Antigonos' Annals

Endless War

2009-12-02T14:27:00.002+02:00

Bruce Beattie
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Dec 2, 2009

I don't understand exactly what the American goal is in Afghanistan. Eliminate Al Qaeda and bin Laden? Prop up the Karzai government? Rebuild the country? Guarantee women's rights? Stop the opium trade?

For one thing, bin Laden may not even be in Afghanistan right now. The geography creates a porous border, wherever there actually IS a border anyone recognizes. Anyone other than an Afghani stands out like a sore thumb, and terrorists can always find support, and hide, among the natives. The Karzai government is part of the problem, not the solution. Rebuild the country as What? The 52nd state of America, complete with McDonalds'? The Afghanis don't want to be democratized, or Americanized. They've got a lot of customs that we think are barbarous, but they have always lived that way, and want to continue to do so. Tribal systems and modern democracy are really quite antithetical.

Afghani men want to continue to have absolute control over their women and families. Their religion backs this. America is fooling itself if it thinks it can change this in any appreciable degree. The opium trade pays better than any other cash crop; until it becomes more lucrative NOT to grow it, it will continue, and the cost to the US taxpayer if that were to happen would be immense [and would have to continue indefinitely, or the farmers would just go back to growing opium.

Pakistan is very ambivalent, and cannot be regarded as a partner of the Americans. If fighting can be suppressed in Afghanistan, the Taliban and other terrorists will just go over the border [indeed, they're doing it now] and return to Afghanistan when the heat is off.

The Russians and the British can testify to the fact that there cannot be any real victory in Afghanistan. The most the US can hope for is to quarantine it like a malignant disease, until the entire face of radical Islam changes, and, for that, I'm not holding my breath.

A Very Happy Thanksgiving, and May You Not Need Alka-Seltzer Afterwards!

2009-11-26T14:26:00.000+02:00

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David Donar
Donklephant.com
Nov 26, 2009

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Now, If Brett Favre Was A Baltimore Raven...

2009-11-01T10:25:00.001+02:00

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Joe Heller
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Nov 1, 2009

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Happy Holiday! [Wonder if the Powers That Control Cable Programming will even show the Green Bay-Vikings game in Israel?!]

Blog On! Part 2

2009-10-27T14:44:00.004+02:00

Now, on to aliyah. Almost Eden made aliyah in the summer of 2008, via Nefesh b'Nefesh, with her husband and son. Her blog is subtitled "an aliyah handbook", and when she's not forwarding commentary on the weekly Torah portion, she writes about her experiences and offers her advice. Not surprisingly, she's still seeing Israel through rose-colored glasses. Why shouldn't she? Her family got a considerable sum from NbN [the loan converts to a grant if they stay in Israel for three years], they are getting another grant, called the sal klita, from the Israeli government, they aren't paying income tax [by now they are probably paying a small fraction of what a veteran Israeli pays], property taxes are drastically reduced, and there are a variety of other perks and discounts. Reality begins to bite when one is entering the second half of one's third year and all this dries up.

Almost Eden once posted a spreadsheet totalling the monthly expenses for two American immigrant families. One [I suspect hers] was for three people, the other for four. The expenses totalled between NIS 13k and NIS 18+k per month. The average gross income, for a family of four, with two wage-earners, according to the Bureau of Statistics, is about NIS 12k. The Bureau also publishes a figure for a "basket" of goods and services which it regards as average for the same size family, which says familial expenses are about the same amount. In other words, what comes in, goes out. Almost immediately. And more than half Israeli families are in overdraft.

Translated into dollar terms, neither NIS 13 or 18 k sounds huge, especially when one is used to a dollar income. A take home wage of either, however, in Israel, is huge. In order to have this sum in one's pocket one has to be making, before taxes, more than twice that amount. Income tax is computed roughly as follows: up to a certain ceiling, about NIS 4000, one pays no tax. Then, the next NIS 4000 is taxed at 38%, and everything after that is taxed at 50%. Further, there are two involuntary deductions at source: Bituach Leumi and "Health Law". Each is a percentage of gross income [5 and 4% respectively, I think; it changes from time to time]. So the tax bite is big. The new oleh barely, if at all, feels this. That NIS 15k income sounds very respectable indeed. But my sister-in-law, who had a gross income of NIS 24,000 per month because she was the head of an entire department in Bezeq [our Ma Bell], took home less than NIS 10, ooo. So someone who needs NIS 18k per month needs a family income in excess of NIS 40k. Compare that with myself: working half time for a Sick Fund, I get a gross income of NIS 3500 per month. Nurses who work full-time in hospital, all shifts and Shabbatot, will gross about NIS 9k per month.

