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A CHELM-ON-THE-MED SPECIAL REPORT - Protective Edge Column VI
A CHELM-ON-THE-MED SPECIAL REPORT:
Operation “Protective Edge” (Tzuk Eitan) – Column VI
a mixed bag of piquant
“BACKPAGE NEWS FROM THE FRONT”
GLEANED FROM THE HEBREW MEDIA
August 8, 2014 – August 14
Keep your Spirits Up and Your Head Down!
THE COLOR ORANGE
Tomorrow morning, Friday 15 August 2014, Israel should mark the 9th year of the expulsion of the settlers of Gush Katif, but the country has been too busy running to take shelter from Gaza mortars and rockets (many fired from the very place where the Gush Katif settlements stood) to take notice…unless someone noticed the bright orange code box* the last four weeks that says who should expect to be socked by incoming rockets within 15 seconds to two minutes…and recalled the hazard-warning coded ‘team colors’ worn by opponents of the unilateral Disengagement back in 2004-5.
Perhaps it’s time for the parties who called skeptics of Palestinian intentions “people of little faith” and those who supported the Disengagement fueled by a bottomless optimism” to apologize…at least to the former residents of Katif?
Left: Television screens, Summer 2014
Right: Protesting the wisdom of the Disengagement Plan, Summer 2005
* Numerical geographic codes appear in a little box in the upper right-hand corner of the television screen in bright orange after each salvo from Gaza - alerting inhabitants in areas of Israel where the rockets will fall…while allowing commentators to continue to talk their heads off ‘on-the-fly’ as rockets sail by.
A SMALL ACT OF KINDNESS BY WHOM?
Compassion can be found in strange places.
In the middle of the war, an unidentified thief broke into the home of the bereaved parents of Gal Meizles z”l who fell in the helicopter disaster near the Lebanese border in February 1997.* First the burglar turned the drawers in the dresser in the master bedroom upside down, but when the thief entered Gal’s room, his eyes fell on the plaque and their son’s rifle mounted on a stand with an inscription from his unit. The intruder left the apartment empty-handed, but not before leaving a hand-written note: “I didn’t mean to, Really, I didn’t mean to.”**
Gal’s father Arieh Meizles asked the police not to pursue the matter. (Ynet)
* In the mid-air collision of two IDF helicopters. Gal was one of the 73 causalities.
** In Hebrew: “Lo hitkavanti, b’emet lo hitkavanti
IT ROCKS!
Who said when the cannon roar, the muses are silent?
When Hamas released a song on YouTube with lyrics in broken Hebrew rhyme about how they would hunt down Israelis who ‘hid behind walls and mamadim’* and would crush them “like cockroaches,” with a chorus that exhorts “t’kof t’aseh biguim”** (attack, make terrorist attacks), in-your-face Israelis turned the genocidal ditty into a farce - posting parodies on the Internet, including one which responded to the original voice track that promised to “rock Israelis with appalling blows” and “exterminate all the Zionists” with footage of Israelis of all walks of life – in cafes, on the beach, on the street – rocking to the catchy tune*** symbolically thumb their noses at Palestinians. Another response took the music and changed the lyrics to say it would “teach terrorists that you don’t threat us”- inserted footage of the IDF response to Palestinian rockets and Hamasniks coming out of tunnels, with a chorus that repeats “You don’t mess with Israel…You guys look pathetic.”)
BTW: The New York Times that told Honest Reporting that there were no good photos of Hamas terrorists in action so they were ‘forced’ to air only footage of Palestinian non-combatants? Now they have no excuse. (Tzinur Lilah Channel 10)
* ‘safe rooms’
** because Arabic has no ‘p’ the word for a terrorist attacks – piguim – came out bigu’im in the mouths of the Balestinian vocalists.
*** There is even a classical improvisation for piano…
HEART OF DARKNESS
No, Robin Williams wasn’t Jewish, but the degree of dismay and sorrow felt around the world at his tragic suicide was reflected in the fact that two pages of Yediot were devoted to 8 eulogies…in the middle of a war.
Against the backdrop of people in Germany marching down the streets chanting “Gas the Jews,” one eulogizer recalled how when Williams appeared on a German talk show, the host asked him - ‘How is it Germans are tagged as lacking a sense of humor, and we Germans haven’t produced one decent comic?”
Without so much as batting an eyelash, Robin Williams skewered the host with the piercing reply - “Perhaps because you killed them all.” (Yediot)
WHO’S THE ENEMY, YOU SAY?
Gaza has an Unknown Soldier monument – not just Great Britain and France, Portugal and the United States, to mention a few. But, Allah be praised, the Palestinians have given the theme “unknown but to God” a new twist in light of the shortage of visual documentation on Hamas combatants hiding in underground passages – literally an ‘army of unknown soldiers’ ignored by the international press.
During the first 72-hour cease-fire, also faceless Gazan non-combatants gathered in Gaza City’s Unknown Soldier Square to demonstrate their undying support for Hamas, cheering when the organization’s spokesperson Moshir al-Masri declared that the battle would be renewed, despite the consequences – an event that also somehow ‘escaped’ the radar of the international press. (Israel HaYom)
Yisrael HaYom Friday August 8, 2014, pg 11
Right: Young participant in Hams Demonstration (AP)
Left: Hamas demonstrators in Gaza, yesterday (Reuters)
DORMS FOR SDEROT FROM WHAT???
It makes you wonder, what was he thinking?!
Minister of Finance Yair Lapid announced the government will establish a 150-unit ‘student village’ in Sderot made out – you’re not going to believe this – recycled shipping containers!
Now, for a start, can you imagine the acoustic every times there is a Red Alert???
Nice idea if this was Switzerland, but since it’s Sderot we’re talking about, besides a pair of ear muffs, it might be wise to at least integrate into the floor plan of the studio flats the Home Front Command’s metal clothes closet that can be instantly* turned into a standing-room-only ‘safe zone’ in times like these, a contraption discussed in a 2012 Report from Grad Alley by this writer. (Yisrael HaYom)
* Hopefully in 15 seconds flat.
HUMOR THEM
Remember the UN’s complaint discussed in Column V that Israel had not given Gazans an Iron Dome system? Well now they have one!
See the video “Operation Gaza Dome” (Yisrael HaYom)
WHO SAYS ‘NOT EVERY DAY IS PURIM’?!
Among the businesses in the south looking to pick up some extra business from patriotic Israelis who want to patronize their establishments as a sign of solidarity is a boutique beer and ale brewer from moshav Dekel in the Western Negev named Yitzak Levi who apparently is either so smashed he “can’t differentiate between Haman and Mordechai”* or he hasn’t read a newspaper in over a year.
The brand name of his boutique beverage of choice?
I kid you not: ISIS Beer!** (Israel HaYom)
* In reference to Purim, the Talmud states that one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between "cursed is Haman" and "blessed is Mordechai.”
** For readers who also don’t read the papers, ISIS is English for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria…al-Dawlah al-Islāmīyah fī al-Irāq wa-al-Shām, also known by the Arabic acronym DAISH although Levi swears Isis is also the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess.