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.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
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.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The Syrian Peace Talks
Things seem pretty confusing at this point, so what I am writing here in this post is just the way they reflect to this average Isralei mom. I mean, I will be the first to admit that I just don't have the time to follow the news properly. But, my husband gave me a quick update on the way to the amusement park a couple of days ago (it's the Hannuka holiday, so we try to spend the week having fun with the little ones). So, basically it looks like there are news that Syria is tyring to approach Israel, offering to start peace negotiations with no preliminary conditions. And apparently, Olmert is replying in the negative.
Now, I have heard Olmert in the past, explaining on national TV why he thinks talks with Syria is a bad idea. According to what he said, Syria remains a "bad" state, or a rouge state if you like, part of the famous Bushian axis of evil or whatnot. So, he figures negotiations with Syria can't really lead anywhere, because Syria actively supports Hezbulla and Hammas, i.e. the bad terrorists, and therefore, any negotiaions are bound to fail. He is afraid that once negotiations explode, this very event is likely to start a war in our region. I now hear he has an additional argument, that the US and Europe say we shouldn't talk to the Syrians (for the same reasons).
Now, IMO, Olmert is making a big big mistake. I'm sorry, but nothing justified missing an opportunity for peace talks with Syria. Nothing does. I don't care what any other country tells us. I don't care who Assad supports. The whole Hezbulla/Hammas issue is just the kind of thing which should be discussed within the framework of negotiations. Finally, a chance to actually try and sort things out. Give Syria a ladder to get off the tall tree which they climbed. Give them back the Golan Heights, as a demilitarized zone, and make Assad's day in terms of national pride. Then, from that position, he can maybe cut off his ties with Iran and the terrorist groups. What a terrible blow this will be to Hezbulla and Hammas! Cutting off their weapon supplies route from Iran! What a great opportunity for the moderate Palestinians to finally weaken Hammas and take over their government and bring their people closer to their own State and peace too!
There is one country I know will not be happy about this. That is Lebanon of course. From what I gather, most Lebanese hate Syria because Syria thinks of Lebanon as part of the Greater Syria. I'm not an expert, but from what little talks I've had with Syrians (online of course), I take it it's a commonly shared view over there. One Syrian I talked to said something along the lines of "let's split Lebanon between us, Israel can have the south, we'll take the north". I was shocked by the way he said it, just so matter of fact. lol took a while for me to convince him that we have zero interest in taking over any part of Lebanon whatsoever. However, if this is how Syria and the Syrians see Lebanon, then I can certainly see why the Lebanese would fear a peace agreement between Syrian and Israel, something that might strengthern Syria greatly in the long run. I think this is the reason why France objects to Israel-Syrian peace talks too? not sure about that last statement, but this is what I've heard.
Well, to my Lebanese friends I can only say, again, that Israel does not want any part of Lebanon. We want a safe and peaceful border, that's all. And peace between Israel and Syria, and weakening the HA can bring us all closer to that. Who knows, following Syria, maybe Lebanon itself will enter negotiations with Israel and reach a peace agreement?
I was born back when Israel had peace with no Arab country. We grew up dreaming of peace with our neighbors. We have acheived that with Egypt and Jordan. The very thought of maybe, just maybe, reaching a state of peace with all neighboring countries sends shivers down my spine, for real. I so hope that our government will find the courage to take this historical step and negotiate with Syria.
I could go on and on with my rant, but I really need to go now. Got back from the gym not too long ago and I need a good long shower. What was I doing in the gym? well, try my new weight loss blog to see ;)
Now, I have heard Olmert in the past, explaining on national TV why he thinks talks with Syria is a bad idea. According to what he said, Syria remains a "bad" state, or a rouge state if you like, part of the famous Bushian axis of evil or whatnot. So, he figures negotiations with Syria can't really lead anywhere, because Syria actively supports Hezbulla and Hammas, i.e. the bad terrorists, and therefore, any negotiaions are bound to fail. He is afraid that once negotiations explode, this very event is likely to start a war in our region. I now hear he has an additional argument, that the US and Europe say we shouldn't talk to the Syrians (for the same reasons).
Now, IMO, Olmert is making a big big mistake. I'm sorry, but nothing justified missing an opportunity for peace talks with Syria. Nothing does. I don't care what any other country tells us. I don't care who Assad supports. The whole Hezbulla/Hammas issue is just the kind of thing which should be discussed within the framework of negotiations. Finally, a chance to actually try and sort things out. Give Syria a ladder to get off the tall tree which they climbed. Give them back the Golan Heights, as a demilitarized zone, and make Assad's day in terms of national pride. Then, from that position, he can maybe cut off his ties with Iran and the terrorist groups. What a terrible blow this will be to Hezbulla and Hammas! Cutting off their weapon supplies route from Iran! What a great opportunity for the moderate Palestinians to finally weaken Hammas and take over their government and bring their people closer to their own State and peace too!
There is one country I know will not be happy about this. That is Lebanon of course. From what I gather, most Lebanese hate Syria because Syria thinks of Lebanon as part of the Greater Syria. I'm not an expert, but from what little talks I've had with Syrians (online of course), I take it it's a commonly shared view over there. One Syrian I talked to said something along the lines of "let's split Lebanon between us, Israel can have the south, we'll take the north". I was shocked by the way he said it, just so matter of fact. lol took a while for me to convince him that we have zero interest in taking over any part of Lebanon whatsoever. However, if this is how Syria and the Syrians see Lebanon, then I can certainly see why the Lebanese would fear a peace agreement between Syrian and Israel, something that might strengthern Syria greatly in the long run. I think this is the reason why France objects to Israel-Syrian peace talks too? not sure about that last statement, but this is what I've heard.
