The Fight (the story part1)

She points to him, arm outstretched, face red with rage, her curls blow carelessly across her face and she strikes him as being Lady Macbeth incarnate. The man she is pointing at is me and the man for whose benefit she is pointing is someone i have never seen before. He is a big man, certainly bigger than me. His cropped hair and expensive looking suit jacket emphasise the fact that this is a fashionable young anglo fresh to the Holy Land. He also looks fit and powerfully built, he stands at six feet tall and appears determined to play the part of the man, Macbeth himself as he barrels through the crowd of people who have followed her finger all the way along its accusatory path and have arrived at me. I, it appears, am cast in the role of Duncan and stand riveted to the spot awaiting my death at the hands of Lady Macbeth's assassin.

He arrives at the spot in front of me, the spot that was recently filled by a pretty brunette that i had been speaking to, and lays a hand on my shoulder, he squeezes gently." Do you know that girl?" There is an attempt at menace coming from his clenched teeth, though too many years at a British public school have pretty much ensured that this man will never be able to menace anyone once he opens his mouth. The reply is predictable and flows from my tongue easily "Get your fucking hand off my shoulder!" My voice is unrecognisable to its master even as i feel my mouth and tongue move in unison to create the words. The anger present is intoxicating and has subdued the alcohol flowing through my system alongside the now all powerful adrenaline that has already taken the decision as to what i am going to do next.

My voice is a quiet rasp and is barely audible even to myself though Macbeth hears it. He takes a look at his friends with a smile on his face as he contemplates and then shrugs off any potential consequences that may ensue from ignoring my warning. He gets as far as opening his mouth to speak before the adrenaline takes control of my body. My overweight five feet five inches responds to the commands issued by the brain. My left arm comes up and over his right removing his right hand from my shoulder and safely securing it inside my armpit, simultaneously my right hand engulfs Macbeth's face with my two strongest fingers entering each eye socket, the rest of my hand is spread evenly around the rest of the face and somewhat resembles the impregnating alien from the film of the same name.

My body has twisted once i have a grip of him and, keeping his right arm pinned in my armpit i twist my body to the left forcing him to lose his balance, yet with my hand on his face i control where he lands and am kneeling on top of him as he does so. He seems to forget that his punching hand is trapped as i feel him attempt to use it but it is too late as my own right hand has left his face to form a fist which i am using to repeatedly punch him in the face with.

On the second punch i feel the bones in the nose break, then there is a third and a fourth and a fifth. There would have been a sixth and most likely a seventh had there not been a scream from directly behind me. I stop pummelling him and look down at the bloody mass that was once a face. I make the mistake of looking up and seeing a mass of horrified nay terrified party goers, this Duncan rather appears to have rewritten the play.

My eyes unwittingly search out the real villain of the story but Lady Macbeth is out of sight, she will probably resurface with some tale of woe once it is safe to do so, however at this point in time i decide that it is probably time to leave. I get myself up an roughly push through the crowd, certain that at any moment a bottle is going to break itself on the back of my head. Nothing happens and i safely make it to the door of the rooftop on which the party was taking place before i so rudely put a stop to it. Worried nevertheless, i grab an empty bottle of beer on the way out just in case.

I run down the stairs to the exit, two at a time, three at a time an entire staircase at a time, the adrenaline forces me ever further, ever faster, eventually i hit the bottom of the fashionable apartment block on the northernmost point of Rehov Dizengoff. I start to run. I run down the street, I fly down the street thinking of the hundred calls that were being made to the police the instant the snobs at the party recovered from the shock of seeing a man beaten to a pulp by another half his size. I fly past Dizengoff and Ben Gurion noting the shuttered sandwich kiosk to my left as i do so. I run on past the steimatsky to my right and i keep running, darting across side roads without waiting for traffic lights and diving through knots of party goers on their way to or from the evenings entertainment.

