Well, let’s see. There’s the “Gilad Shalit deal is imminent” stuff. Nope. I don’t bother writing about that, because it’s crap. Israeli reporters know it’s crap, too. Get a load of this lede:
A prisoner exchange deal for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is expected within two to three weeks’ time, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Wednesday.
It should be noted that Abbas has made similar statements in the past, but he appears to have very little influence on the negotiations on this deal.
Even the reporters are dissing Abbas.
I won’t be writing about yet another Jewish author slamming Israel in another alternate history, and pretending that he’s a good little boy for not having any attachment to the land of his ancestors.
Thinking about what the world would look like without the state of Israel was “one of the motivating impulses of writing the book,” he says. “How mad it seems that this tiny little scrap of land” should be at the center of global conflicts. “I have a very strong feeling of complete ambivalence about a world without Israel,” Mr. Chabon says. “I didn’t come in with a point to prove or an agenda.”
And I’m not really writing about French anti-Semitic attacks these days. They’re becoming too depressingly common.
A 45-year-old Jewish man was stabbed in front of a kosher restaurant in the city of Villeurbanne, southern France on Tuesday in what authorities believe to be the latest in a series of anti-Semitic attacks in the country.
The victim, who is only being identified as “Eric”, was rushed to hospital in the neary city of Lyon after suffering injuries on his left shoulder.
The attack occured around lunch time as he parked the car while his family went into the restaurant.
A few minutes later he entered the restaurant covered with blood, saying he had been stabbed by a young man on a bicycle.
Gee. I wonder what religion that “young man” is from?
That’s why I start writing about the weather. Waste of my time to write about the above.
You can add LA Times anti-Israel or anti-American bias to that list – does anybody even bother throwing a link down for that any more?
Meryl,
If you have not read this following article please do in spite of not writing about the state of French Jewry:
” French Jewry: The End of a Model of Jewish Identity”
http://www.covenant.idc.ac.il/en/vol1/issue2/trigano.html
Trigano writes:
“On the basis of this analysis, I will draw the following conclusions:
1. The existing model of Jewish identity, born after World War II, is no longer applicable. It is no longer harbored by French society and it has suffered a process of decomposition. It lacks the capacity to answer the challenge of a new situation.
2. The commitment to Jewish life which was the fruit of a voluntary and creative choice has become a factor of marginalization, exclusion and inequality.
3. The Jewish community has been instrumentalized despite its wishes in the national politics of France.
4. The representativeness of the French Jews has no real basis any more and in fact no possibility of action. The only role that the government allots to it is one of appeasement and conciliation, in a struggle against racism. But the power that public opinion and government are willing to grant to the CRIF is liable to cause profound misunderstandings. The communal institutions have the image of power but not the means.
5. The Jewish community is gradually being isolated within society, imperceptibly excluded from national life, and ghettoized. When recognized, it is considered only as a separate or alien community and such a recognition jeopardizes each Jew’s citizenship. This was hardly the direction it was taking when the new Jewish identity was founded in the 1950s. “