Khaled has arrived yesterday, woohoo! We were a bit concerned about how he would make it through the airport, but it didn't take as long as we feared it might. He only went through 4 investigators lol and then a chatty and friendly can driver too.
I met Khaled as he arrived and showed him to his room. We talked for a few minutes and since it was almost 4 AM, we figured it might be best for him to catch some sleep. Unfortunately, at 6:30, my five years old son was knocking at his door with a somewhat earlier than expected wake-up call ;) He did go back to sleep after that, so we were assured (Khaled, not my son, who was rather embarrassed later on by the episode, but easily appeased with some yummy Belgian chocolate!).
Breakfast took longer than expected, as we got into some fairly interesting conversation with our guest. My parents-in-law, my husband, myself and our guest of honor, with a constant hum of the kids in the background, we got talking, learning more about each other, and of course, discussing history as well as the current state of affairs in the Middle East. I can see how the fresh new perspective does bring the debate into life. We finally decided it was time to get up from the table and take a look at the Zionist State, all dressed up in blue and white flags. Today it's the Eve of Memorial Day here, going into a very sad day tomorrow which then switches abruptly into the celebrations of the Independence Day tomorrow evening. Everywhere is filled with flags, and even Khaled himself travel led with my father in law with two prominent Israeli flags proudly waving on the car roof lol We need to take a picture of that, makes it look like a formal visit indeed. Following them in our car, we actually chuckled and wondered what it might feel like for us, traveling in a neighboring country and being driven around with say, the Palestinian or Syrian or Iranian flag waving above our head at all times.
Our destination was the nearby kibbutz of Ein Shemer where they run a small tourist attraction called The Old Courtyard. It tells the story of the early settlers of the kibbutz, from long before the establishment of the State of Israel. In essence, giving you the Zionist "pioneers" ethos, with all of its cross stitched Russian shirts glory. We spent some time there, watching a short movie about life there in early times and looking over the exhibits. My kids were a bit disappointed, as they came mainly for "the movie" expecting the latest entertainment, Walt Disney style, the only got a "boring" 15 minutes presentation in English. I hope Khaled enjoyed it more than they did lol.
Back to the house to a small feast of homemade cooking by my dear mother-in-law. It's hard to describe this visit without the soundtrack really, of incessant talking on both sides. Before, throughout and after the meal, there is just an endless and very pleasant stream of questions, answers, views and ideas. One of the topics that came up was the experience of Jews who used to live in Arab countries, at which point I suggested that we go up and meet my grandfather, an elderly gentleman of Tunisian origin. And so, off we went to visit him and my mother and sister, in the town of Netanya.
The meeting proved to be hilarious. My grandpa finally had a chance to practice his Tunisian Arabic. His mother tongue, but he had not used it much for the past sixty years! An entertaining exchange of words went on, with him and Khaled comparing Egyptian and Tunisian dialects, mixing everything heavily with French as well. I was surprised to see just how easy it was for me to follow the conversation. My very limited knowledge of Arabic went well with the accents and dialects used and even the French part, went in well. I guess growing up listening to Tunisian Arabic and Tunisian French at my grandparents home, and also watching the famous "Egyptian" movie on Fridays on TV... something sunk in after all!
We decided to do a short tour of Netanya. A favorite destination for both French-Jewish tourists with a beautiful promenade by the seaside. My sister joined us and we walked around, and ended up in a nice restaurant which I used to frequent with my family while growing up. The restaurant is co-owned by Arabs and Jews and we were fortunate to have the Arab co-owner approach us. He did not only take our orders, but also had a nice exchange with Khaled. It was clear that he was very curious about this guest from Egypt, a first for him there in the restaurant. He came back several times, sharing his views on things, with Khaled in Arabic, with us in Hebrew and with both in English sometimes as well.
We finally headed back home, after picking up two sleeping children from my mom who had been baby sitting them for the evening. We nearly solved the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the way back, but some hurdles are still left. I am sure we'll go through them today! A solution by the end of the visit? I can't guarantee anything at this point. I will say though, that I am certain that if everyone can just talk like we're doing here constantly, in a such a friendly way, this conflict would indeed have a much better chance at ending, sooner than later too.
