon of homework and reading up on these breaking developments, a group of us decided to go listen to Ambassador James Cunningham. He is the U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Tel Aviv University hosted him for a speech followed by a Q & A session.

What transpired during this event was interesting. After three months abroad living with Israelis, it is occasionally easy to forget that their approach is not the same as our approach. And their mindset is not the same as our mindset.

***

Ambassador Cunningham stood tall and lean at the podium. It was a packed room in the Social Sciences building. Dustin, Ryan, Tyler, and I sat near the back. A few other OSP students, including a Norwegian and a Brit, also sat nearby. Israeli students littered the auditorium with notebooks and writing pads in hand. One Israeli girl who sat in front of us seemed to be thoroughly engrossed in her Japanese workbook. And an older Israeli woman a few rows up literally brought her knitting kit should the speech become a bit of a bore.

As Ambassador Cunningham began his speech on "U.S.-Israeli Relations a Year Into the Obama Administration," I couldn't help but notice that the vast majority of those in the room were middle-aged adults or senior citizens. There were plenty of students, but it was apparent that the forum had been designed more as a community event than one exclusive to the university.

The speech was around twenty minutes long. It detailed the inherited problems of President Obama (doesn't every speech?) and the events that have unfolded in the Middle East since his arrival in office. The Ambassador mentioned the importance of a contiguous Palestinian state as part of a permanent and lasting peace. And he characterized the recent rocky relations between the Obama and Netanyahu Administrations as disputes amongst friends. According to the ambassador, it is a testament of the lasting friendship between Israel and the United States that the two nations can have such arguments.

He addressed what he considered a series of crises spanning from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean. And he hit all the right talking points on the "difficulties" in bringing everyone to the negotiating table.

For the most part, I found the speech to be incredibly lackluster and the message to be as dry and broad as one could imagine. For the first few minutes it seemed as if the ambassador wanted to be anywhere else other than speaking to the crowd gathered at TAU.

But then the Q & A session hit. And if there's one thing that everyone should remember about Israelis, it is their blunt disposition. A total of thirteen questions were asked. All except for three of them dealt with Iran, the appearance of U.S. impotence, and the concern over the direction of U.S. policy in the region.

"Tough crowd," Tyler whispered after about the fifth question.

"Did you really expect anything else?"

The questions were delivered with passion and forcefulness.

"When are you going to learn that the policies of Sharon, who gave away all of Gaza, brought us nothing but war? When are you going to see these madmen for who they are?"

"It seems like Obama is trying to negotiate with a fire without a hose or an axe--a fire that is rapidly growing. I'm obviously talking about Iran's nuclear program. Is there a "red line" that the U.S. will reach when enough is enough?"

"There is widespread concern that the U.S. is showing weakness in its foreign policy. You are more friendly with your enemies than with your friends! Will this policy of "talk to talk" ever change?"

Etc, etc, etc.

When one questioner, a young man, proceeded to interrupt the ambassador with a barrage of questions concerning the occupation, the crowd literally starting yelling at him to "Sheket!" (Quiet!) and "Regah!" (Wait!)

The Ambassador, despite possessing miasma instead of charisma, handled most of the questions deftly. And there were very few of his responses that I thought were worth challenging. His response to the young man lambasting his own country concerning settlements was solid. The kid suggested that Israel wasn't a real democracy because of the occupation of the Palestinian territories--an assessment that the ambassador slapped down. I'm paraphrasing but the response was something very similar to this:

"The government of Israel is beholden to the will of its citizens. Its citizens elect the government in free elections. This is democracy. And its citizens have security concerns. The implication that an occupation suddenly erases these facts is simply incorrect," Ambassador Cunningham responded.

Word. Under that "logic," the United States would have ceased being a democratic republic decades ago.

The last question revolved around Iraq and the fact that many entities (i.e. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, jihadists, etc.) are watching closely how the U.S. handles the situation and how Iraq turns out. And Ambassador Cunningham's response was heartening. He pointed out the importance of a free and secure Iraq and his belief that a democratic state in Iraq is of immense value to the peace of the region. He then, in my view, took a very somber and sincere stance that it was the burden of the United States to defeat radical ideologies and secure peace in this region as it was not only in our interest but also part of our moral obligation.

The crowd wasn't mollified when the event ended. My assessment is that this had less to do with their opinion of the ambassador and more to do with the burgeoning uncertainty they have concerning our Commander-in-Chief. Despite reassuring words and placating gestures from lower level figures, the actions of the United States as a whole are not putting Israelis at ease.

They want to believe our President has their back. But thus far they don't believe it. Ambassador Cunningham acknowledged this fact and stressed the importance of the "friendly dispute" between two allies.

