Yackety Yak Israel - Buzz from big white city

Let's take a train to Kuwait - like the good old days

Original design proposal for AL-Hamra Tower (Kuwait city)

I know I can take a train from Tel Aviv to Haifa but how about to Kuwait? In the days of the Ottoman empire and the British rule you could take a train from Ankara Turkey to Alexandria Egypt with connections to Baghdad, Amman, and Beirut. Sadly today you can't even take a plane from Tel Aviv to most Arab cities. But the reality of today's politics is not deterring Kuwait and other gulf country politicians. Kuwait plans to build a rail line connecting all it's neighbors including Israel. This is a part of a project ot improve Kuwait and bring technology and modern life to the small country.
      Dr. Sami al-Faraj president of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Futuristic Studies and an adviser to the Gulf Cooperation Council is quoted as saying: "people in the gulf are smart enough to understand the impact of technology on their development and they know that the technology is in Israel". The Kuwaitis and other forward looking Arabs are essentially saying, it is time to bury the hatchet and learn to live and work together. Once the gulf countries ended their wars and the threat from Iraq ended they quickly realized that now is the time to change the life in their region. This is a welcome message to Israel and the rest of the world. (interview with Dr. al-Faraj)

No Honor in Murder - a Woman's Life in Israel

Miss Indonesia in a bikini: is this a Muslim dishonor?

Editor's note: Recently a Muslim Israeli woman came forward in fear for her life. She has been threatened with death by a family member for bringing dishonor to the family. Her act of dishonor has been a refusal to marry a man in an arranged marriage. This is a comment on this news item and similar stories in the Israeli media.

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The Islamic (Muslim) way of life give to the men of a family life or death control over his women. We know that this occurs often in the Middle East among Muslims. The practice is that if the women in the family decides that a female family member bringing dishonor to the family it's OK to kill her.
What is dishonor? What is dignity? you ask! Both of these are not easily defined. Probably because they are dependent on tradition and basic Muslim values. These values seem to be different depending on who you ask and in which country. Both, honor and dignity, are excuses men use to exercise their cave-men, barbaric instinctive control over women. Their irresistible urge to beat the crap out of them for no reason. These like other urges that modern civil society has held illegal must be suppressed by making it a crime to control and abuse women. Then these laws need to be enforced and publicized, tell Islamic society: "don't do the crime, if you can't do the time". (a popular American saying about crime and punishment)
Islamic law will not crack down on physical abuse, verbal abuse, and murder of women. Remember under Islamic law women are told what to wear, eat, and how to socialize. Who and when to marry is a crucial and extremely important part of the dominance over women. This is one of the most dangerous and crucial pillar in the control of women in the traditional society. Men know that once a woman marries into a certain family with traditional values and way of life, she will continue to serve the community like a virtual slave. Their husbands, fathers, and even sons may do what they will with these hapless women.
Women of the world must organize and fight these "traditions" especially in countries that follow Islamic law and take for granted these brutal way of life.
        sam-D-man in Tel Aviv

Yacking with good people - Watch out when you say...

      Two meetings recently made me realize how little foreigners understand Tel Aviv. Two people who came to Israel for business but also wanted to come across as friendly and interested in Israel. One, a business man, gave a technical talk. Working for an American company he resides in Dubai. The trend of basing Middle East operations of American companies in the gulf states is something of a fad now. The other one was a president of a large university. Both came primarily for business, they would not have come to Israel just to visit or to extend their contacts. Israel is now an acceptable place to do business and the fear of terrorism seem not to stop most people. But there is something that most people do not understand until they get here. Actually, not just get here, but really speak and interact one-on-one. Israelis are still not totally "friendly" to Arabs. Israel for the most part is still at war with most Arab countries. There is somewhat of a quiet fear and a bit of hatred. In the mainstream media the more moderate Arab countries like Dubai, Qatar, Tunisia, and Jordan are lumped in with Israel. After all, we are mostly against terrorism and solving the "Palestinian Problem" with violence. Well, it's not that simple. Israel has been essentially hated and attacked by Arabs for longer than the state has had it's own independence. While a minority of Israelis try to stand for Palestinian rights and fight for the wrong that is perpetrated on most Palestinians in the name of a few terrorists, most do not see things this way. For the most part, both Palestinians and Arab countries are still fighting a war with Israel. While the war is sometimes quiet and non-violent, never the less it is there. Maybe the media in Israel and the world is stirring the emotions more than necessary. But still, this is the only country in the world who is being attacked on a regular basis. No Israeli is oblivious to this fact. So for the most part, we may "tolerate" some Arabs, but we mostly don't like them. When Israeli leaders in negotiations and in political speeches say that "first the Palestinians must stop shelling, shooting, and killing" - they pretty much reflect what most of the population really feels - but does not shout out in public - in protests that you would see aired on CNN, ABC, or BBC.

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American style shopping in Natanya - BIG! and somewhat lost in translation.
      Back to the point! When foreigners with good intentions say that they come from Dubai and still "like" Israelis, that does not make most Israelis smile! So when this kind of statement is made in front of 300 Israeli computer scientists they tend to twitch and than TUNE OUT! My advice, don't do it! It may seem like you are a nice guy to come from Dubai and do business in Israel. Maybe to the corporate managers in the US and England it may even seem like this is your little part in the "Peace process". But most Israelis are not ready for it.
Now for the college president comments. She said that meeting with Palestinian women she was amazed how difficult and how little the higher education system in Israel enables them to obtain college degrees. Again, while some Israelis feel that some Palestinian women are totally NOT TO BLAME, we still wonder why there is so much support for terrorism among Palestinians. No terrorist organization could attack so much without popular support. While some Palestinian women are somewhat "innocent", they still allow terrorist organization to organize, arm, and attack Israel. This seems to be the view in Tel Aviv. The truth is, most Israelis do not know what it's like to live in a Palestinian refugee camp, so there is no way of telling what these women say or don't say. But than again, in Ireland, the women are the ones who stopped the IRA (with all due respect to the British, Irish, and international peace effort). So you see, Tel Avivians are not that ignorant or that hateful! We do see the big picture, and it is not as simple as coming here and saying: "we are your friends". Hopefully this is helpful to you business people who come to Israel and try to be politically correct and "friendly".

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ps. these is my take on the situation but it's a result with conversations with a few Israelis and their comments.