More to come in the next few days - I'll keep ya all posted! You can and should read Khaled's version of things in his blog dedicated specifically to this vist -
http://without-a-roadmap.blogspot.com/
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
An Exciting Visit and Some Other Thoughts
Posting this during a short break in between preparing a small feast for this evening... We're expecting a very special visitor here within a week's time. It's Khaled Diab, aka DiabolicalIdea on the Metalks.com forums. We still have some activity over there, but out of the public eye, in a private forum which essentially includes the former staff members there. Khaled and myself have also had some interesting exchanges over the past few weeks, posted on his site here -
Exchange of Friendly Fire
I am very excited about this visit. The general plan is to turn Khaled into a true Zionist and a bearer of the new gospel to his fellow Arabs across the Middle East. Well, no, not really :p Actually, until I started Metalks, I had no idea that Zionism was such a loaded concept. It was the most natural thing in the world to me. Sure, I'm an Israeli and Jewish, therefore, I'm a Zionist. Simple, really. Nothing to ponder over for too long. When I grew up, I even assumed that all Jews were Zionists. I was somewhat shocked, to tell the truth, when confronted with what some people thought about Zionism. Turned out that for many people around the world, we're this brutal, violent and scary entity. Who knew. I always thought we were supportive of social justice and peace among the nations. Who could possible have anything against Zionism? and this is only a slight exaggeration btw, from what it felt like - that discrepancy between my own perception of Zionism, and that of others.
In a way, I am looking forward to seeing my country through Khaled's eyes, and showing him what it looks like to us. I think this can be an enlightening experience, for both of us. I am sure it will be for me. I will post more as we go along, and I know that Khaled will do the same on his blog. Best place to catch Khaled and his thoughts are on his site: diabolicdigest.net.
On another topic, I just wanted to note here, for all to see, and for future generations... I still think that my government is making a HUGE mistake nowdays. Syria is coming forward, albeit hesitantly, with a peace offering of sorts. I expect Israel to embrace that and jump on the opportunity. You have to be blind not to see that this is our best, and maybe even our only, chance at solving the Hezbulla problem. Peace with Syria, in effect blockading Hezbulla, is the only effective measure there. We're missing on that, and I'm afraid we might be heading for round 2 of the war as well, judging by the tunes coming from the HA in Beirut...
I can see two reasons why Olmert doesn't grab the opportunity. Ok, maybe three. The first, is that him and his advisers are complete idiots and don't see the situation which is very clear to me - that this is the way to bring down HA. No military solution will achieve that. Why get dragged into a second round of pointless fighting that will only bring on more tragedy on the Lebanese people and on Israel? Now, assuming that they're not complete morons, and can see as much, I can see two things possibly holding Olmert back:
1. The Americans saying they don't want us to talk to Syria, it being part of the axis of evil (I think that's the term?). Personally, I think it's appaling that our PM will sacrifice the lives of our soldiers and of civilians in both countries to appease the Americans. The price is too high.
2. Internal Political hurdles. Namely, the right-wing parties will resign from the government, possibly bringing down the coalition. That indeed is a huge problem. I think this is where the left needs to step in and assure Olmert of a political blanket.
Why is none of this happening? Beats me. To be honest, I don't have too much time to watch the news or read the papers. I just hope someone gets it somewhere in this country and realizes that now's the time to act.
Exchange of Friendly Fire
I am very excited about this visit. The general plan is to turn Khaled into a true Zionist and a bearer of the new gospel to his fellow Arabs across the Middle East. Well, no, not really :p Actually, until I started Metalks, I had no idea that Zionism was such a loaded concept. It was the most natural thing in the world to me. Sure, I'm an Israeli and Jewish, therefore, I'm a Zionist. Simple, really. Nothing to ponder over for too long. When I grew up, I even assumed that all Jews were Zionists. I was somewhat shocked, to tell the truth, when confronted with what some people thought about Zionism. Turned out that for many people around the world, we're this brutal, violent and scary entity. Who knew. I always thought we were supportive of social justice and peace among the nations. Who could possible have anything against Zionism? and this is only a slight exaggeration btw, from what it felt like - that discrepancy between my own perception of Zionism, and that of others.
In a way, I am looking forward to seeing my country through Khaled's eyes, and showing him what it looks like to us. I think this can be an enlightening experience, for both of us. I am sure it will be for me. I will post more as we go along, and I know that Khaled will do the same on his blog. Best place to catch Khaled and his thoughts are on his site: diabolicdigest.net.
On another topic, I just wanted to note here, for all to see, and for future generations... I still think that my government is making a HUGE mistake nowdays. Syria is coming forward, albeit hesitantly, with a peace offering of sorts. I expect Israel to embrace that and jump on the opportunity. You have to be blind not to see that this is our best, and maybe even our only, chance at solving the Hezbulla problem. Peace with Syria, in effect blockading Hezbulla, is the only effective measure there. We're missing on that, and I'm afraid we might be heading for round 2 of the war as well, judging by the tunes coming from the HA in Beirut...