I run until i reach the fountain at the top of dizengoff, the one that offers opportunities for escape in all directions. I stop for a moment to gather my thoughts. There are no police sirens within earshot and the adrenaline begins to fade from my body. I look down at my hands, at my clothes, there is blood on my fist, it is mine from where the skin has been broken by Macbeth's teeth. I look at my blue shirt which is covered with blood from Macbeth, my light beige chinos are also covered with splatter from my would be assassin.

the usual group of punks have assembled themselves at the fountain to get drunk and participate in their usual antisocial nonsense. They begin to take an interest in the bloodstained Englishman standing in the centre of their domain. A burst of speed and the Englishman is gone down a sidestreet, running past a post office and into streets with nothing but rows of shitty bouhaus architecture.

I wander around to the back of one of the building blocks and slump against the rear wall, i ask myself what on earth happened? Surveying the blood on my clothes and for the first time feeling the pain in my right hand the implications of my actions hit me. Waves of nausea almost induce vomiting but it is the regret that hurts the most, the regret that sends hot tears burning their way down my face. Making me ask myself how it could be that less than a minute's worth of actions have irrevocably altered the course of my life.

Still crying for Macbeth, or for myself or for the brunette whose shocked eyes haunted my memory i rose from my slump and walked home to await the consequences of my actions.

The Anglo Party

Today i am reeling from the ill effects of the hugest drinking session since my semi triumphant return to Holy Land which, somehow, coincided with my first serious glimpse at the lives of that strange community of people here in Tel Aviv, the Anglos!

A strange bunch they are, a hodge podge of people who have nothing at all in common with one another save for the fact that they have chosen to make Tel Aviv their home and that had they met each other in their native lands they would never have taken the time or the effort to strike up a conversation.

Somehow they manage to pool their efforts at socialising and have formed a snotty little clique of their own here in the centre of the city where they can all wax lyrical about what they hate about Israel and Israelis, sure in the knowledge that at some point soon they are going to jack in their unsatisfactory lives here and return to their unsatisfactory lives in their English speaking country of origin.

Last night was just such a soiree where i had the honour of discovering a bottle of cheap whiskey which went down smooth and allowed me to survive being in such an environment. The fake smiles and irrelevent conversation were in full effect when someone i remember from "back home" came up to me and said "ah yes the last time i met you was on the beach six years ago" i smile and nod while all the time thinking "no you dumb shit the FIRST time you met me was on the beach six years ago, we have met literally hundreds of times since then at various other, incredibly boring social events just like this one.

I don't disavow him of his illusions but instead smile and nod my head attempting to engage in the modicum of small talk that hums all around me. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do so as the amount whiskey in the bottle lessens, yet somehow the party appears less distressing the more of the caramel coloured liquid i consume.

I hear a posh English accent telling tales of his posh private school days in the background and wonder how on earth this party holds any appeal for anyone right up until the point that i remember that no one there, myself included, has anything better to be doing on this balmy March evening.

Bottle finished i head off with the people i arrived with and polish off a boreka before leaving them to head home while i search for another bar and another drink, both of which i find. At this point my memory becomes a little hazy and i may even have passed out on the street somewhere before arriving back to bed having vomited the contents of the bottle onto a street corner.

I have been raped!!

Absolutely violated! Raped is the only word to describe it, not arse fucked but soul raped!

Allow me to explain, in this fair country in order to work at a marketing company it would appear to be standard policy to go through a polygraph test. Wired up to the hilt and sweating bullets i sat there rigged up as though ready to explode absolutely positive that somehow this was a test i was absolutely going to fail!

Lets put to one side for a moment the utter absurdity of having to take a polygraph in order to work at a marketing company and concentrate on the test itself. I went to an office in the middle of nowhere and presented myself to the secretary.