Almost Eden also makes a big thing of just how similar Israel is to the US. Ace Hardware! Office Depot! Toys R Us! This is also classic "newbie" behavior, and especially where food items are concerned, nostalgia for the Old Country is usually acute in the beginning. But the answer, in my experience is not to indulge it, except on rare occasions, but seek local -- and cheaper -- equivalents. Or that adjustment to what I call "genteel poverty" will be all the harder.

I admit it's easy to scoff from a distance of 35 years to her one and a bit. But the naivete often amuses me. Stating that an immigrant child is eligible for 45 hours of free language tutoring in school ignores the reality that most schools simply don't have it. Comparing private Jewish education costs in the States with public education here [which is supposed to be free, by law, but is anything but] is comparing apples with oranges. My parents never paid anything for my education in the States, because when I was growing up, private Jewish education wasn't an option. Moreover, the Israeli school system becomes increasingly inadequate as the grades progress and it's a rare family that doesn't have substantial educational costs by high school. $1700 [Almost Eden often quotes prices in dollars] doesn't sound like much when tuition in a private school in the States is $10,000 or more, but when you've got 3 children in the school system and you're living on $2000 per month, $5100 sounds a lot more impressive [and I think Almost Eden's estimates of the cost of the "free education" are low, in my own experience, which is now a decade out of date and undoubtedly higher now.]

I often wish I could revisit olim 10 years after they arrive -- those who are still here -- and see how they've fared. Some, of course, do adapt. They either arrive with a degree of Hebrew fluency, or pick up the language easily. They have friends or family that can give them support and help them navigate an unfamiliar culture. Some are just too stubborn to consider the idea of failure. But a very substantial number cut their losses and leave*, because it just wasn't what they had expected, or prepared [assuming they prepared at all] themselves for. There is a certain hubris in attempting to be an expert on aliyah after a year; I've been here for 35, and I'm not one yet.

*There is an internet message board in the Jerusalem area called Janglo. I keep an ongoing rough estimate of "complete house contents sales" or "moving sales" which are obviously, from what's on offer, sales of people selling up and leaving the country. Now, I'm not saying that these are olim who came into the country via NbN. NbN maintains that 99% of "their" olim stay, but they do not publish any definite figures. But NbN these days is bringing in just about all the North American olim who are coming, and the number of families leaving, according to this rough and highly unscientific survey I'm keeping, is cancelling out more than half the families coming. Traditionally, there are estimates that somewhere between 30% and 70% of all American olim return to the US within 10 years.

Blog On! Part 1

2009-10-26T16:20:00.004+02:00

I read a lot of blogs. Some are by midwives and nurses, some by doctors or paramedics, some by olim here in Israel [or getting ready to make aliyah], some are literary, some are about Judaism. (Reminder to self: update the blog list). One is by a woman who attempted a home birth with tragic results, and has subsequently, I am happy to say, had another, thriving baby. There are a few miscellaneous ones: Cranky Epistles, Respectful Insolence, Random Acts of Reality, A Little Pregnant. Some bloggers post regularly; some, like myself (yes, yes, I know -- stop hitting me!) blog only occasionally, and/or infrequently. Some have gone to that Great CyberArchive In The Sky, and are no more.

There are two which I enjoy for entirely perverse reasons. One is by a L&D nurse who's studying for her CNM as a Master's degree program through the Frontier Nursing School, and the other is by a woman who made aliyah with her husband and son just slightly more than a year ago. The reason I write "perverse" is that my own take on similar experiences is so different.

At Your Cervix used to be a very jolly-looking but very fat woman. When I began reading her blog, she was on the verge of having bariatric surgery, so I've followed her through not only the initial surgery, but the following operations (4, I think, so far). Between the descriptions of what she's gone through, and the photos she's posted that show the way she looks now, I am cured of any interest in having bariatric surgery myself. But, if she's happy, well, more power to her!

