Baby Names

Yet again proving to the entire civilized world that militancy and terrorism are instilled in their population from day one of their pitiful lives, it was reported in the Arabic language daily Al-Hayat Al-Jedida that the population explosion in Gaza Strip has been accompanied with another explosive phenomenon: Gazans are naming their babies "Rad," "Fajr," and "Al-Aqsa" in honor of the names of those rockets which have been raining down on northern Israel for the past three weeks.

Hassan Nasrallah is also becoming an ever more popular name.

Ingathering of a Different Sort

As I write these lines, tens of thousands of foreigners are fleeing Lebanon. Some have already made the trek to Syria, where they await chartered flights to their homelands from Damascus. Others have taken refuge on the premises of their respective embassies (which, as well all know from the movies, are considered the sovereign territory of the country whose embassy is on the property). Yet others are being transported via massive cargo helicopters to ships waiting off of the Lebanese coast. And sadly, some never made it out.

These people are victims of circumstance. Unless they were complicit with Hizbullah during their stays in Lebanon, they had no reason to suspect that a terrorist organization would foolishly drag their country into a war, with Israel no less! But in contrast to the picture here, where solidarity groups plan to visit specifically during this difficult time, where groups of kids who came for the summer are staying despite the violence, where residents of the north are being welcomed by benevolent families and institutions around the country, where everyone except for a small group of self-hating Jews throws their full weight behind the actions of the government, where we have told the terrorists time and time again, "YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT US!," the picture in Lebanon is considerably different. People are fleeing; they are letting the fringe groups dominate the country, which has so much potential to a be a democracy friendly to Western interests.

Not so in Israel. We have too much to lose to just run away from our problems.

Power Outage

I'm assuming that the government/army censors have prevailed upon major news outlets not to report the cause of widespread power outages which are affecting Israel this morning. Some probable theories:
1. A Qassam hit a power facility in Ashkelon.
2. A rocket hit a power facility in Haifa, or somewhere in the north.
3. I would say that perhaps increased demand for electricity could cause rolling blackouts, but it is nice and cool today in Jerusalem, and electricity output has been sufficient even on much hotter days.

The Internet is crawling along at a snail's pace, probably because some central servers are out.

War Everywhere

A telling cartoon about how close to home the war is:

(Translation: The soldier sitting on his tank says, "Dad, what's going on at the 'front'?" The father, sitting at a bus stop, appears to be sitting next to a suicide bomber.)

Alternative Fuels in Israel (NOT!)

Where does Israel get it's oil from?

Interesting article, although the entire issue raises some difficult questions.
1. Israel has displayed almost zero resolve to wean itself from foreign oil sources.
2. Barring the reconquering of Sinai, there is little chance that Israel will ever possess its own large scale oil reserves.
3. Prohibitively high gas prices (now about 6.00 USD per-gallon for regular unleaded) have not stopped anyone from reducing fuel consumption or from buying gas-guzzling vehicles.
4. Diesel fuel, which has always benefited from from a significant tax break (bringing the price of diesel in Israel to almost 2.00 USD cheaper per-gallon than regular unleaded)--and is the favored fuel of the taxi, public transportation, and driving school industries--will in the coming years be taxed just like regular fuel. There will then be no incentive to purchase vehicles with diesel engines, even though they are proven to be 40% more fuel efficient than regular gas vehicles!
5. Biodiesel: Israelis fry everything! Chips, Schnitzel, Shakshuka, you get the idea. The idea behind biodiesel is that waste oils (even those already used for cooking!), and not OPEC petroleum, can be used to fuel automobiles with diesel engines. But there is no talk in Israel of biodiesel, whatsoever.
6. Ethanol: This alternative fuel made a big buzz in the USA after fuel prices spiked precipitously a few months ago. Ethanol is basically pure, unadulterated alcohol, distilled from crops as sugarcane, switchgrass, or corn. A lot of gas in the US already contains 10% Ethanol as an additive, and while the US lags far behind Brazil in its widespread adoption of E85 (85% Ethanol, 15% unleaded), some new federal initiatives might change that situation in the coming years. Surely, it must be cheaper to import Ethanol than oil!!
7. Taxes: Israel has one of the highest purchase taxes on new automobiles in the civilized world (that's assuming that Israelis are civilized, which is definitely up for debate). The exact tax varies based on a number of variables such as engine size and the amount of airbags, but it hovers around 120% (which includes VAT). I could potentially write an entirely separate post on the stupidity (even though the tax is meant to discourage the purchasing of cars, people have adjusted their incomes [at great loss] to facilitate purchase) and anachronism of the (socialist) tax. But being that Israel has about 120% of pure profit to play with for each purchase, wouldn't it be a good idea to grant tax incentives (as is done in the US) to people who purchase fuel efficient vehicles? The Toyota Prius and the new Honda and Toyota hybrids should, a priori, be among the most popular cars in the country. After all, with the inflated gas prices, one could probably pay off the premium of a hybrid car after only a filling a few tanks of gas. But no. That would be logical. And logic doesn't go in the land of 6,000,000 presidents.