Well, to my Lebanese friends I can only say, again, that Israel does not want any part of Lebanon. We want a safe and peaceful border, that's all. And peace between Israel and Syria, and weakening the HA can bring us all closer to that. Who knows, following Syria, maybe Lebanon itself will enter negotiations with Israel and reach a peace agreement?
I was born back when Israel had peace with no Arab country. We grew up dreaming of peace with our neighbors. We have acheived that with Egypt and Jordan. The very thought of maybe, just maybe, reaching a state of peace with all neighboring countries sends shivers down my spine, for real. I so hope that our government will find the courage to take this historical step and negotiate with Syria.
I could go on and on with my rant, but I really need to go now. Got back from the gym not too long ago and I need a good long shower. What was I doing in the gym? well, try my new weight loss blog to see ;)
Thursday, December 14, 2006
An Interesting Meeting
We had an interesting meeting yesterday at MacDonald's. You can say a lot of bad things about that place but IMO it makes for a great place to meet other families with kids - international too. A couple of years ago, standing in the line at the big M, we met a wonderful family from South Korea. We got really close with them, and spend a great 2 weeks getting to know them and travelling across Israel with them.
Anyway, fast forward to yesterday... We finish having our meal, then head over to the indoors play area there, which is really nice, with tunnels and things. I sit there with my husband, and our kids (now aged 3 and almost-5) take their shoes off and get inside, not to be seen again for a while lol. No other kids there at that point, but a few minutes later, a father and his two kids show up. They're Arabs and I notice how his boys are the same age as ours. I asked him, and indeed they were 3 and 5 (and totally sweet too!). So, they get inside and the three of us are sitting there, playing with our cell phones (another international trait, I guess).
A few minutes later, my five years old, Ron, gets out of some tunnel and approaches us. "Mom, can you teach me some English please?". I figure he must have gotten real bored inside, and is looking for some attention.
"English? now? wouldn't it be better for you to play inside now?"
"But, mom, there's a boy inside and he's blocking my tunnel. I tried telling him to move, but he only knows English".
At which all three adults started laughing. You see, he couldn't even tell the difference between Arabic and English. So, the nice dad next to us tried teaching my son how to ask the kid to move, in Arabic. Quite a challenge for my boy, but by then all kids crawled out to see what the fuss was all about lol.
So we kept sitting there, the kids went back inside, and we started talking. It was a fascinating talk and it made me think about how distant we are, and how little we know about each other, when they live only 20 minutes away from where we do. There was a lot of curiosity, on both sides. About the simple things, about who we were and who they are. About what it's like living in an Arab village and a Jewish town. And also just about what it's like raising two boys of these ages.
We tried getting the boys to play together, but his sons don't know Hebrew, and our sons don't know Arabic and while they were smiling and generally friendly, there was no way for them to actually play together, due to language barriers.
Amazing, really. A family, a mirror image of our own family in some ways. The mom joined us later on btw. A mom and a dad and two boys. Eating out at MacDonald's, shopping for clothes for the kids. Living but 20 minutes apart, yes we know so little about each other's respective lives...
One thing that came up and was a prominent subject was the new Arab-Jewish school that is actually located where they live. It's a complicated issue, and one I plan on addressing in a seperate post. We are currently looking into schools, especially ones with kindergartens attached to them and this one is one of the schools are are looking into. Big issue though, lots of implications.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a link to the Arab-Jewish co-education Center.
Anyway, fast forward to yesterday... We finish having our meal, then head over to the indoors play area there, which is really nice, with tunnels and things. I sit there with my husband, and our kids (now aged 3 and almost-5) take their shoes off and get inside, not to be seen again for a while lol. No other kids there at that point, but a few minutes later, a father and his two kids show up. They're Arabs and I notice how his boys are the same age as ours. I asked him, and indeed they were 3 and 5 (and totally sweet too!). So, they get inside and the three of us are sitting there, playing with our cell phones (another international trait, I guess).
A few minutes later, my five years old, Ron, gets out of some tunnel and approaches us. "Mom, can you teach me some English please?". I figure he must have gotten real bored inside, and is looking for some attention.
"English? now? wouldn't it be better for you to play inside now?"
"But, mom, there's a boy inside and he's blocking my tunnel. I tried telling him to move, but he only knows English".
At which all three adults started laughing. You see, he couldn't even tell the difference between Arabic and English. So, the nice dad next to us tried teaching my son how to ask the kid to move, in Arabic. Quite a challenge for my boy, but by then all kids crawled out to see what the fuss was all about lol.
So we kept sitting there, the kids went back inside, and we started talking. It was a fascinating talk and it made me think about how distant we are, and how little we know about each other, when they live only 20 minutes away from where we do. There was a lot of curiosity, on both sides. About the simple things, about who we were and who they are. About what it's like living in an Arab village and a Jewish town. And also just about what it's like raising two boys of these ages.
We tried getting the boys to play together, but his sons don't know Hebrew, and our sons don't know Arabic and while they were smiling and generally friendly, there was no way for them to actually play together, due to language barriers.
Amazing, really. A family, a mirror image of our own family in some ways. The mom joined us later on btw. A mom and a dad and two boys. Eating out at MacDonald's, shopping for clothes for the kids. Living but 20 minutes apart, yes we know so little about each other's respective lives...
One thing that came up and was a prominent subject was the new Arab-Jewish school that is actually located where they live. It's a complicated issue, and one I plan on addressing in a seperate post. We are currently looking into schools, especially ones with kindergartens attached to them and this one is one of the schools are are looking into. Big issue though, lots of implications.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a link to the Arab-Jewish co-education Center.
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