Weekend Recap and the Flotilla Raid

This Shabbat was pretty quiet. Boaz went home and I stayed with Shoko in Dimona and got to meet Orr's new boyfriend. I tried making gazpacho and it came out pretty tasty but it's been a while so it wasn't so soupy. I'll have to try again. I spent the rest of Shabbat re-reading all of "One State, Two States." Good read.

Yesterday in Conflict Resolution our professor split up the class into those who are pro-Israel and pro-Palestine and then had each group present the other's narrative. I was the Palestinian spokesman and I had to tear apart the Zionist narrative, which I did quite thoroughly by explaining that parts of the traditional narrative just aren't true, highlighting inconsistencies and using a time honored tradition of Palestinian spokesmen: lying. And then it was there turn to tear apart the Palestinian narrative and they did kind of a lackluster job. I wanted to switch sides.

Then I had Oil Politics. I was nervous because I hadn't had so much time to go over the chapter I was supposed to present. But it all worked out in the end. We talked about the history of ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia. Pretty cool stuff.

Today I woke up, went to my computer and opened Haaretz like I do every morning. But unlike every other morning, today I read that while I was sleeping, Israeli commandos stormed the Gaza Flotilla and ended up killing nearly 20 protesters. I was very upset and so was everyone in my Geography class. We discussed the incident for a while and I kept thinking how it was that Shayetet 13, the elite of the elite, caused such a debacle. Why did they land with M-16s firing? Why did they bring guns at all? Why didn't they just bring riot gear? Then I read Ron Ben-Yishai's article on Ynet (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3896796,00.html ) which explained that they didn't land with guns blazing and in fact they brought paintball guns to avoid casualties. They only started using their handguns after they were shot at, stabbed and thrown off the top deck and off the boat (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3896996,00.html ). Watch the video on that link, it's unreal. It's awful that people were killed but I can't understand why the protesters fought back. They had a win-win situation going. If they got through to Gaza, they won. If they were arrested by Israel, they won. Instead they attacked Israeli marines and now nearly 20 people are dead and dozens more are in the hospital. This all happened after Israel said that if they dock in Ashdod, all their humanitarian aid would be transfered to Gaza. Nothing good will come from any of this.

Student Day יום הסטודנט

Last night was Yom HaStudent. I bought my ticket months ago but like the idiot I am, forgot to bring it to school yesterday. So after class I went back to Dimona to get it and when I got there I was thinking about skipping it since I was a little tired and (again, like an idiot) had scheduled a meeting with David Newman for Wednesday (today) morning. But Andrea called me and convinced me to come. Thanks Andrea.

Yom HaStudent is a big festival that all universities have but our was really huge. There were bands and shops and booths and over 20,000 people there. Ehud Banai was playing when I got there and he was followed by HaDah Nachash and Infected Mushroom. Pretty awesome. If only I remembered to bring my camera.

Some highlights:

There was a pool set up but it was completely empty except for the girls in bikinis who were paid to dance around it. So Andrea decided to jump in. Granted it wasn't very deep so she just walked around and made sure not to get her skirt wet, but afterwards a few other people stripped down and jumped in and started dancing. Way to start the party Andrea.

When HaDag Nachash played Shirat HaSticker (a song of all the different Israeli bumper sticker slogans) I was singing along and when it came to "death to Arabs" I kept singing when most other people stopped. This guy came up to me (who I'm pretty sure was high because he kept creepily rubbing my back) and said "why did you say that?" I was like "It's a song, I sang the whole thing. I don't agree with that slogan obviously." Actually, the naive person that I am, I didn't even realize that was the real line. I was convinced that it wasn't ערבים but מוות לערכים meaning Death to Values. I guess I should be more careful.

Before I left to head back to Be'er Sheva, I got an email from Lauren Friedman saying she was visiting a friend at BGU and was coming to Yom Hastudent. I finally found her and we got to catch up a little bit, which was pretty great.

We finally left a little after 3 am and Loren let me crash at his place. After about 4 hours of sleep I woke up for my meeting. After meeting with him I went over to talk to Alma too. On my way, the air raid siren went off as part of the massive Home Front Drill that was going on. "Red Alert! Red Alert!" blared out of the PA system ( http://tinyurl.com/2weevvc ). What a country.

Shoko let me sleep in today. It was nice of him, but I wish he woke me up and took me for a run. There's always tomorrow I guess.

When I got to campus, I walked to building 90 where we usually have our Geography class. But when I got there, the first floor was packed. Apparently today is a huge science fair where lots of students were showing off their robots, weather machines and so on. There was a snack table in our classroom, so I snuck in a grabbed a free sandwich before calling Loren to see where we were actually having class today.

