Tel Aviv Diary - February 26, 2003 Karen Alkalay-Gut
February 26
I try not to read Amira Hess in Haaretz. It's too painful. She writes about what it is like to live in Gaza today, or Ramallah. And her descriptions of the constant catastrophes people live with daily close up my throat and make it impossible for me to breathe much less swallow. But I do read her, and know the daily crises of these people. Yesterday someone anonymous sent me some pretty savage political cartoons from Gaza, and at first i had to skip them, breathe, and then go back to look. They seemed so savage and primitive. The one of Sharon eating a bowl of Palestinians had a website on it, and I checked it out. It turns out that the cartoonist is a woman, Joha Omayya, and her cartoons are full of blood and gore. The site is: www.omayya.com.
What makes it so painful to look at is my knowledge that despite their claims otherwise we are not entirely responsible for their agonies and that I am as incapable as a simple citizen in Gaza to alter the situation.
Commenting on my comments on Billy Collins' interview yesterday, Amy asked why I am still for war. I understand the reluctance, especially of Europe which has experienced war in its full devastation. But i also understand the plans of Saddam Hussein, partially complete, for far further devastation. And I understand why a war is an undesirable necessity now.
(Later) I spent the day hoping Limor Livnat would be ousted from her position as Minister of Education. A minister of education with no education, and no concept of what education is about. A woman with a vendetta against universities that wouldn't give her a degree. I wouldn't mind if she had never studied, and had the intelligence to defer to people who knew something about university education, but she did study, and failed, and failed again, and now is out to ruin the fabric of higher education in this country. In doing that, by the way, she is also ruining the edge in hi-tech and every other field in which Israeli scientists excel at the moment. The brain drain has already begun, and i don't blame a single scholar who has deserted the academy. Livnat really may not be so bad for grammar schools, but her high school and college programs are ignorant.
how do i know that livnat failed at the university? her classmates are very happy to tell about her. they say she even failed in the student elections.
and what do i have against failures or university dropouts? nothing. i have met great people who were dropouts. but they understood the system they rebelled against. she did not.
February 27, 2003
What? Still not panicked about the new government in Israel (Leiberman - inside the coalition vowing never to allow a Palestinian State. Bush - making speeches about how great the peace is going to be after this war and how Israel is going to help found a Palestinian State... to begin with)? Still cool about the economic situation (OUr new finance minister, Bibi, is KNOWN in Israeli for never paying his personal bills - not his barber, his contractor, restaurant, etc.)? Well, here's a site to give you sore eyes: The government booklet on how to prepare for war! Look at all the photographs of happy people! See the childlike drawings of how to keep calm in a biological attack! Enjoy!
Me? I'm off to order more junk food to eat myself silly in the shelter - I ate up all my supplies while watching Sharon manipulate everyone into a government.
Wait, I have to tell you that I didn't review Ronen Shapira's concert because I didn't go - I've been sick, you know. (This is an allusion that only my husband will understand if i don't explain it. It's a cartoon from the 50's with the patient on the couch, and the shrink lying down naked next to him, captioned "Psychiatrists get sick too, you know." There are probably a lot of allusions here and there only Ezi and some of the kids will recognize - so when something looks suspicious, don't assume I'm sending coded messages to Al Kaida. Ask.)
How have I been personally affected by the economic/poetic situation? My next book (in Hebrew) has just been delayed, probably until the winter. I know, I know. I have nothing to complain about. But remember, I am aware that my situation is a thousand times better than most of the people in Israel, and a few multiples of that better than most of the people living in the West Bank or Gaza. And that does not make me feel better.
February 28, 2003
Maybe i was wrong about Bibi. Not that he pays his bills. That is more than a passing event. But that he may have something like a Marshall Plan going. Lowering of taxes, generating jobs, etc. And maybe - just maybe - he'll have to recognize that the Israeli economy will improve when the Palestinian economy improves - and for that we need some peace and quiet.
Several people have been asking about the student anthology - in a cynical voice, i might add - because it sounds like a project an idealist like me would take up with no possibilities for completion.
Well, Roi and Amal and Yisrael are the editors - and they decided at one point that there is a need for a wider base of submissions and put an ad in ynetarabia. Submissions began to come in from Ramallah and Gaza - and lo - they are similar to the ones coming from Tel Aviv! The same subjects, the same concerns. I must admit that - weeding out the poems from the hate mail - i am thrilled. Talented people who want to make poems.
Now where in the world am i going to find a publisher for a project like this. i know i will - but where? Hillel Schenker, The editor of the Palestine/Israel journal, will help for sure - we already have the layout - with the original poem on one page and the two translations on the facing page - and the combination of poems about love, politics, fear, study - is to me a real winning one.