I can see two reasons why Olmert doesn't grab the opportunity. Ok, maybe three. The first, is that him and his advisers are complete idiots and don't see the situation which is very clear to me - that this is the way to bring down HA. No military solution will achieve that. Why get dragged into a second round of pointless fighting that will only bring on more tragedy on the Lebanese people and on Israel? Now, assuming that they're not complete morons, and can see as much, I can see two things possibly holding Olmert back:
1. The Americans saying they don't want us to talk to Syria, it being part of the axis of evil (I think that's the term?). Personally, I think it's appaling that our PM will sacrifice the lives of our soldiers and of civilians in both countries to appease the Americans. The price is too high.
2. Internal Political hurdles. Namely, the right-wing parties will resign from the government, possibly bringing down the coalition. That indeed is a huge problem. I think this is where the left needs to step in and assure Olmert of a political blanket.
Why is none of this happening? Beats me. To be honest, I don't have too much time to watch the news or read the papers. I just hope someone gets it somewhere in this country and realizes that now's the time to act.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Busy Times
Someone asked me the other day if I still blog on IsraeliMom about the politics of the Middle East. Ha! Like I even have the time to watch the news (or read them online even). My contact with that aspect of life is limited to the occasional news bulletin on the radio when I'm in the car. I think there's a general strike going on today? lol, ok, I don't pay too much attention to the news ;)
I started working out properly again this week, after a six weeks long relapse due to a muscle injury. I'll try and blog about this in my weight loss blog which has been neglected as well, due to the same reason. Now, back to 2 hours a day, four times a week of working out, along with trying to spend time with the kids, and actually trying to work too, my days just seem to fly by.
We've been really busy lately with trying to find the right kindergarten arrangement for next year for the two munchkins here. We've checked every school and pre-school in the area, and registered at 4-5 of them so far. It's fairly complicated, really. Lots of options, very different from one another, and we can't be sure of being accepted anywhere at this stage, so we just keep trying for them all. Right now, the kids go to a Waldorf/Steiner kind of kindergarten. The staff is absolutely wonderful and overall it's a nice and peaceful place, perfect for small children. The problem is, that as the kids grow, we feel that the Waldorf approach does not allow them the kind of intellectual stimuli which they want and we feel they deserve. According to the Waldorf Guru, someone called Rudolph Steiner, kids shouldn't begin their intellectual development before the age of seven. I am probably oversimplifying what he said, but the bottom line is that when a kid asks science related questions, he doesn't get any answers and is redirected elsewhere. We feel this is no longer right for our eldest son, so we're looking for another system for now.
Actually, the leading candidate at this point is the Arab-Jewish school with their nice kindergarten. It's located in an Arab village, about 15 minutes away from here (driving). It has a good kindergarten, with a good ratio of staff to kids. Half of the staff (and half of the kids) are Arabs, and half are Jewish. Actually, the political setting makes little difference to us, we just liked the place, and it comes at a good price too. We feel it's as good as any private kindergarten we can find here, and it only costs around $100 a month per kid (as opposed to $400-$500 for a private kindergarten). The only snag is that they may not be able to take in both kids, and we are a bit reluctant about separating them at this point. We're waiting for their reply now, which should be in within the coming few weeks.
Then, there's work. Just lots and lots of work with new projects always zooming around in my head. My flagship site, TheCatSite.com is growing and requires regular maintenance. I am grateful for having such a wonderful and experienced team there that practically runs the place, but even so, it requires a lot of TLC and behind the scenes work, to keep everything running. I also have a slew of smaller sites, which I struggle to keep going, in terms of constant development and promotion. I tried something new today, actually, building a page in Squidoo.com around one of my sites. We'll see how it goes. You can see it here: My Squidoo Blackberry Reviews Page and if you have a Squidoo account, please do give me some nice ratings ;)
That's it for today. Will try and check in back soon.
I started working out properly again this week, after a six weeks long relapse due to a muscle injury. I'll try and blog about this in my weight loss blog which has been neglected as well, due to the same reason. Now, back to 2 hours a day, four times a week of working out, along with trying to spend time with the kids, and actually trying to work too, my days just seem to fly by.
We've been really busy lately with trying to find the right kindergarten arrangement for next year for the two munchkins here. We've checked every school and pre-school in the area, and registered at 4-5 of them so far. It's fairly complicated, really. Lots of options, very different from one another, and we can't be sure of being accepted anywhere at this stage, so we just keep trying for them all. Right now, the kids go to a Waldorf/Steiner kind of kindergarten. The staff is absolutely wonderful and overall it's a nice and peaceful place, perfect for small children. The problem is, that as the kids grow, we feel that the Waldorf approach does not allow them the kind of intellectual stimuli which they want and we feel they deserve. According to the Waldorf Guru, someone called Rudolph Steiner, kids shouldn't begin their intellectual development before the age of seven. I am probably oversimplifying what he said, but the bottom line is that when a kid asks science related questions, he doesn't get any answers and is redirected elsewhere. We feel this is no longer right for our eldest son, so we're looking for another system for now.