I was presented with a questionnaire with the following:

1. Have you ever tried illegal drugs? please describe here...

2. Have you ever had psychiatric treatment? please elaborate here...

3. Were you sent to take the job by a criminal organisation?

4. Have you ever been part of a criminal conspiracy against an employer?

5. Have you ever stolen anything from a previous workplace?

6. Have you ever confided information about a previous employer to someone outside the company?

7. Are you involved in illegal gambling?

Oh dear, well here is what i wrote:

1. Indeed i have tried them and after having tried them and realised how much i liked them i carried on using them.

2. Yes i refer you to my above answer

3. No but it's always been my dream to work for one

4. No but again that sounds like a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

5. No but not because i didn't plan to

6. Yes but no but yes but no but there was this one time...

7. well that kind of depends on what you mean by illegal and what you mean by gambling

My answers made their way to the guy conducting the test where he painfully went through them one by one with me. At which point the reason for a polygraph became painfully apparent to me. The notoriously unreliable polygraph test is not admissible in any Western court room because it is not accepted as reliable by any Western scientist who is concerned about his reputation.

However in the interview beforehand, when informed that the company are only running the test to find out if i am an honest person and the answers themselves are barely relevent i began to gush.

I smoked weed for nine years then i stopped but i had a momentary relapse a couple of months ago, is that ok sir?

yes i have been to see a shrink loads of times, yes i was on anti depressents, yes i went to see a child psychiatrist when i was seven, guilty, guilty, guilty!!

illegal gambling? yes all the time i am always playing poker, do u want the addresses names contact details anything anything you want sir, please just don't let the dreaded machine get me!!

By the time i was actually connected to the polygraph i was spent, devoid of anything, yet still furiously wondering whether i had in fact been part of a secret conspiracy against my old boss, perhaps i had and hadn't known, perhaps the fact i am worrying about it will make it look like i am lying when i say no!!

In short here people the lesson learned here is not that the polygraph itself is an effective tool but that it is the pressure that the polygraph puts on you that is important! The effectiveness of it is all in the interview beforehand, that little carrot that says, tell me everything now and you have nothing to worry about from the polygraph.

Anyway, despite being soul raped i got the job, so i suppose it really doesn't matter now does it?

Enough is Enough

If Mr nice guy ever existed on the pages of this blog he's dead now and good riddance! I've just spent the better part of a month listening to self important wankers telling me, at length, just how important they and their little, badly funded, mismanaged little think tanks are.

They call Tel Aviv and its environs "The Bubble", in the bubble no one notices what is going on outside, we're all happily living in blissful ignorance of the state of affairs outside, as if the government and politics of this country don't exist. Well I say Tel Aviv isn't the bubble, outside of Tel Aviv is the fucking bubble! All these suit wearing briefcase carrying little fuckers who speak big words and write reports about policy and potential problems and courses of action are the ones living in the dream world! To pretend this country has a policy on anything is in itself a sick joke, with the mouth speaking the words of peace and with the fist punching the actions of war.

I'm done with caring about lateral talks, bilateral talks, proximity talks, regional peace conferences, what nonsense it all is! Nothing is going to change in the Middle East, this is what the people in the bubble have learned, voting is pointless, involvement in political activity is pointless and belief in the political system is misplaced. With a 4% benchmark needed for a party to get elected to the Knesset I could be in there at the next election just by hanging around outside a voting booth and canvassing idiots to vote for my pointless party instead of one of the other pointless ones.

From now on i'm not going to blog about politics, war or peace processes, instead I am going to talk about sex and drugs and corporate life. I am going into the world of the corporations and out of this research nonsense. My God the middle east is so fucking simple anyone could understand it! Israel withdraws from the West Bank, there is a Palestinian State established alongside Israel, done, finished, it only becomes complicated when one tries to explain how it is that an Israeli government stands in the way of this happening. How can we not have a Palestine? How can we not see this state created?