Cold Resolve

The Likud called him the "Iceberg," branding him a cold, unemotional, insensitive, out of touch with reality aristocrat. (The word they used was קרחון (=iceberg), which I thought was taking a shot at his infamous Giuliani style baldness/comb-over; but apparently it has nothing to do with baldness, and everything to do with frigidity.)
Though throughout this days-long conflict he has appeared rarely in public (probably heeding the advice of his security personnel), Olmert has displayed a steadfast resolve (=נחישות) and appears to be doing his job quite well despite his lack of an extensive (Sharon-style) military background. The criticism has been leveled mostly at Amir Peretz, the freshman defense minister who appears to be an incompetent puppet, taking advice from his advisors rather than drafting pro-active plans himself, and Dan Halutz, the Chief of Staff, who has been widely criticized for his "blue-ing" of the armed forces; i.e., his unwillingness to commit ground troops, because his air-force background completely guides his ideal of military operations.
Olmert probably wishes that Ariel Sharon, who already has extensive experience fighting in Lebanon, was still around, even if only in an advisory capacity. But, given the circumstances, Olmert should be commended for his cold, quiet resolve. Here is a recent photo of the PM, keeping up with his work even while on his helicopter.

Quiet Waves II

I closed my pre-Shabbat posting expressing my hopes for a quiet Shabbat. Thankfully, no additional missiles were fired at major coastal cities, but that does not take away from the trauma experienced by the many families who braved the warnings and stayed in the north over Shabbat. There were countless stories on the news of families, wishing to escape the heavier salvos closer to the Lebanese border, traveling to cities which they thought would offer more protection. In the case of one family, while sitting at the Shabbat table, a missile struck the apartment which they had fled to for Shabbat, killing their baby son and his grandmother, the owner of the apartment. In a second, more miraculous case, a religious woman living in Tiberias told of how she offered her house to her sister (who lived in a more endangered settlement), and offered to make Shabbat for her. For some reason, the woman's sister remained stubborn, and turned down the hospitality offer in Tiberias. That decision saved her life and the life of her family, as shortly before Shabbat went out, a rocket slammed into the house, causing extensive damage.

My hopes for "quiet seas" were also dashed, when an Iranian surface-to-surface rocket, unknowingly possessed by Hizbullah, struck an Israeli destroyer enforcing a maritime blockade off of the Lebanese coast.

This occurred over Shabbat, and was an incident that few knew about. Early reports stated that the boat was struck by an unmanned explosives-laden zodiac, a replication of the suicide attack which devastated the USS Cole in the Persian Gulf. These unsubstantiated reports were later debunked by the authoritative story, which was that the destroyer was struck by a powerful missile. Why what is considered one of the most advanced missile boats of its kind could not detect and ward off this missile was the question of the day. Senior naval officers (pre-empted by enterprising Israeli journalists) admitted that a dual failure: (1) Israeli military intelligence had no idea that Hizbullah possessed this type of missile; (2) As such, the radar and anti-missile countermeasure systems were not enabled. The devastating results were the untimely death of four sailors, and the again ravaged morale of the Israeli populace who over the past few days have seen three symbols of military superiority destroyed: armored Humvees, a Merkava tank, and now this missile ship.

Quiet Waves

They're forecasting quiet waves this weekend. What, you ask? Well, the forecasters here do occasionally supply viewers/listeners with a sea forecast. Invariably, the forecast is always the same -- והים יהיה נוח. But what are "quiet waves"?