Actually, the leading candidate at this point is the Arab-Jewish school with their nice kindergarten. It's located in an Arab village, about 15 minutes away from here (driving). It has a good kindergarten, with a good ratio of staff to kids. Half of the staff (and half of the kids) are Arabs, and half are Jewish. Actually, the political setting makes little difference to us, we just liked the place, and it comes at a good price too. We feel it's as good as any private kindergarten we can find here, and it only costs around $100 a month per kid (as opposed to $400-$500 for a private kindergarten). The only snag is that they may not be able to take in both kids, and we are a bit reluctant about separating them at this point. We're waiting for their reply now, which should be in within the coming few weeks.
Then, there's work. Just lots and lots of work with new projects always zooming around in my head. My flagship site, TheCatSite.com is growing and requires regular maintenance. I am grateful for having such a wonderful and experienced team there that practically runs the place, but even so, it requires a lot of TLC and behind the scenes work, to keep everything running. I also have a slew of smaller sites, which I struggle to keep going, in terms of constant development and promotion. I tried something new today, actually, building a page in Squidoo.com around one of my sites. We'll see how it goes. You can see it here: My Squidoo Blackberry Reviews Page and if you have a Squidoo account, please do give me some nice ratings ;)
That's it for today. Will try and check in back soon.
Monday, March 12, 2007
A Belated Purim Update
I can't even blame it on the time it takes to develop the Purim pictures... It's all digital these days, so we had them right away. Still, it's almost two weeks later, and here I am blogging about our Purim experiences. I did make a mid-year resolution to try and update this blog more often. We feel it's good for us to put a little record of our daily lives in writing. Sharing it is an added bonus, since it's nice to get those comments and responses from people all over the world. So, there, I intend on going for at least weekly posts from now on. Who knows, might get more often than that too ;)
This one is just a recap of Purim, really. We had two super-heros here at home, Mr Incredible (Dan) and Spiderman, no less. Our kids visit a Waldorf kindergarten (a-la Steiner), and we were asked to avoid "scary" costumes. They asked for flowers, fairies, animals and such, but this being Purim, they ended up having two spidermans, a cowboy and almost a Mr Incredible too. The almost Mr Incredible was our Dan, who was down with a fever just in time for Purim. He even got to the point of wearing his costume in the morning, we thought we'd take him to see the other kids in costumes then back home, but he felt so lousy, he actually asked to get out of the costume and stay at home... So, here are one Mr Increidble, just before he went back to bed, and a couple of Spidermen, the taller one is Ron -
That was on Friday. Sunday, Dan was feeling only a little bit better (he's perfectly ok now, btw, it was just one of those bugs, just a fever, essentially for 4-5 days, then some coughing and a runny nose), so we decided to join my mom and take a walk in Netanya. They have a nice shopping street there, with no cars and they were having a carnival of sorts held. Now, Netanya is famous for many things in Israel, among them as being a favorite destination for suicide bombers. Going there for a heavily crowded event is always a bit scary... but you go anyway, so we went anyway :p
They actually closed the area and had fairly tight security arrangements, allowing people in only through checkpoints. Here's the one we got in through -
It's not easy checking a huge crowd where all kids and quite a few adults come in dressed up. The place itself had lots of cops, paramedics and even people who were marked as "Security Observers", most likely volunteers, they looked about hi-school age, just standing there and keeping watch for anything or anyone suspicious. We sat down for some ice cream and I just had to take a picture of the nice gathering in front of us -
I have to say, I don't actually think there's anything uniquely Israeli about that. I am sure any European city with a similar gathering would have security forces all over the place. It was just something I noted as being different from when I was a kid. Back then security wasn't as tight, but then again, terrorists didn't use to blow themselves up in the middle of busy crowds back then.
Anyway, the whole thing was really nice. Lots and lots of kids in costumes, my own kids included, with everyone going ooooo and aaaaaah over other people's costumes lol. Here's a nice family we met on the way, where the adults and all of the kids all dressed up -
I'll finish with those. I'll probably post again rather sooner than later, with some fun pics from our recent amusement park adventure!