We had class in the little conference room on the Middle East Studies floor. It was pretty cramped. We talked about labor migration and how it "worked" in Israel. It amazes me that labor migration is still acceptable. It's difficult to find an example of it being employed successfully. It dehumanizes workers and puts them in impossible situations.

After class I rushed back to Dimona. Today at the Youth Center, I helped a girl in English. We read the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz." It was fun translating it into Hebrew. I couldn't believe she had never seen the movie or heard the story before. Though I must admit it was funny hearing the words "scarecrow" and "munchkins" in an Israeli accent.

Here's Shoko taking a nap in a very convenient place.

Here he is watching me work from a comfortable spot.

Long Sunday

Shoko woke me up around 6:30 today to go for a run. He let me take it easy since my stomach still isn't 100% better. When we got back I actually made myself a cup of coffee, which is huge for me because I have refused to drink it for some 24 years now (a combination of hating the taste and not wanting to make my body reliant on a drug). But I figured that if I'm going to be waking up at 6:30, I might as well make sure that I'm awake enough to actually get something done and if I add enough sugar and milk, it doesn't take so terrible (though not great).

When I got to campus I went to the library to check out a copy of "Palestinian Identity," since Maura needs her's back for her own paper. But of course the only copy is reserved. Ugh.

I then went try and meet with a woman from one of the BGU offices who coordinates things for conferences on campus. I needed to talk to her about getting literature about the school for the conference. I was supposed to do it last week but that obviously didn't happen. She wasn't in her office and I couldn't reach her on her phone. Hopefully I can track her down tomorrow.

Nothing so crazy happened in Conflict Res today. We talked about mediation. Not the most exciting of topics.

Then my mini-course on Oil Politics started. It's taught by Robert Vitalis, a professor from UPenn. He seems really cool and we spent the first half of class talking about what we knew about Oil politics/culture and then he quietly explained to us why everything we "knew" and in fact what most people think they know, is just plain wrong. Example: there is lots of worry now in the West about Chinese oil exploration in new, untapped areas, with people saying that the Chinese are going to steal our oil. But oil is sold on the World Market so even if they find new oil sources, there is no reason to say that the oil would automatically go to China. If Western countries want it, they can just buy it. Even though they are state-run oil companies, they still have to take account of market and their ultimate goal is to make money. Plus, the reason why they are exploring in these new areas to begin with is because Western companies already control most oil sources.

Also, instead of a 15-20 page final paper, he said we should write a 10-12 page review of a topic we discuss in class that interests us. He suggested examining Israel's Oil Strategy (see if there is one) or, get this, examine the way the film "Syriana" portrays the oil industry (I told him I went to film school). I think I'm going to like this class.

Stomach Virus and Shabbat

After getting me week off to a great start on Sunday, I woke up at 6am on Monday with a terrible stomach virus that kept me out of commission all week. This meant no giving my presentation in geography, no cool trip to Jerusalem with my Conflict Resolution class and no visiting David in Jerusalem for Shavuot. I hate getting sick.

The only positive thing to happen during the week was that someone dropped off 3 puppies in the village on Monday. In between naps, I stepped outside and found them on my porch. Shoko was very happy to have some new friends. He looked after them during the day and even woke me up when one of them got stuck under the deck. We found a home for 1 of them and brought the other 3 to a local shelter; Shoko was very upset when we took them away.

This Shabbat I stayed in Dimona. We had a small Shabbat dinner in the Moadon and I finally had enough of an appetite to eat a full meal, or at least closer to one than I had been all week. After dinner Mor came with me and Shoko on our Shabbat walk around the city and we compared break-up stories. Always a fun topic.

Today Mor and I had a little lunch and then we hung out for a while. She studied for a biology test and I re-read "Palestinian Identity." After I had had about enough, I grabbed Shoko and we went off on a little trek in the desert. We climbed some dunes, walked through some rivers (read: dry riverbeds) and braved the surprisingly strong desert winds.

Now that Shabbat is over, I have to get to work. My Oil Politics Mini-Course starts tomorrow. I hope it's interesting.

Working Sunday

Shoko got me up again this morning and we went for a run. That's 2 for 2. Hopefully tomorrow will be day 3!

It's starting to get down to crunch time and I had lots of work to do today. Lots of emails to send out for the conference. Put some final touches on my presentation for Geography.

