Nidra, Nidra, Nidra, Nidra ............... our "reliable witness" from Paris writes a fresh column for
Atlas readers. Only here in the Atlas sphere. And oh it's fresh and hot, we love that....
BAKED ON THE PREMISES
Nidra Poller
30 June, Paris
Excerpt:
I thought of all those young soldiers in the hot sun and dust of Gaza.
But the French media are only thinking of Palestinian hardship. The only difference between present coverage and the worst of the years 2000-3 is that the novelty has worn off. Every Israel-bashing distortion has been trotted out, but the obsession is muted by a lazy summertime-and-the-living-is-easy tone. As I remarked the other day, Gilad Shalit has lost his hyphen, he’s not French-Israeli, he’s a simple, I’d say a lowdown Israeli soldier, no different from his buddies who blew up the Gaza power station, the ones who bop in and out of Ramallah as if it were their mamma’s kitchen, the ones who are the cause of Palestinian bitterness, the ones whose fault it is that Résistants kidnap soldiers and kill colons. OK, maybe there was a thin trickle of sympathy on Monday for those baby-face boys, but it’s gone now. The helmets are covering the kepelech and masking the innocent faces, we’re back to the stereotypes, the big bad Israeli army. And now they’ve capture political figures! What nerve! According to Le Figaro the whole world is against these Israeli methods (no mention of George W. Bush who approves). Maybe Fatah and Hamas can’t get their act together, but the French media are, as usual, unanimous.
The Résistants who captured the colon (in Jerusalem…but of course they knew he was a colon, it was written all over his face) threatened to kill him unless the Israelis stopped their military operation. So when it turns out he was already dead before the operation began, how do the French media explain that one? Easy. They just don’t mention that insignificant detail. In an article on the Summer Rain operation, Gilles Paris of Le Monde managed to serve up the Gaza Beach libel as if it were the hottest mystery after the virgin birth. Did you know? Seven people were killed on a Gaza beach and Israelis and Palestinians still disagree on who dunnit.
The French media are clucking about the stunning Hamas about-face; the democratically elected Palestinian government has implicitly recognized the existence of __________ by signing this really neat document, the best peace plan yet! But those stubborn Israelis chose to invade Gaza instead of waiting for diplomacy to find the missing soldier. Like they found the missing colon?
The best media trick came from France 2, the home of Charles Enderlin of al-Dura fame. Charles could barely contain his joy in reporting on the intransigence of the Israeli Army he so loves to hate. And someone topped it off with the best mistranslation of the decade: Israeli leaflets dropped on Beit Hanun--famous for its Qassam launch sites--advised residents to stay in their homes because the village was going to be bombarded. When your corner NGO announces the massacre, it will be no surprise to French viewers!
The other day my thoughts were with Israeli soldiers toiling in the dust and the heat, copped up in tanks and airplanes, desperately searching for one precious kidnapped soldier, called up once more to defend their country, while here in the Parisian Diaspora we celebrate the 2nd annual festival of Jewish cultures. Israeli boys are in the tanks, and we are sitting in the courtyard of the 3rd arrondissement City Hall. If I remember correctly, last year’s festival covered yiddishkeit. The theme this year is “Sephardic Mosaic.” A beautiful spacious Arab tent at one end of the courtyard invites visitors to stretch out on silken couches or perch on damask poufs placed around large copper-tray tables. Mint tea and Oriental pastries are served. An Oriental dancer performs at the opposite end of the courtyard. The street in front of the city hall is blocked, decorated with palm trees and mountain laurel, and set out with comfortable deck chairs. It was all so convivial. What is there to not like? Should we cover our festival with black mourning drapes because 18 year-old Eliyahu Asheri z”l was shot in the head? And Corporal Gilad Shalit is in the hands of bloodthirsty jihadis? Isn’t this month-long festival proof of good relations between France and the Jews? Which would you rather for your sons, a tank in Gaza or a pouf in the courtyard?
I’ll never forget Keith Richburg’s Washington Post article on the November uprising. He claimed that if you were sitting in a trendy bistrot in the Marais you wouldn’t know those banlieue populations even existed. I loved Richburg’s Out of America, but when it comes to the oppressed masses of Paris, he can’t see further than the tip of his eyelashes. All the deck chairs in front of the 3rd arrdt. city hall (at the northern tip of the Marais, two steps away from the last trendy bistrot) were occupied by third generation third world kids who couldn’t care less about Jewish cultures, even when they are dressed in Arab trappings. The bigger boys played impudent soccer at one end of the closed street. Later in the day the teens were replaced by Muslim mommas with babies and toddlers.