How are we going so far? A friend is underwriting the editing. Publication is not yet underwritten.
I want to finish this by the spring - so any ideas will be very welcome.
March 1, 2003
Mistakenly thinking I was better we went out to see the cyclamen and anemones in the north – After all this was the first sunny day for weeks and may be one of the last days before the war. And the amount of water, the rivers and rills that have appeared, are astounding. The rare quantities of rain have greened the entire countryside and recall the emerald of Ireland. Silly? Here are some pictures Ezi took of the countryside and the flowers:
These are big pictures, are accurate and fresh, but they don't begin to capture the absolute rapture of it. Compare - for example - the way Wordsworth went crazy over all those daffodils. And this was in the LAKE DISTRICT - which is rainy. I mean it must have been cold and grey for a season, but only a season. Then imagine what it would be like if he lived in an arid land for a dozen years and THEN saw the daffodils.
We had snow this week for the first time in 12 years - i mean Jerusalem did. And it shut the schools down for 3 days. And people came from all over the country to see it.
And The Sea of Galilee is filling up nicely, thank you, after years of a sad and painful drought, and one might even believe that something good could come out of this country. Joseph talked about lean years and fat years - maybe it's par for this area - and not just the nature. Maybe not.
Enjoy the pictures anyway.
All right, so you don't like all this mushy stuff.
I kept thinking while we were stuck in the enormous traffic jam that Israel becomes on days like this, that the last time i allowed myself to be in a traffic jam is when we went to see the phenomenon of Bidyeh. Two years ago. Bidyeh is a town in the west bank a few miles from kfar saba - and they got a reputation for making cheap copies of expensive furniture, selling tiles and paint and building materials much cheaper (no taxes for one) and in general being very accomodating to the israeli visitors. so everyone but everyone started going there on saturdays in particular. and the traffic jams were so great you would wait hours to get to the town, but peddlars would keep you occupied on the way selling cleaning materials, food, etc. all the signs were in hebrew, arabic and russian. Then as soon as trouble began, an israeli shopper was killed there and everyone stayed away. i often wonder what happened to the people of bidyeh in these two years - they were raking it in, and we were winning too. that's the way the economy should work, isn't it?
March 3, 2003
I'm (gulp) beginning to like Bibi. The economic plan is right - to jump start the economy by giving people a chance to exist. But it's Bibi...
Our little politics here is what concerns us right now. Turkey's refusal to allow the U.S. to strike from their borders, the preparations for war, the universal discussion about the justness of the war, are all mentioned. But what really concerns us seems to be our own government. Because every little detail in it will affect every element of our lives. The minister of the Interior for instance. The fact that it has moved from the control of a religious party to the control of an antireligious party can affect the way we get married, the way we spend our leisure time, the way we treat foreign workers, and most of all, the amount of money that goes directly to religious activities. Almost every minister changes our lives in similar ways. But now that it is discovered that I have massive infections and not the flu and i am getting antibiotics i have to make up all the time i've lost from working and have no time for political commentary. More tomorrow.
on the other hand the speedy recovery the antibiotics are seeming to be enabling has made me hyperactive. why waste a perfectly good night. I keep thinking about the conspiracy theories recently surfacing abut the iraq war being a jewish conspiracy to help israel. Arnaud de Bouchgrave and others have been hinting and even stating this theory in the past weeks. And all i can think of is the fact that i don't know an israeli who knows how to balance his check book, much less create an international conspiracy. You must admit the concept is very flattering. Compare it with this. When I first visited a kibbtuz in 1965, i was very impressed with its efficiency and dedication. The enormous egg production of the chickens, for example. Ha! The man in charge of the coop (who was somehow connected with the town my parents came from) said. You know there was a delegation from Germany here before WWII and they looked at the lights we keep on at night in the coop so the chickens will think it is day and keep laying eggs and they said: In a Jewish land the Jews have no one left to cheat so they cheat the chickens.
i don't know. i come from a family who is so sensitive to that accusation that we allow ourselves to be taken advantage of right and left. Those German tourists may think of the Jews as cheating the chickens, but i think of the jews as the chickens themselves.
Another word on the cats of Tel Aviv. I have it buried deep in my memory bank that kittens are weaned at 6 weeks and go off into the world. But the mother cat in our back yard is still cleaning behinds at 3 months. and the kittens listen to her commands to gather together when my dog comes by. Maybe in nature she would need to save herself and let the kiddies loose as soon as possible. But in our protected back yard (which by now is clearly a symbol) the cats can form more loyal families and forget their self-survival attitudes.
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