Odds 'n Ends

Reflections on bat-hood: Yesterday the water filter company sends a technician to replace all the under-sink filters and perform basic maintenance. The technician arrives on time and cheerfully sets about his work. He asks for coffee and we start chatting as I put the kettle on. Turns out that he made aliya the year before me and is just a few years younger than me, but the similarities end there. He and his wife left Kazakhstan, and while they briefly toyed with the idea of going to the States, his wife wanted his kids growing up here. He thinks I’m from Argentina, and I’m far from offended (an Argentinean accent is much preferable to an American). We talk about klitah (the process of integration into Israeli society), economics, and the moral fiber of our culture. Despite the vast differences in our backgrounds, we both share the fate of the bat—not really animal, not really bird. We are burdened with the culture of our birth countries like so much awkward carry-on baggage. The whole exchange is both surreal and reassuring.

Semantics, shmantics: rave mode on “There is no such country as Palestine,” insist some. “The Palestinians are just Arabs, and they changed history to create a national identity.” So be it. But they are here, and denying their current identify is futile exercise in semantics. It reminds me of the idiots who proclaim that “no man has ever beaten a woman, because a real man doesn’t do that.” Yeah, so those were squirrels breaking ribs and fracturing jaws? Go ahead and say that good men don’t do that, but don't make a faulty syllogism stemming from arrogance and stupidity. Yes, we can rant and rave and say that up until 1948, “Palestinian” meant the Jewish population here, but the name has been co-opted and it is now pointless to pout like a child and deny the fact that we have a nation living next to us with a strong identity. They aren’t going away. rave mode off

Oh, gee, that's swell: Kofi Annan says that UNIFIL troops won't fire on IAF planes. Probably. We can already sleep better at night.