This one is just a recap of Purim, really. We had two super-heros here at home, Mr Incredible (Dan) and Spiderman, no less. Our kids visit a Waldorf kindergarten (a-la Steiner), and we were asked to avoid "scary" costumes. They asked for flowers, fairies, animals and such, but this being Purim, they ended up having two spidermans, a cowboy and almost a Mr Incredible too. The almost Mr Incredible was our Dan, who was down with a fever just in time for Purim. He even got to the point of wearing his costume in the morning, we thought we'd take him to see the other kids in costumes then back home, but he felt so lousy, he actually asked to get out of the costume and stay at home... So, here are one Mr Increidble, just before he went back to bed, and a couple of Spidermen, the taller one is Ron -
That was on Friday. Sunday, Dan was feeling only a little bit better (he's perfectly ok now, btw, it was just one of those bugs, just a fever, essentially for 4-5 days, then some coughing and a runny nose), so we decided to join my mom and take a walk in Netanya. They have a nice shopping street there, with no cars and they were having a carnival of sorts held. Now, Netanya is famous for many things in Israel, among them as being a favorite destination for suicide bombers. Going there for a heavily crowded event is always a bit scary... but you go anyway, so we went anyway :p
They actually closed the area and had fairly tight security arrangements, allowing people in only through checkpoints. Here's the one we got in through -
It's not easy checking a huge crowd where all kids and quite a few adults come in dressed up. The place itself had lots of cops, paramedics and even people who were marked as "Security Observers", most likely volunteers, they looked about hi-school age, just standing there and keeping watch for anything or anyone suspicious. We sat down for some ice cream and I just had to take a picture of the nice gathering in front of us -
I have to say, I don't actually think there's anything uniquely Israeli about that. I am sure any European city with a similar gathering would have security forces all over the place. It was just something I noted as being different from when I was a kid. Back then security wasn't as tight, but then again, terrorists didn't use to blow themselves up in the middle of busy crowds back then.
Anyway, the whole thing was really nice. Lots and lots of kids in costumes, my own kids included, with everyone going ooooo and aaaaaah over other people's costumes lol. Here's a nice family we met on the way, where the adults and all of the kids all dressed up -
I'll finish with those. I'll probably post again rather sooner than later, with some fun pics from our recent amusement park adventure!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Some Fun in the Snow!
We got back from a nice short getaway up in the north of Israel.
My brother-in-law, who lives with his family in a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, called us on Wednesday and said the weather forcast said a storm was coming, possibly with some snow too at their place. His idea was for us to pack up the kids and just go there, maybe catch some snow. The kids were beyond excited, so the next day, storm already rolling, we drove through it up to the Golan Heights.
It was a lot of fun, although it did not snow anywhere around the kibbutz. Still always nice to visit there :) It's such a lovely place and always good for a nice dose of cold European-style weather during winter. It was foggy and cloudy, just like I like it lol. I thought I'd share some pics here.
Here's my three years old Dan at the front of my in-laws' house:
As you can see, the houses are all the same, it being a kibbutz, but everyone can do whatever they want with their "patch". My BIL, Uri, turned the front of his house into two ponds connected with a kind of a bridge made from three grates. To get into the house, you walk over the grate with the fish swimming under you. Pretty cool! The kids really loved feeding the fish, as you can see here -
We had at least two meals at their splendid communal dining room here. The food is absolutely superb. People do have their own kitchens at home nowdays, but this kibbutz still keeps up withthe tradition of communal meals and has an excellent in-house chef too ;)
We couldn't very well go without seeing some snow though. The kids were so into it by then, we simply had to let them see some. So, on Friday morning we drove north from the kibbutz and up the Hermon mountain towards the ski resort at the top. We could see snow only a few hundreds of yards before the gates of the resort, and waited there for a few minutes, wondering if we should go inside or not. We decided to see how the kids would react to the snow first and let them out of the car to play with the snow by the road there. They had a lot of fun for five minutes lol, then they started getting wet from the melted snow and all of the sudden it was, "mom! I'm freezing! Let's get back to the car now!" lol. Good thing we didn't get tickets, we just shoved them back into the car and turned up the heat to defrost them a little and drove back to the kibbutz.
Here are some pictures of the happy snow times -
My brother-in-law, who lives with his family in a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, called us on Wednesday and said the weather forcast said a storm was coming, possibly with some snow too at their place. His idea was for us to pack up the kids and just go there, maybe catch some snow. The kids were beyond excited, so the next day, storm already rolling, we drove through it up to the Golan Heights.
It was a lot of fun, although it did not snow anywhere around the kibbutz. Still always nice to visit there :) It's such a lovely place and always good for a nice dose of cold European-style weather during winter. It was foggy and cloudy, just like I like it lol. I thought I'd share some pics here.