Walking home with Ryan I rambled aloud about my thoughts on the matter. And I verbalized precisely what it was, what it is, that I see as the common denominator in Israeli thinking.

Fear.

"Are you fearful?" Ryan asked.

I thought about it for a moment. Anxiety has reared its ugly head of late. But was that the same thing as fear?

I thought about the ship full of weapons, the missile tests, the weapons smuggling, the entire Iranian threat, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, everything. I thought about the deception of personal invincibility. And I thought about God and His promises.

"No," I finally answered. "I know how this one ends."

Hero Lost

A brief aside from the regular musings of Fried Camel. I ran across this story after I got home from classes and it hit me pretty hard.

Britain Loses 'Legend' in Afghanistan

Staff Sergeant Olaf "Oz" Schmid was legendary for the number of IED's he successfully defused in Afghanistan. As Michael Yon notes, at one time Olaf diffused 1 in every 19 IED's that the British military came upon. The exact number of Coalition and Afghan lives he saved will never be known, but one can safely assume the figure to be in the hundreds.

Olaf was on his last mission when the IED he was trying to disable went off. It killed him instantly. He was due to ship out the next day. Staff Sergeant Schmid leaves behind a wife and a five year old stepson.



Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid (1979-2009).

All property rights of the above picture belong to Michael Yon of Michael Yon Online Magazine.

Raining Hope, Flooding Hate

Today was a short day in class. Arabic was canceled as Dr. Hakim had to have one of his front teeth replaced. Apparently he lost it in a falafel ball whilst eating in Haifa--a falafel ball he adamantly maintains to have been the best on the planet. Seeing as how it procured his front tooth as its price of consumption I'm a bit wary about such claims. But who am I to deny an old man his right to obstinacy?

Currently we're reading articles on European involvement in the Middle East during the 19th Century and learning about the inner workings of the Ottoman Empire at its height of power in the 16th Century. It's all interesting stuff, but the readings are long and written by insufferable academics whose entire lives revolve around convincing their colleagues that they belong in the Ivory Tower.

This sometimes translates into thirty pages of historical facts mixed with theories disguised as facts designed more to impress the intelligentsia than to inform the reader. This is tantamount to having a bunch of football coaches gathered around on the sideline squabbling about why Jimmy ran the wrong route. Meanwhile all the players, including poor Jimmy, are standing around with their hands on their hips waiting for them to use the information at their disposal to just call a freaking play.

Knowledge of the past is supposed to allow us to make better decisions in the present with which to shape and benefit the future. In any field, theory is only as useful as its application. I hope that we start using our growing knowledge of the past in the Middle East to start reaching conclusions about the present. That's a big reason why many people are in this program.

C'est la vie.

***

In other news, the big story right now in Israel is the rain (geshem in Hebrew). We had hurricane-like weather most of this morning and through the early afternoon. The wind was easily blowing anywhere from twenty-five to thirty miles per hour with gusts of over fifty. And the torrential downpour had some of us (i.e. me) looking silly without our umbrellas or rain jackets. Honestly, I didn't think it would actually rain in Israel.

God: Eleventy Billion. Drew: 0.

The past few days have seen an exorbitant amount of rainfall. This has been badly needed over here. Long before I arrived Israel was suffering from a severe water shortage. It was pretty much the policy of everyone in Israel to ration water. There were even mutterings by the Netanyahu Administration that Israel may have to start importing water from Turkey.

Those who have been paying attention know that Israel and Turkey's relationship hasn't exactly been copacetic lately. Turkey has made a great deal out of Operation: Cast Lead. Prime Minister Erdogan publicly accused Israel of war crimes on multiple occasions. Turkey recently dropped out of a NATO exercise because Israel was to be included and one of the most popular shows on Turkish television at the moment is a despicably duplicitous miniseries that portrays IDF soldiers gunning down smiling Palestinian children.

The demonizing of Israel is like American Idol over here. Whoever concocts the most asinine story to disparage the Jews wins the adoration of the throngs of ululating masses. In the 1980's the Saudis really got the ball rolling in "Season One" with the resurrection and popularization of the "blood libel." Those who aren't familiar with the "blood libel" might find themselves guffawing aloud. The blood libel essentially claims that during Passover (Passat) Jews have to make the traditional matsah bread with the fresh blood of a Christian boy.

Don't go back to the previous sentence. You definitely read it right the first time. This is the type of hatred and the level of insanity that Israel faces.

Sure, Ahmadinejad went Platinum in "Season Two" with that classic hit "Holocaust Me No More," but the blood libel has to be the most creatively evil accusation still widely believed throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

I guess now it's Turkey's turn to take the stage as they portray Israeli soldiers as bloodthirsty murderers giddily gunning down toddlers and smiling little girls.

There's no telling what's next, but one thing is for certain at the moment. It's still raining.