She works in a very large and high risk unit, and one would think that what she sees would temper her enthusiasm somewhat but she is what I call an "ideologic nurse" and will be an "ideologic midwife". I've never had this viewpoint. The only "failure" in obstetrics is when there is maternal or fetal morbidity or mortality, as far as I'm concerned. A vaginal delivery, preferably without any medication, isn't a "victory". It's nice when it happens, if the woman copes well with the contractions and the labor progresses normally, but it isn't something I feel is essential for the wellbeing of either the woman or her child, and it is that wellbeing that is paramount. At Your Cervix bemoans shifts where her patients are delivered by C-Section (in all fairness, some of the private attendings seem to rush to the OR, but let us not forget that women often choose doctors by word of mouth, and if they want oblivion in labor, they'll find a doctor who medicates heavily, or vice versa) and has stated that she wants to show "poor women" (i.e. those without private doctors, or on Medicaid,I presume) the "joy of natural delivery". In my experience, nearly all these women simply want to have their babies as quickly and painlessly as possible and get as much rest before they have to go home. They really don't want to be convinced to have what they perceive as a more difficult way to have a baby. (I once asked a neighbor where she intended to have her baby, and she named a hospital across town. Since my hospital, which was famed for it's advocacy of "natural" childbirth, was only about 2 blocks away, I asked her why she didn't register there. "I want an epidural as soon as possible. At Misgav Ladach, I've heard they don't give you anything". Of course, we did have an anesthesiologist 24/7, and any woman could have an epidural. But she would not believe me)

Call me old-fashioned, but I don't believe ideology has a place in good medical practice. There's no "one size fits all" and the art of midwifery consists of matching the treatment to the patient. I'm the midwifery professional, not the patient. Of course she can discuss things with me, and I'm willing to be flexible as long as the safety of the mother and baby aren't at stake, and of course the mother (and her partner) are entitled to full explanations of everything I do or propose to do (except in drastic emergency, when I can't take the time) but the bottom line is that I, and no one else, unless I bring in a doctor, is responsible for the woman's and baby's welfare. I'm frankly a little surprised at At Your Cervix. Radical direct entry midwives often espouse the "birthin's normal" philosophy out of pure ignorance of possible outcomes, but AYC works in a high-risk unit. (Mild snark: I wish she wouldn't use the word "birth" as a transitive verb. It's a noun.)

Professional Advice

2009-10-27T14:40:00.001+02:00

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Scott Stantis
Birmingham News
Oct 27, 2009

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Double Whammy

2009-10-23T17:53:00.000+02:00

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Mike Lester
Rome News Tribune
Oct 23, 2009

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Be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.

No Comment 2

2009-10-21T14:49:00.000+02:00

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Jeff Koterba
Omaha World-Herald
Oct 21, 2009

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Solo Flight By An Amateur

2009-10-13T07:10:00.001+02:00

This pretty much encapsulates the way I think about Obama. It's called inexperience.

Nobel Peace Prize for WHAT?

2009-10-10T11:41:00.002+02:00

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Jake Fuller
Artizans
Oct 10, 2009

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A bit facetious, but with a solid grain of truth. Can anyone think of a concrete thing Obama has done in his 9 months in office that really advanced world peace? Perhaps the prize should have gone to his speechwriters.

Beer, Anyone?

2009-10-04T10:42:00.001+02:00

I knew there must be a reason I prefer Guinness.

Intolerance on the Temple Mount

2009-09-29T07:38:00.002+02:00

David Kirschenbaum says it better than I can. Except I cannot see any way to reverse the current situation without a war, and that is unacceptable. We made a terrible mistake when we thought the Wakf would behave in a civilized fashion.

How a Story Is Twisted into Subtle Anti-Semitism

2009-09-28T20:26:00.002+02:00

On Wednesday, the "Tnua Islamit" or Islamic Movement, put out a flyer telling Moslems that the Jews intended using Yom Kippur to "re-conquer" the Temple Mount. On Sunday, a small group of French tourists, all religious Jews, and therefore modestly dressed, went up to the Mount and stood just inside the gate opening onto the flat open space where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa mosques are situated.

The Dome of the Rock is the place where Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac, and where Moslems believe that Mohammad's horse, having flown from Mecca, touched down for an instant before springing to heaven. Religious Jews, btw, do not step onto the Temple Mount proper, because of the possibility of accidentally standing where the Holy of Holies once stood. (This prohibition explains why the Israelis never attempted to have a permanent presence on the Mount after reclaiming it in 1967. In the mid-70s, the Mount was open to all -- tour guides simply loved to escort tourists there, and into the Dome of the Rock itself -- without the slightest problem, although not at times of Moslem prayer. That changed with the intifadas)

Immediately Palestinians on the Mount began throwing everything that was available on the tourists and their police escort. The assortment of missiles showed they had prepared in advance for this -- entire paving stones, for example, as well as having clubs and pieces of heavy furniture. The police responded by using stun grenades and by the time they had gotten the tourists safely back down, 12 policemen were wounded, some requiring hospitalization, and there were a number of Palestinian arrests.