Here's my three years old Dan at the front of my in-laws' house:
As you can see, the houses are all the same, it being a kibbutz, but everyone can do whatever they want with their "patch". My BIL, Uri, turned the front of his house into two ponds connected with a kind of a bridge made from three grates. To get into the house, you walk over the grate with the fish swimming under you. Pretty cool! The kids really loved feeding the fish, as you can see here -
We had at least two meals at their splendid communal dining room here. The food is absolutely superb. People do have their own kitchens at home nowdays, but this kibbutz still keeps up withthe tradition of communal meals and has an excellent in-house chef too ;)
We couldn't very well go without seeing some snow though. The kids were so into it by then, we simply had to let them see some. So, on Friday morning we drove north from the kibbutz and up the Hermon mountain towards the ski resort at the top. We could see snow only a few hundreds of yards before the gates of the resort, and waited there for a few minutes, wondering if we should go inside or not. We decided to see how the kids would react to the snow first and let them out of the car to play with the snow by the road there. They had a lot of fun for five minutes lol, then they started getting wet from the melted snow and all of the sudden it was, "mom! I'm freezing! Let's get back to the car now!" lol. Good thing we didn't get tickets, we just shoved them back into the car and turned up the heat to defrost them a little and drove back to the kibbutz.
Here are some pictures of the happy snow times -
Sunday, February 11, 2007
My New Friend in Gaza
Strange are the ways of the Internet. And wonderful too, in a sense.
I am listed in the Skype directory, I think. I'm not even sure how I'm listed, all I know is that every now and again a Skype window pops up. I usually ignore these people, simply because I'm busy and don't have time to chat. I often take a look at the profile first, just out of curiosity. A week ago, such a Skype window popped up and me. The location showed "Palestinian Authority". I had a few minutes on my hands, so figured I'd say hello.
The young man on the other side tried Arabic first but switched to English when I said I can't read Arabic that well. He was from Gaza, his name was Jihad. When he realized he had stumbled upon an Israeli he went, "ohhhhhhhh, you must have me." And so our dialogue began. Now, Jihad is a 19 years old student and an avid supporter of Hammas, the kind that opposes to Israel in every way, and is certain that Allah intends for the whole of Israel, not just the West Bank or Gaza, to be under Palestinian control. To him, it's the will of God, not something that is even debatable. He loathes the PLO and admires the Hammas. He gets his news from Hammas resources and says he won't even check on international news sites because they are all "controlled by America" and hence prejudiced against Israel. He even justifies suicide bombers as freedom fighters.
It's a fascinating dialogue, to both of us. He says he never realized there were Jews in Israel that want peace and is fairly surprised. We talk almost daily, not always for very long. Surprisingly enough, we are reaching some common ground sometimes. I won't go into details, out of respect to the privacy of our chats, but just wanted to report here about this little dialogue that we have forming, between two people that are only 100 km's away from each other, yet are worlds apart in so many ways. It is a surprisingly friendly dialogue too. We call each other brothers by now (well, technically my husband and him call each other brothers lol), in a very Middle Eastern way. We've got mutual invitations open to each other and the common word in our conversation is Inshalla (God's willing) - Inshalla, someday Jihad will come here to play tennis with my hubby, and will take us down to visit the vegetable fields near his home...
I am listed in the Skype directory, I think. I'm not even sure how I'm listed, all I know is that every now and again a Skype window pops up. I usually ignore these people, simply because I'm busy and don't have time to chat. I often take a look at the profile first, just out of curiosity. A week ago, such a Skype window popped up and me. The location showed "Palestinian Authority". I had a few minutes on my hands, so figured I'd say hello.
The young man on the other side tried Arabic first but switched to English when I said I can't read Arabic that well. He was from Gaza, his name was Jihad. When he realized he had stumbled upon an Israeli he went, "ohhhhhhhh, you must have me." And so our dialogue began. Now, Jihad is a 19 years old student and an avid supporter of Hammas, the kind that opposes to Israel in every way, and is certain that Allah intends for the whole of Israel, not just the West Bank or Gaza, to be under Palestinian control. To him, it's the will of God, not something that is even debatable. He loathes the PLO and admires the Hammas. He gets his news from Hammas resources and says he won't even check on international news sites because they are all "controlled by America" and hence prejudiced against Israel. He even justifies suicide bombers as freedom fighters.
It's a fascinating dialogue, to both of us. He says he never realized there were Jews in Israel that want peace and is fairly surprised. We talk almost daily, not always for very long. Surprisingly enough, we are reaching some common ground sometimes. I won't go into details, out of respect to the privacy of our chats, but just wanted to report here about this little dialogue that we have forming, between two people that are only 100 km's away from each other, yet are worlds apart in so many ways. It is a surprisingly friendly dialogue too. We call each other brothers by now (well, technically my husband and him call each other brothers lol), in a very Middle Eastern way. We've got mutual invitations open to each other and the common word in our conversation is Inshalla (God's willing) - Inshalla, someday Jihad will come here to play tennis with my hubby, and will take us down to visit the vegetable fields near his home...