I took Shoko to the vet to get some anti-tick meds. But of course the vet was 20 minutes late and then I had to wait forever. But at least I got to talk to Sam while I waited.

I had such a busy day, I don't see how I wrote so little. Well I am pretty tired. Time for bed.

In the meantime here's some more pictures of Shoko. Today he decided to sleep on the floor under my desk. I think he's jealous that was spending all my time working and not playing with him.

Shabbat

This Shabbat I stayed in Dimona. There was supposed to be a big party in the village on Friday and there had been a huge argument as to whether we should have made a pool for the party or not. There were emails going back and forth with some saying it would be fun to have it and others saying it was just a huge waste of water. In the end there was no pool and the party was just about six of us.

That night, a few of us had a small dinner in Keren's caravan. She wanted to have it at her place instead of the Moadon so it would be more homey. It was, though a little bit crowded. I left a little before midnight to take Shoko on our Shabbat walk and then we went right to bed.

This morning, Shoko woke me up at 6 am. I decided that this was as good a time as any to start getting into the habit of waking up in the morning to walk him, since I won't just be able to open the door for him and go back to sleep when I get back to New Jersey. So, after lots of prodding, whining and nibbling on my hand, I got up and went for a run. Hopefully I'll keep that up, but I think I'll start by just making sure I do it again tomorrow morning.

We got back and Shoko went back to sleep under my chair and I got dressed for shul. But since we switched the clocks, services began at 8 instead of 7 when I got there. Oy. So I came back and read for an hour. When Boaz and I got back from shul, we both passed out and woke up a 3 hours later to Gal pounding on our door. We were about to miss lunch. So we hazily made our way down to Ma'ayan's caravan where we were eating. I think I like having these smaller meals at homes instead of having them in the Moadon all the time. While I was there I got to read an article about Benny Morris' new book (shameless plug). In it he explores how the US not only coerced other nations to vote in favor of Partition in 1947, but even bribed some countries (like Costa Rica for $45,000). He also examines the War of Independence from a religious point of view rather than political (Jihad as the motivator rather than Arab nationalism), though since the article was in Hebrew and I was therefore reading slowly, I didn't get to finish it. I guess I'll have to buy the book to find out more (but not from Tzomet Sfarim).

After Mincha, Boaz showed me some pictures from his time in the army. I think they may have been misleading, unless, that is, the IDF has its soldiers just hanging out, swimming in lakes and going on nature hikes. We then took Shoko for our own little nature hike out in the dessert or as the Dimonans called it "the hills.) When we got back, Shabbat was over and after a quick havdalah, Mor suggested we go see a movie. We saw "Sherlock Holmes." It was a fun movie and there were murmurs whenever they showed close ups of the spell books that were covered in Hebrew. Funny, I don't remember learning any magic in Hebrew school.

Here is Shoko looking pretty vicious... but really I just caught him in between a sneeze and a yawn.

Ar'ara BaNegev

Today, my arabic class went on a field trip to a nearby bedouin village called Ar'ara in the Negev. Most of the class went from Be'er Sheva, but since it's right by Dimona, Na'ama, Eyal, his friend Asaf and I caught a bus (Eyal and Asaf aren't from here but they stayed over the night before) and went right there.

First we went to a local high school that looked nicer and better funded than the ones here in Dimona. They introduced themselves and talked to us for a little while in Arabic and I caught most of it. We then met with some students and went outside to play soccer. I decided it was probably better for everyone if I joined the audience instead of actually playing. I think I made the right decision; Israelis (Jews and Arabs) take soccer very seriously.

Then we went to meet with a local Sheikh who talked to us about something. I didn't catch anything he said. But when he was done, two boys, Nabil and Mustafa (maybe 12 and 14 years old) took us to one of their houses to show us around. When we walked in, Mustafa's mother was praying and we had to walk around her. A little awkward. They brought us tea and had Eyal read from the Qur'an. When his mother was finished, she came in to say hello and introduced us to the youngest son and daughter (out of the 8 children). Little Muhammad stuck his head in and then ran away, but his sister came and shook all of our hands. Adorable.

We then went back to where we met the Sheikh and they had set up food for us. Of course as a huge plate of delicious looking chicken and rice is brought out I realize there is no chance it's Kosher. So I made do with hummus and salad.

When I got back to Dimona I went right over to the high school for tutoring. Today we were doing math. But they were going over things that I had forgotten how to do. A little embarrassing, especially since I don't know how to say "angle" or "slope" and other related words in Hebrew that might make it easier explain once I caught on. Anyway, once I got a refresher, things went fine and we actually finished a little early.