How do I know this is true, and not just my biased opinion? My son-in-law, who is in the elite police unit which is stationed on the Mount, was hit in the face with a rock (small cut only).

This is how Slate magazine reported the incident:

When a group of Jews tried to enter a mosque in Jerusalem yesterday,
Palestinians began to protest violently, prompting Israeli police to fight back
with tear gas and stun grenades. The riot occurred a few hours before the start
of Yom Kippur, the most sacred Jewish holy day. Seventeen Israeli police
officers and 13 Palestinians were injured, but none seriously. It is unclear
whether there were also tourists present at the mosque at the time. The complex,
located above a Jewish site of prayer at the Western Wall, includes the sacred
Dome of the Rock mosque. A visit from former Israel premier Ariel Sharon to the
site in 2000 triggered a huge Palestinian uprising at the time, and yesterday
Palestinians warned Israelis not to sabotage the ongoing peace talks underway
with President Obama.

Their story is based on this Reuters article. See how it has been subtly changed to make the Israelis the insensitive aggressors? This, folks, is anti-Semitism, but both the news service, and most of the people who read it, would be shocked to be told so.

I think, if Jesus were alive today, he would be extremely shocked to be told he could not visit Judaism's most holy site (and he would undoubtedly ask "What's a Moslem? What are they doing on my people's Temple Mount?" since they wouldn't exist until 700 years after Jesus lived). What ARE they doing there, indeed?

An Echo In the Bone

2009-09-22T15:24:00.002+03:00

Diana Gabaldon's latest addition to the saga of Jamie and Claire, which began with the book "Outlander" has just been released. The hardcover won't reach me for some time, as it only shipped today, but it's been released for Sony e-book reader and for Kindle and I downloaded it this morning. All six of the previous books in the series have been massive bestsellers, with something like 17 million copies in print (and in a number of translations. Outlander has just been published in Hebrew, btw, as Nochriah)

Not that I've been keeping up with my resolutions to post more (had a vacation in Eilat during which I thought I'd make amends, but Israeli hotels have now wised up and charge for internet access, and phooey on that!), but you probably won't hear from me until I finish the book.

I have something of a special interest in this installment...I helped Ms. Gabaldon with certain subjects...but I think they are great books, anyway. More than simply "historical romance" or an action novel, it's what used to be called a "ripping yarn", with wonderful characterizations, rich plot, and simply fun. The complete series, which I strongly recommend, is:

Outlander (in the UK, called "Cross Stitch")
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
An Echo in the Bone

All are available in print and e-book (Sony and Kindle) editions, and in audiobook versions, very well read by Davina Porter. Currently, for contract reasons, The Fiery Cross and A Breath of Snow and Ashes are not available via iTunes or Audible.com but only as CDs from Recorded Books. "Echo" will be released next month on CD, and probably will be available in a few months on Audible and iTunes, as the contractual restrictions on the previous volumes won't be on it.

Denial

2009-09-22T15:23:00.000+03:00

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Steve Greenberg
Freelance, Los Angeles
Sep 22, 2009

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What a shame Achmadinejad exists.

Injecting a Bit of Common Sense

2009-09-11T18:14:00.002+03:00

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Bruce Beattie
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Sep 11, 2009

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IMO, this ought to be translated into a dozen languages and posted in every clinic of the kupah [sick fund, HMO] I work for. So far we've seen barely a handful of persons who even might be sick with swine flu, but boxes of face masks are everywhere [including the security guards' desks], hand sanitizers are being used as if every person who walks through the doors has Ebola, at the very least. Since pregnant women are among the "vulnerable", considerable numbers are staying at home and not going for antenatal checkups lest they be sneezed upon. It's ludicrous.

Socialism 101, or The Gospel According to Obama

2009-09-10T14:49:00.001+03:00

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Bruce Beattie
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Sep 10, 2009

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Why didn't becoming a "socialist" occur to me when I was in school?

Exactly!

2009-08-28T15:18:00.001+03:00

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Rob Smith, Jr.
The Glenn Beck Program
Aug 28, 2009

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Beginning to be Obama's nightmare, I fear.

Oh Brett, Just Retire Already!

2009-08-20T17:46:00.000+03:00

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Randy Bish
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Aug 20, 2009

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Woodstock

2009-08-10T14:24:00.001+03:00

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Joe Heller
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Aug 10, 2009

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I was there. Gawd. And both my daughters are now older than I was then.