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
School Worries
Last few weeks our family has been hit by the flu. At least I think it was the flu, I'm never sure what's the difference between the common cold and "The Flu". Dan started it with a week of fever and feeling run down, complaining of stomach pain mostly, but also coughing nicely. In the middle of that, I had my episode of ongoing fever, headaches, sore throat, pain all over for five days. The day that Dan was feeling better, Ron came down with it, and is still not 100% well. My husband had it easiest (good thing he's not reading this, for a man any cold is an acute case of tuberculosis).
So, finally, looks like the four of us are all relatively fine, with the occasional coughing orchestra shaking the house, nothing worse. Now we're back to our main project these days, finding the right school for Ron. Ron turns five in exactly five days, so we are actually looking for a pre-school for next year, but prefer to find one that is attached to a school, where he can graduate smoothly from pre-school and into school.
One of the options currently on the agenda is the local Arab-Jewish school. I have posted about this unique project before, but we actually went visiting there on Sunday (a work day here). We spent a while in the pre-school to see what it's like. The Jewish caregivers (GANENET) were both away sick (this flu is a proper epidemic this year), but we met the two Arab ones, and they were absolutely lovely. We arranged the visit with one of them prior to coming, and our general impression with her is extremely positive. A young woman, soft spoken and she seems to be very loving and caring towards the children, which is all we're looking for, essentially.
Watching the children together was odd. Imagine a group of twenty-something children, aged four to six, about half of which are Arabs and half Jewish. The Jewish children don't speak Arabic and the Arab children don't speak Hebrew. So now you get the adults trying to manage them all in both languages. When we were there, they were having a music lesson. A Jewish lady, we later found out was a volunteer and not part of the staff, who didn't know Arabic, was trying to get them to play along to music and play some musical games together. She would explain the instructions in Hebrew, then wait for the Arab caregivers to translate it into Arabic. Whenever she needed to say something to an Arab kid, she needed help. Now, I'm not actually sure about the regular staff, I do hope they are all bi-lingual, at least to some extent. I have to say that the Arabic, the way it was used with these kids, was fairly simple, and even we managed to follow most of what was being said there. It was still interesting to watch and definitely a good example of the unique challenge this system faces. It was moving too, in a sense. Watching these people try so hard to bring down the barriers and provide young children with the kind of experience of "the other side", that we ourselves never experienced. Something so simple, yet so challenging, and who knows, maybe it would work too?
Anyway, we still have a long way to do here, checking on a few other schools. We'll be going back to the Arab-Jewish school as well, for a more detailed talk with the staff and learning more about this project. My main concern at this point is the distance. It's only 15 minutes or so from our home, by car, but the school ride obviously takes longer, having to pick up children across town. I am not sure Ron isn't too young to travel on his own in the school ride for over an hour everyday. I guess we'll see though. I'll try and post more as we explore other options and more about the Arab-Jewish school too.
So, finally, looks like the four of us are all relatively fine, with the occasional coughing orchestra shaking the house, nothing worse. Now we're back to our main project these days, finding the right school for Ron. Ron turns five in exactly five days, so we are actually looking for a pre-school for next year, but prefer to find one that is attached to a school, where he can graduate smoothly from pre-school and into school.
One of the options currently on the agenda is the local Arab-Jewish school. I have posted about this unique project before, but we actually went visiting there on Sunday (a work day here). We spent a while in the pre-school to see what it's like. The Jewish caregivers (GANENET) were both away sick (this flu is a proper epidemic this year), but we met the two Arab ones, and they were absolutely lovely. We arranged the visit with one of them prior to coming, and our general impression with her is extremely positive. A young woman, soft spoken and she seems to be very loving and caring towards the children, which is all we're looking for, essentially.
Watching the children together was odd. Imagine a group of twenty-something children, aged four to six, about half of which are Arabs and half Jewish. The Jewish children don't speak Arabic and the Arab children don't speak Hebrew. So now you get the adults trying to manage them all in both languages. When we were there, they were having a music lesson. A Jewish lady, we later found out was a volunteer and not part of the staff, who didn't know Arabic, was trying to get them to play along to music and play some musical games together. She would explain the instructions in Hebrew, then wait for the Arab caregivers to translate it into Arabic. Whenever she needed to say something to an Arab kid, she needed help. Now, I'm not actually sure about the regular staff, I do hope they are all bi-lingual, at least to some extent. I have to say that the Arabic, the way it was used with these kids, was fairly simple, and even we managed to follow most of what was being said there. It was still interesting to watch and definitely a good example of the unique challenge this system faces. It was moving too, in a sense. Watching these people try so hard to bring down the barriers and provide young children with the kind of experience of "the other side", that we ourselves never experienced. Something so simple, yet so challenging, and who knows, maybe it would work too?
