Last week I went out with a friend to a neighborhood bar to have a couple of beers and let loose. Like most bars on Allenby street, the appropriate word for this place was shabby. And the fact that it was death metal night didn't really help the bar in that arena. But, whatever, the place had cheap beer and I didn't really feel that the place next door - a half strip joint, half whorehouse - was really my cup of tea either. So we took our seats on a couple of the ripped leather bar stools, ordered some shitty beer and started to absorb the filth of this place.
Being that I wasn't really paying too much attention to the German death metal music videos blaring on the big screen tv perched impossibly high on the wall, I decided to scope the place out and see what sort of people go to German death metal bars on Tuesday nights in Tel Aviv. Much to my surprise, through the billowing smoke coming from the guy next to me, I was able to make out the visage of my neighborhood Jesus.
This guy is known in Tel Aviv, and maybe has some notoriety in other parts of Israel, as being the guy who sits out in front of the iconic Carmel market, and proclaims that he is the Jewish Messiah (not Jesus - but I'm glad that I was confused about his status at first because saying "the neighborhood Jesus" rolls better of the tongue than "the neighborhood Jewish Messiah). He usually garners a lot of attention from his Jesus-like shawl, the sign that he advertises himself with and his biblical looking beard.
But I digress. This Jesus was slamming shots of what looked to be vodka with his woman and was speaking Russian rather loudly. I mean, I had heard that this guy had been arrested on the beach for something and had seen him smokin a spliff once when he was setting up his Jesus exhibition, but now I get to see, with my own eyes, the majesty of Holy Messiah himself getting all shitty. If only this was the image that was laminated onto his advertisement sign....
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Egypt: The US's (& Israel's) Dilemma
As most of the world already knows, Egypt has been in a state of turmoil since last week and is flirting with a full blown revolution/coup d'état. The people have had enough of the high unemployment rate (the gov. says it's 9.4% but it's definitely higher, most believe) and the rising prices of everything from fuel to food. It is natural that they would blame the man who seemingly clings to power through corruption.
Of course, Israel is quietly, and most decidedly nervously, observing this ominous storm that is rearing it's ugly head right over the border into the Sinai. And we over here in Israel have good reason to be nervous: President Mubarak represents the continuity of the regime that signed the first peace agreement with Israel in 1979. It represented and continues to represent a precedent that peace is possible with Israel, and paved the way for Jordan's King Hussein to sign the 1994 peace accords. Mubarak, aside from his embrace of corruption and ineptness of fomenting proper living conditions for his 80,000,000 citizens, represents the stability of normalized relations that Israel and Egypt have enjoyed for 30 years, but unfortunately for the US and other western nations, also represents an obstacle to true democracy.
Does Obama, the one to whom the world has deferred for leadership in this crisis, turn a blind eye toward what true democracy might mean for US interests in the Middle East? Does he turn a blind eye to the sobering poll of Egyptian's views toward the US and Israel - that they are overwhelmingly "against" both of them? Or does he try to accomplish the goal that he was seeking when he made his famous "Cairo Speech" - to "reach out to the Arab world". It's a tricky line to walk, for sure. On one hand, Obama doesn't want to be the Jimmy Carter of the Middle East (losing the opportunity to lead Iran into a non-islamist revolution); and on the other hand, he doesn't want to be the George Bush of the Middle East (forcing "democracy" onto a people for whom democracy cannot work). I just hope this young, idealistic American president takes everything into account when invoking THE central tenet of the "Obama doctrine" that he rolled out to the world during his inaugural address:
"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
If I were president of the United States, I would find a way for Mubarak to step down and for Omar Suleiman, the new (and FIRST vice president of Egypt), and a trusted American ally who is not seen in the same light by Egyptians as Mubarak, to take the reigns. This would preserve the status quo of relative stability in the Middle East, would keep the precedent of the Egypt-Israel peace accords alive, would keep Palestinian-Israeli peace alive, and would bring a more democratic government to the Egyptian people. This is the idealistic solution. It seems anything less than Mubarak and his sons flying off into exile will propagate the bloodshed witnessed in the streets of Cairo.
My personal problem with Mubarak disappearing into exile is that after the dust settles from the riots in Tarhir square, the spawned creature that emerges will be, as all signs (polls, studies, statistics) point to, a democracy killer and a foreign policy status-quo killer. Israel will be forced into a tight spot and will be under a 1973 Yom Kippur war-type of existential threat. Talk to any of the people still out there, Jew or gentile, but who haven't divested from Israel quite yet, what that means to them, and you'll see that this crisis has a potential to not only put into question Israel's future survival, but the stability of the world. These are some of the most uncertain times in a while and I sincerely hope that whatever decisions made in this dilemma will be the right ones - not only for Israel's intests and the US's interests, but the world's interests.
Of course, Israel is quietly, and most decidedly nervously, observing this ominous storm that is rearing it's ugly head right over the border into the Sinai. And we over here in Israel have good reason to be nervous: President Mubarak represents the continuity of the regime that signed the first peace agreement with Israel in 1979. It represented and continues to represent a precedent that peace is possible with Israel, and paved the way for Jordan's King Hussein to sign the 1994 peace accords. Mubarak, aside from his embrace of corruption and ineptness of fomenting proper living conditions for his 80,000,000 citizens, represents the stability of normalized relations that Israel and Egypt have enjoyed for 30 years, but unfortunately for the US and other western nations, also represents an obstacle to true democracy.
Does Obama, the one to whom the world has deferred for leadership in this crisis, turn a blind eye toward what true democracy might mean for US interests in the Middle East? Does he turn a blind eye to the sobering poll of Egyptian's views toward the US and Israel - that they are overwhelmingly "against" both of them? Or does he try to accomplish the goal that he was seeking when he made his famous "Cairo Speech" - to "reach out to the Arab world". It's a tricky line to walk, for sure. On one hand, Obama doesn't want to be the Jimmy Carter of the Middle East (losing the opportunity to lead Iran into a non-islamist revolution); and on the other hand, he doesn't want to be the George Bush of the Middle East (forcing "democracy" onto a people for whom democracy cannot work). I just hope this young, idealistic American president takes everything into account when invoking THE central tenet of the "Obama doctrine" that he rolled out to the world during his inaugural address:
"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
If I were president of the United States, I would find a way for Mubarak to step down and for Omar Suleiman, the new (and FIRST vice president of Egypt), and a trusted American ally who is not seen in the same light by Egyptians as Mubarak, to take the reigns. This would preserve the status quo of relative stability in the Middle East, would keep the precedent of the Egypt-Israel peace accords alive, would keep Palestinian-Israeli peace alive, and would bring a more democratic government to the Egyptian people. This is the idealistic solution. It seems anything less than Mubarak and his sons flying off into exile will propagate the bloodshed witnessed in the streets of Cairo.
My personal problem with Mubarak disappearing into exile is that after the dust settles from the riots in Tarhir square, the spawned creature that emerges will be, as all signs (polls, studies, statistics) point to, a democracy killer and a foreign policy status-quo killer. Israel will be forced into a tight spot and will be under a 1973 Yom Kippur war-type of existential threat. Talk to any of the people still out there, Jew or gentile, but who haven't divested from Israel quite yet, what that means to them, and you'll see that this crisis has a potential to not only put into question Israel's future survival, but the stability of the world. These are some of the most uncertain times in a while and I sincerely hope that whatever decisions made in this dilemma will be the right ones - not only for Israel's intests and the US's interests, but the world's interests.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)