Rather Obviously NOT an Obama Supporter

2009-07-30T13:03:00.002+03:00

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Stephen Rustad
Petaluma Argus-Courier
Jul 30, 2009

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I could add a couple of other things Obama's done, or rather, not managed to do well, but I'll refrain. My feelings aren't as strong as this cartoonist's; Obama is, however, living up [or is it down?] to expectations, as far as I'm concerned. Americans want out of Afghanistan, which isn't happening; they want economic recovery, which is still out of reach; they want universal, excellent, and cheap health care [an oxymoron], and don't seem to be as anti-Israel as Obama has been sounding. I sense that the attempt to sound like a combination of Churchill, JFK, and FDR is beginning to wear a bit thin with the electorate. Where's the beef, Barack, and don't forget, the midterm elections are only slightly more than a year away...

Rhetoric Meets Reality

2009-07-27T08:05:00.001+03:00

Krauthammer gets it right, here. The "Change You Can Believe In" is beginning to slip away.

Sometimes I Can Only Shake My Head in Wonder

2009-07-24T17:40:00.003+03:00

A dear friend of mine, the late Rabbi Hugo Gryn, z"l, of the West London Synagogue, once said to me that "since the founding of the State of Israel, world Jewry tends to think they have escaped history". Himself an Auschwitz survivor, Rabbi Gryn then sighed, and said, "They're wrong." This article, in the Boston Review, shows just how correct my rabbinical friend is. What have the Jews ever done to Hugo Chavez, that he makes common cause with the Clown of Teheran, Achmadinejad?

Of course, as has been pointed out in numerous sources, anti-Semitism is protean. The same Jews who "control the world", as "proved" in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (itself a Christian forgery), are those who spread disease because of their poverty and dirt. One size does indeed fit all, where anti-Semites are concerned.

Why No One's Bombing At Present

2009-07-14T14:46:00.003+03:00

Christopher Hitchens writes in Slate on the phenomenon of why there aren't any suicide bombings at present. He has some good thoughts, but it doesn't really go far enough.

It wasn't despair that began the bombings. It was simply the most simple, inexpensive, and brutal kind of terrorism the Palestinians could afford in their constant battle to annihilate Israelis and exterminate the State of Israel.

It backfired. One, in the court of public opinion. The civilized world recoiled instead of applauding the "martyrs". In fact, Islam became tarnished with what the West perceives not as an admirable religious statement but a form of primitive barbarity. The suicide bomber became evidence of a twisted, indeed anti-human, creed. He was not a patriot. He was just a terrorist, and a particularly vicious one at that, deliberately targeting women and children. Suicide bombing, in an ideological sense, was counter-productive, and showed just how great the intellectual gap is between Islam and the West.

Two, the Israelis simply didn't do what they were supposed to do: throw in the towel and leave Israel. In fact, most Israelis went about life as normal. We rode the buses and did the shopping. There was economic damage, of course, as tourists chose other places to spend their money, but this did not really help the Palestinians any and Israel's economic base is diverse. But the morale of the people was not touched, in any real sense. Mobile phone companies sold a lot of phones so parents could keep in touch with their children, and quite a few of us went to more funerals than we normally did, but in the main we resisted by NOT being moved from our usual course. (Palestinians, expecting brutal retaliation a la Assad's gassing of an entire Syrian town, were puzzled and could only conclude that we were "weak". They tend to take this view when we surgically take out a single terrorist leader rather than bomb several hundred family and friends at the same time. It's not a world view they understand, unfortunately)

Three, it actively damaged the Palestinians. Wherever possible, Arabs from over the Green Line were fired and either Israeli Arabs, Jews, or foreign workers were hired. The so-called "security fence" is really nothing more than a closed border. For years the Palestinians have closed their "side"--no Israeli in his right mind can go to places like Ramallah or Gaza without a good chance of being lynched -- while maintaining that it is their "right" to travel freely within pre-1967 Israel. That has now been stopped, and boy, are they mad about it, shouting "apartheid" and forgetting that it's not a good idea to bite the hand that fed it. Israeli employers who used vast amounts of Palestinian labor before the two intifadas now will do just about anything NOT to employ them. The Palestinians want a sovereign state, but they do not really seem to understand that, in that case, the countries bordering their state may not be willing to allow Palestinians free entry into their territory. That goes for Egypt and Jordan, too, neither of which is criticized for not allowing Palestinians to cross their borders with impunity. (Never hear the UN complaining about that). Only if the Palestinians have something positive to offer will they ever regain the jobs they once had in Israel. They've cut off their noses to spite their faces.

No More Words Are Needed

2009-07-09T15:55:00.001+03:00

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Randy Bish
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Jul 9, 2009

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