Anyway, we still have a long way to do here, checking on a few other schools. We'll be going back to the Arab-Jewish school as well, for a more detailed talk with the staff and learning more about this project. My main concern at this point is the distance. It's only 15 minutes or so from our home, by car, but the school ride obviously takes longer, having to pick up children across town. I am not sure Ron isn't too young to travel on his own in the school ride for over an hour everyday. I guess we'll see though. I'll try and post more as we explore other options and more about the Arab-Jewish school too.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Closing Down Metalks
A bit of a sad day for me, but it had to be done. I closed down Metalks.com today. My strange vision of creating a place for people of the Middle East to talk to each other online didn't really work out I guess.
I take the blame here. Didn't have enough time to properly nurture that particular project. Frankly, I hadn't thought it would be so time consuming, and definitely not for the reasons it was. I figured I knew a lot about forums management, but forums take some toughness, some rules and discipline, as well as a lot of TLC. I found myself walking on eggshells as forum owner and admin, not sure where to draw the lines. We found ourselves wasting hours on trying to manage threads on weird subjects such as the protocols of the Elders of Zion and such nonesense, instead of trying to nurture the forum and bring in more people from the Middle East into the discussion. In retrospect, perhaps a more stern approach, simply forbidding some topics from being discussed at that stage, would have been more productive.
There was also a problem with not enough people from the Middle East participating. And those that were seemed to be mostly from Israel. I could easily "summon" in more Israelis. Israelis are chatty by nature, and I knew all I had to do was post on some political boards in Israel to get new participants. I held back, as I wanted a more balanced mix to the boards. I spent a while emailing Arab/Muslim/Middle East bloggers with little results. Yes, we did have some absolutely wonderful "recruits" that way, but overall, 90% of Arab bloggers either didn't reply, replied rudely, or just said thanks but never showed up on the board.
On the positive note, I have met and made friends with some wonderful people. Some of them I met as commenters here on this blog first, then got to know them better at Metalks. I have learned a lot about the people on "the other side". Thank you Amir, Jean, Khaled, Jad, and all of the other wonderful people who helped me learn so much about people living in what is officially "enemy countries". I still hope to meet someday, here or in neutral territory :)
And a big thanks to all of the moderators (the above included ;)! You guys (and gals) were wonderful to work with - thank you so much!
And who knows, Metalks may open again. I am keeping the domain, keeping the forum installs, just closing the gates, having cleaned up the dust (i.e. spam threads). If anyone wants to help with this project, give input or feedback, just comment here or email me.
I take the blame here. Didn't have enough time to properly nurture that particular project. Frankly, I hadn't thought it would be so time consuming, and definitely not for the reasons it was. I figured I knew a lot about forums management, but forums take some toughness, some rules and discipline, as well as a lot of TLC. I found myself walking on eggshells as forum owner and admin, not sure where to draw the lines. We found ourselves wasting hours on trying to manage threads on weird subjects such as the protocols of the Elders of Zion and such nonesense, instead of trying to nurture the forum and bring in more people from the Middle East into the discussion. In retrospect, perhaps a more stern approach, simply forbidding some topics from being discussed at that stage, would have been more productive.
There was also a problem with not enough people from the Middle East participating. And those that were seemed to be mostly from Israel. I could easily "summon" in more Israelis. Israelis are chatty by nature, and I knew all I had to do was post on some political boards in Israel to get new participants. I held back, as I wanted a more balanced mix to the boards. I spent a while emailing Arab/Muslim/Middle East bloggers with little results. Yes, we did have some absolutely wonderful "recruits" that way, but overall, 90% of Arab bloggers either didn't reply, replied rudely, or just said thanks but never showed up on the board.
On the positive note, I have met and made friends with some wonderful people. Some of them I met as commenters here on this blog first, then got to know them better at Metalks. I have learned a lot about the people on "the other side". Thank you Amir, Jean, Khaled, Jad, and all of the other wonderful people who helped me learn so much about people living in what is officially "enemy countries". I still hope to meet someday, here or in neutral territory :)
And a big thanks to all of the moderators (the above included ;)! You guys (and gals) were wonderful to work with - thank you so much!
And who knows, Metalks may open again. I am keeping the domain, keeping the forum installs, just closing the gates, having cleaned up the dust (i.e. spam threads). If anyone wants to help with this project, give input or feedback, just comment here or email me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)