It's been tough to get this blog updated recently, mostly due to a lack of internet connection in my new digs, so now as I wait for a warm laffa with chicken among other treats inside, I update you on the important stuff since the last time I posted.
The biggest thing for me this week was watching this video on youtube and trying to put it into a context that Americans would understand:
As an American, the first two Supreme Court cases I learned about were Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which set precedents for segregation and integration of African-Americans respectively (African-Americans are still not completely integrated, as is any minority in any country due to the fact that racial/religious majorities will always be scared of an uprising that destroys their rule).
Palestinians are looking at a comparable situation, where the Israeli government evicts them from their homes in order to give them to Jewish families.
Palestinian statehood is a necessity to mollify these problems, but as I continue to say, Israel needs to help. Arab states are known for not being major financial donors in aiding Palestinian development, so Israel must help. For the security wall to work, for Abbas to have real power in the West Bank and possibly have it translate to Gaza, Israel needs to help Palestinian development by improving services such as hospitals and transportation along with basic infrastructure so that there isn't need for people to oppose the state and it can flourish.
This brings me to my next topic: the possible coming fall of Avigdor Lieberman from power. After the US response to the evictions, Lieberman decided to fight back against international opinion by advising the Foreign Ministry to circulate pictures of Hitler and and the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who had met with Hitler to help devise a plan for exterminating the Jews of the Middle East. Lieberman is essentially using the photo to blackmail Western countries into ceasing demands of stopping settlements and condemning the evictions.
This is all a nice distraction, since the Israeli police recently came out with a plan to indict Lieberman for some financial dealings that allowed him to pocket around 10 million NIS while serving in Knesset and as Foreign Minister. Lieberman was reportedly usually careful to not leave a paper trail behind him, but this time was unsuccessful. He had plans to avoid any sort of charges that he got with his deal to join Netanyahu's coalition by getting the Ministries that deals with legal matters under his party's control, but a minister from his party let it continue. So now Lieberman looks like he may be on the way out. Moshe Katsav never thought anything would happen to him, and now he sits as a blacksheep somewhere out of the public eye (probably better for him).
Also on Saturday, a man wearing black attacked a Gay and Lesbian center in Tel Aviv where a support group was meeting, killing 2 and injuring others. Netanyahu and Shimon Peres have come out deriding the incident (still haven't heard from National Religious or Shas, because they probably would say something extremely stupid). And this is definitely a hate crime. I will not pin blame on anyone, but this person was not that mad and blind, he obviousl had some sort of plan to terrorize innocent people who were in the process of coming to grips withtheir identity.
I was in the Golan this weekend, and I have to say, it is a beautiful place. I can't imagine what it would be like under Syrian control, as the Syrians loved to use the advantage in elevation to terrorize Israelis living in the North. But it has such great scenery and awesome hikes that have been incorporated so well into the Israeli National Park system. All I can say is
העם צריך להיות עם הגולן-The nation needs to be with the Golan.
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