I'm not exactly sure when it began, but the גל השקט, loosely translated as the "silent (air)wave" is a constantly broadcasting radio station which only interrupts the prevailing silence for emergency messages and critical news. During the Gulf War, at least, the station was operated for the benefit of Shabbat observing families such that they would not need to keep on the television or (regularly broadcasting) radio to hear news of an impending missile strike (nahash tzefa - viper snake) or the ever important all-clear. (I just read in a news forum that the station was apparently also operated during the first Shabbat of the so-called Al-Aksa Intifada.)

The authority pushing for the operation of the silent frequency is no less than Rabbi Yonah Metzger, the Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Metzger has also issued a ruling whereby residents of areas endangered by the missile strikes need not (and perhaps are prohibited from) praying in synangogues.

We can only hope for a Shabbat as peaceful as the tranquil sea.

Ingathering, literally

Ingathering is exactly what is going on at the moment in Israel, though not the drastic demographic shift imagined by Ehud Olmert. Residents of the Golan and Galil are fleeing their homes and abandoning their villages, businesses, and cities, for what they hope are safer accommodations further south. How far south exactly one has to go in order to escape the Katyushas is up for debate among members of Israel's security apparatus. Some have given a 200 km. range for the most advanced Katyushas, which puts even Beer Sheva in range.
It pains me to say it, but all that we can do now is wait for the IAF and IDF to inflict sufficient damage until the order is passed down to guerilla cells in Lebanon to launch longer range Katyushas--which as of yet have not been deployed against Israel--targeting Haifa and other coastal cities. If that happens, God forbid, though I feel that it is only inevitable, the full might of the IDF will be unleashed, in what will be perhaps an escalation to a declared full-scale war.

While residents of the cities in the north are urged to take cover in their local bomb shelters, I enjoin them to join us, to converge on Jerusalem; an ingathering induced by unfortunate circumstances, but an ingathering nonetheless.

UPDATE: I seem to have portended correctly, along with pretty much everyone else in this country, what happened last evening in Haifa. In a major twist, though, Hizbullah refused to take responsibility for the rocket launch which hit Haifa minutes after 8 PM last night. The well respected and highly authoritative Arab-affairs correspondent for Channel 2, Ehud Ya'ari, noted that the denial could only mean one of two things: (1) Either Hizbullah didn't actually launch the rocket; or (2) they did launch the rocket, perhaps prematurely, and didn't want to absorb the promised harsh Israeli repercussions. Hizbullah's denial, though, was accompanied by a convenient factoid supplied by their spokesperson:

"Though we didn't launch the rocket, it was not a Katyusha, but a 336 mm. Fajr 7, which can carry a 100 kg warhead."

In any event, some journalists are entertaining the possibility that Hizbullah's launch-denial was legitimate, and that the missile was actually launched by Iranian cells operating in Lebanon. This theory would accord well with the widely known alliance of the militant Iranian regime and Syria/Hizbullah. The president of Iran apparently made it clear this morning that an attack by Israel on Syria, would be tantamount to an attack on the entire Arab world.

In the Beginning

I have undertaken this small project in order to outline my musings on the goings on in the Israeli world and in Jewish society as a whole, with a particular eye to unfolding events in the Israeli political sphere, changing attitudes and perspectives in the religious world, and cutting edge Jewish scholarship.

The title of the blog--and especially it's translation--reflects, in my opinion, the goals which I outlined above. The reflexive התכנסות (hitkansut), while denoting ingathering (the English title of the blog), has other connotations. The term has come to recent prominence due to the lexical laundromat at work in the Olmert government which wished to "disengage" itself (if you will) from the term disengagement, and attached itself to this new term, which is less militarily loaded and more optimistic. Olmert originally sanctioned the translation "convergence," but in his recent address to a rare joint session of Congress, he shifted gears and used the term "realignment."

Back to the title and the goals of the blog... The Internet, in understandable fashion, has made remarkable strides in uniting the global community at large, and the Jewish community in particular. While some opinions expressed on the Internet, especially in blog forums, are cause for strife and not union, it is refreshing to see that much of the "negative energy" generated in the online Jewish community stems from people who depart their ideological bubble to comment on opinions which would normally be outside of their social and theological spheres. In other words, I see a positive development in the heated debates which take place in the "Comments" sections of agenda-motivated religious and nationalistic blogs.

The missions of this blog, then, are promoting Ingathering, being receptive to other viewpoints, and tolerance. It is my fervent hope that we will succeed, even if only partially.