And I couldn’t help thinking that no amount of dhimmitude would save us even one seat in the brave new world in the making.
PS: today’s press is a chorus of wagging fingers. Once again, Israel has gone too far! One kidnapped soldier can’t justify all this frightful destruction. The democratically elected Hamas government deserves respect, and the people who democratically elected the government should in no way be held responsible for the kidnapping of a soldier and a colon. I guess these journalists still haven’t got the message. Their Swedish colleague was shot point blank in Mogadishu, and they still think they are the good guys of the bad guys, safe from harm up there on their high horses, spitting down on Israeli heads.
Click below link and read it all.............
I love hot weather, I adore strong sunshine, I am happy when almost everyone else is zonked. But I have to admit that it was too much for me the other day in Tel Aviv, when I had to walk a few blocks in a semi-industrial neighborhood near the Ayalon highway. I’d been to visit a friend at the recording studio where I worked on what turned out to be—for me—a dead end project. That was two years ago. Now, glowing with satisfaction on the last day of a splendid two-week stay, I dropped in to say hello. I was supposed to have lunch with N. but he was suffering from indigestion and didn’t offer to keep me company while I ate…anyway, there’s no place to eat in that forsaken cluster of garages and warehouses. The director wasn’t there, the technician I’d worked with has gone freelance, the secretary was sweet as always but too sad for conversation.
I walk out, slightly disgruntled and a bit hungry. It’s rush hour, I’ll have to manage the four blocks to the taxi stand in front of the train station without my Madagascar straw hat…for some reason I didn’t think I’d need it… No shade anywhere. I feel shaky. Traffic zinging by every which way. A cluster of taxi drivers stand at the head of the line, wheely dealing. The first cab doesn’t want to take anyone, no one wants to take two Filipino women, the second in line sets his price, puts them in the cab, then tries to take me on for 35 shekels…twice the normal rate. The Filipino women are waiting patiently in the back seat. The guy wants deluxe rates for cherout service, there’s a whole line of taxis waiting with no customers, and four drivers trying to talk me into accepting the deal. I don’t feel like being taken for a fool but I can’t walk back… no hat, no water…even for a sun worshipper it’s too risky.
The whole thing is so stupid…haggling over a special traffic-jam price when he could be gone and back in the time he’s spent haggling. As if to explain it all, one of his buddies tells me the guy has seven children. So what, I reply, I have eight grandchildren. He high fives me. But I’m fed up. I turn my back and walk over to a shaded bus stop. They come after me. Okay, 30 shekels. No. I try to phone my friend E. N. who is speaking at Haifa U. that evening. I’d planned to go and hear his talk, he’s supposed to pick me up… No answer. Twenty-five shekels. No, I don’t want your taxi! I stomp off to Migdal Azreali, duck into a welcome path of shade, cars are driving in, coming out, it’s another world, modern and comfortable. I hail a taxi…he has a passenger, says something in Hebrew. I figure out what he means…I should keep walking toward the mall entrance. I reach the checkpoint, ask where I can find a taxi and, as if in reply, notice a taxi stand just on the other side of the checkpoint. Does the guard want to see my bag? No, she says it’s ok, you can go right through. And she tells me that my (Ethiopian) necklace is beautiful and that I’m a beautiful lady.
It’s a regular cabstand, the chauffeur wants 25 shekels, special rush hour price. I accept. And that’s how it is. I won’t give 25 shekels to a guy who looks like a ganef and tries to get 35 shekels while making two Filipino women wait like they were less than worthless. But that’s not the point of the story. The point is, it was so hot and dusty near the train station, and as we drove down Kaplan Street I saw the soldiers coming and going—the big base is being moved, but there are still a lot of them stationed there—with the sun beating down on their heads and the dust in their faces, and it all came back to me Wednesday when the tanks moved into Gaza.
My friend O. L. is a student at Tel Aviv U. The other day we went to one of those cafés on the beach and he showed me the photo album from his army days. He was an officer in a tank battalion, then he was assigned to the Joint Patrols with Palestinian policemen, and got phased out when the war started in September 2000. No more joint patrols. He is still thinking peace and cooperation. Deplores the bad blood stewing under the hot sun at checkpoints… they hate us, we hate them (he doesn’t hate anyone). Cringes at the slightest misbehavior on our side. Finds no excuses for it. I thought of him when the tank was attacked at Kerem Shalom.
I thought of all those young soldiers in the hot sun and dust of Gaza.