Get to the Choppa!

I wasn't feeling so great yesterday. I was supposed to present an article by Sammy Smooha in my geography class but we didn't end up having time, so I'm going to present it next week. It's a really interesting article about what kind of democracy Israel is. There are 3 main types of democracies: Liberal (US), Consociational (Belgium) and Herrenvolk (Apartheid South Africa). The paper argues that Israel doesn't fit into any of these 3 and actually belongs in a 4th category called Ethnic Democracy. He makes a compelling case and uses this to argue that the best way to solve the conflict isn't to make Israel a Liberal or Consociational Democracy and certainly not make it a Herrenvolk, but work within the system of an Ethnic Democracy to give minorities more rights while maintaining the Jewish character of the state. Interesting stuff.

After class came back to Dimona to do some work in the youth center. On Mondays now I go there to help kids who stop by with homework but yesterday no one needed help (well, there were a bunch of kids who needed help with science, but I don't know nearly enough science terms in Hebrew to help with that). But there were some kids who came just to hang out after school, so I stayed and watched "הטורף" or "The Predator" with them. They had never seen it before! I almost died when Schwarzenegger yelled "Get to the choppa!" but they all just looked at me.

Today I didn't have classes and stayed home to work on the conference. There was a big problem with our bookings at the hotel in Be'er Sheva and I finally sorted it out. Thank God. Then they were shorthanded at the Youth Center so I went by again and this time there was someone who needed help in math. So I went over some problems with him.

We just had a party for Udi, who is one of the guys in charge of the village. He also runs my group's volunteering at the high school. So we threw the party to say thanks and we all ordered shirts with his picture on them.

This is Udi

And this is the shirt we made. It says, "Udi wasn't born bald... The Ashkenazim shaved him."

I leave you with pictures of Shoko napping.

HaDag Nachash!

Last night was the MASA end of semester event in Jerusalem. This time they got HaDag Nachash to play. It was pretty awesome. We got there a little early and had some time to walk around Jerusalem, well, not really Jerusalem, just the central bus station. So I grabbed some pizza with Elana and Lena and then we headed over the the concert.

Right next door there was a hasidic wedding and we were looking over the fence to try and watch.

Left: Me and Kayla looking really enthused as we wait for the concert to start.

At the last concert, Idan Raichel played and Natan Sharansky spoke. This time, Sharansky spoke again, but after Bibi Netanyahu warmed up the crowd for him. I'm not his biggest fan but it still was pretty cool seeing him in person. And it would have been even better if there was a really loud group of Uruguayan teenagers sitting behind us whistling and shouting the whole time. At least I got to practice my Spanish even if it was just "Shut up! Do people not know how to be quiet in Uruguay? He's the Prime Minister!"

Bibi didn't say anything so groundbreaking, just praised us for coming to Israel, praised Israel for being amazing and made not so veiled hints at making Aliyah.

HaDag Nachash was pretty cool. They're one of the biggest bands in Israel right now and they play a fusion of hip hop and funk. They played lots of their new songs at the beginning that I hadn't really heard, but then they brought out some old classics and I got to dance and sing along much to everyone's dismay (see photo on the left). Good night.

Lag BaOmer!

This Shabbat was pretty laid back. Not so many people stayed so Friday night we had a more intimate dinner in the Moadon. Usually there are so many people that it's too loud to actually have a real conversation, but this week we were actually able to talk.

Today we had an even smaller lunch and then stayed for most of the rest of the day in the Moadon because it was really windy and even rained a little. Or's little sister came by with a Simpson's puzzle and we quickly took over after she got bored of with within five minutes.

It took us a few hours and we even had to keep going after Shabbat ended but we finally finished. You'll notice that there still a piece missing, that is what happens when you let Shoko help.

After Shabbat ended, we started getting ready for Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer is the 33rd day between Passover and Shavuot and for some reason no one quite explain to me, in order to celebrate, we light bonfires. Normally, I'd point out that this is probably a pagan custom that we appropriated, but I don't really care because bonfires are fun. Here's the beginnings of our's:

While our bonfire got started, Or took me and Mor all around Dimona to look at all the fires. This first picture is just a look from the village at the edge of the desert next to the city and I count around 10. On the other side there were about 20. On every corner there were bonfires. What a cool holiday!

When we got back for our bonfire tour of Dimona, we grabbed some bbq in the Moadon. Sadly, I have class tomorrow and can't stay out all night and sleep next to the bonfire like all the Israeli kids do.

Shoko didn't want to go to bed either so I gave him a new bone to play with.