But the French media are only thinking of Palestinian hardship. The only difference between present coverage and the worst of the years 2000-3 is that the novelty has worn off. Every Israel-bashing distortion has been trotted out, but the obsession is muted by a lazy summertime-and-the-living-is-easy tone. As I remarked the other day, Gilad Shalit has lost his hyphen, he’s not French-Israeli, he’s a simple, I’d say a lowdown Israeli soldier, no different from his buddies who blew up the Gaza power station, the ones who bop in and out of Ramallah as if it were their mamma’s kitchen, the ones who are the cause of Palestinian bitterness, the ones whose fault it is that Résistants kidnap soldiers and kill colons. OK, maybe there was a thin trickle of sympathy on Monday for those baby-face boys, but it’s gone now. The helmets are covering the kepelech and masking the innocent faces, we’re back to the stereotypes, the big bad Israeli army. And now they’ve capture political figures! What nerve! According to Le Figaro the whole world is against these Israeli methods (no mention of George W. Bush who approves). Maybe Fatah and Hamas can’t get their act together, but the French media are, as usual, unanimous.
The Résistants who captured the colon (in Jerusalem…but of course they knew he was a colon, it was written all over his face) threatened to kill him unless the Israelis stopped their military operation. So when it turns out he was already dead before the operation began, how do the French media explain that one? Easy. They just don’t mention that insignificant detail. In an article on the Summer Rain operation, Gilles Paris of Le Monde managed to serve up the Gaza Beach libel as if it were the hottest mystery after the virgin birth. Did you know? Seven people were killed on a Gaza beach and Israelis and Palestinians still disagree on who dunnit.
The French media are clucking about the stunning Hamas about-face; the democratically elected Palestinian government has implicitly recognized the existence of __________ by signing this really neat document, the best peace plan yet! But those stubborn Israelis chose to invade Gaza instead of waiting for diplomacy to find the missing soldier. Like they found the missing colon?
The best media trick came from France 2, the home of Charles Enderlin of al-Dura fame. Charles could barely contain his joy in reporting on the intransigence of the Israeli Army he so loves to hate. And someone topped it off with the best mistranslation of the decade: Israeli leaflets dropped on Beit Hanun--famous for its Qassam launch sites--advised residents to stay in their homes because the village was going to be bombarded. When your corner NGO announces the massacre, it will be no surprise to French viewers!
The other day my thoughts were with Israeli soldiers toiling in the dust and the heat, copped up in tanks and airplanes, desperately searching for one precious kidnapped soldier, called up once more to defend their country, while here in the Parisian Diaspora we celebrate the 2nd annual festival of Jewish cultures. Israeli boys are in the tanks, and we are sitting in the courtyard of the 3rd arrondissement City Hall. If I remember correctly, last year’s festival covered yiddishkeit. The theme this year is “Sephardic Mosaic.” A beautiful spacious Arab tent at one end of the courtyard invites visitors to stretch out on silken couches or perch on damask poufs placed around large copper-tray tables. Mint tea and Oriental pastries are served. An Oriental dancer performs at the opposite end of the courtyard. The street in front of the city hall is blocked, decorated with palm trees and mountain laurel, and set out with comfortable deck chairs. It was all so convivial. What is there to not like? Should we cover our festival with black mourning drapes because 18 year-old Eliyahu Asheri z”l was shot in the head? And Corporal Gilad Shalit is in the hands of bloodthirsty jihadis? Isn’t this month-long festival proof of good relations between France and the Jews? Which would you rather for your sons, a tank in Gaza or a pouf in the courtyard?
I’ll never forget Keith Richburg’s Washington Post article on the November uprising. He claimed that if you were sitting in a trendy bistrot in the Marais you wouldn’t know those banlieue populations even existed. I loved Richburg’s Out of America, but when it comes to the oppressed masses of Paris, he can’t see further than the tip of his eyelashes. All the deck chairs in front of the 3rd arrdt. city hall (at the northern tip of the Marais, two steps away from the last trendy bistrot) were occupied by third generation third world kids who couldn’t care less about Jewish cultures, even when they are dressed in Arab trappings. The bigger boys played impudent soccer at one end of the closed street. Later in the day the teens were replaced by Muslim mommas with babies and toddlers.
And I couldn’t help thinking that no amount of dhimmitude would save us even one seat in the brave new world in the making.
PS: today’s press is a chorus of wagging fingers. Once again, Israel has gone too far! One kidnapped soldier can’t justify all this frightful destruction. The democratically elected Hamas government deserves respect, and the people who democratically elected the government should in no way be held responsible for the kidnapping of a soldier and a colon. I guess these journalists still haven’t got the message. Their Swedish colleague was shot point blank in Mogadishu, and they still think they are the good guys of the bad guys, safe from harm up there on their high horses, spitting down on Israeli heads.