We have to have this state in order that we, as a Jewish State, can fucking survive! What is the alternative? Are we just going to occupy Palestinians until the end of time? Are we going to ensure that so many people move into the West Bank that a Palestinian State is no longer a viable option? If we did that then what we do? Would we give all Palestinians equal citizenship in the State of Israel? Of course not, in order to maintain Israel as a Jewish State there's no way that we could integrate the Palestinians, so what are we going to do? What's our master plan?

There's not a strategy in sight, not an idea in progress and the Likud, who were elected on promises of nothing but stagnation and entropy are running the show, the irony is that these guys have killed less people than the previous government who promised nothing but peace! We're going nowhere fast here people, on a boat ride to a bad place and I, like everyone else have reserved myself a seat, I am going along for the ride and am part of the very same hypocrisy that I am at this moment blogging against,

I chose to be here, no idea why but here I am talking crap to the millions of people who are never going to read these words, it's 0610 in the morning and it looks like it's going to be another beautiful day in Tel Aviv

What is all this Israel de-legitimisation nonsense anyhow

De-legitimisation is a real buzzword around Jerusalem right now. Demonstrations even riots outside Israeli embassies in Europe and the threat of arrest for Israeli politicians and high ranking soldiers should they travel to London or Madrid have diplomats and politicians in a frenzy looking for a suitable response.

At the heart of the debate here in Israel lies a report brought out by the Reut Institute a group concerned not so much with providing answers but with alerting the Israeli establishment to National Security problems that may have slipped under their radar. The report defines the ideology behind Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the groups that promote it as well as making some suggestions to counter what they term as “this existential threat”.

The bones of this argument are that the various groups engaged in BDS around the world have a loosely coordinated strategy to brand Israel as an illegitimate state and therefore a pariah amongst the nations of the world which would then, presumably, force Israel to agree to Palestinian demands on several fronts and essentially remove Israel as a Jewish State from the map. This, Reut argue, is in fact a threat to the national security of Israel and should be treated as such by the Israeli government.

Although I do agree that the hardcore ideologues of the BDS movement are opposed to the State of Israel per se and therefore would continue to campaign against Israel even in the wake of a two state solution becoming a reality, I very much doubt that they would maintain the same momentum or popularity that they currently enjoy.

In point of fact I would go so far as to say that calling BDS a threat to Israeli national security is to miss the point entirely. Unfortunately what tends to happen over here is that the first whiff of criticism tends to send people running to the bunker, grabbing a gun and looking for the enemy. Rather than attacking those who are attacking us perhaps it is worth taking a moment to be introspective and looking at why it is that people are starting to listen to groups whose actual ideologies they are largely ignorant of and whose affiliations to Hamas and/or Hezbollah are viewed as a positive element.

The lack of any kind of progress towards peace between Israeli and Palestinian representatives since Tabah in 2001 is enough to frustrate anyone looking to see an end to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. It's natural that those who want to see Palestinians living free of Israeli control are going to move towards hardcore groups who criticise Israel at every opportunity for their continued occupation, settlement building and military operations.

Declaring the cave of the patriarchs (in Hebron) and Rachels' Tomb (in Bethlehem) to be Israeli National Heritage sites is the most recent example of, at best, a lack of sensitivity from the Israeli government towards Palestinians living under Israeli control and at worst outright incitement to the Palestinians living in these cities. The reason for declaring these sites as National Heritage sites is clearly to send the message that Israel is not planning to withdraw from these places, thereby throwing a large bone to the Israeli right wing and guaranteeing Netanyahu's position in the Knesset. These actions fuel the fire that is the BDS campaign.

One point that the Reut Institute makes is worth quoting here:

“Obviously, criticism of Israeli policy, even if harsh or unfair, is legitimate as long as it does not amount to demonisation and de-legitimacy, and does not suffer from the blatant deployment of double-standards. Often, Israeli government policy fails to differentiate between critics and de-legitimizers, and thus, pushes the former into the arms of the latter.”

If Israel wishes to win the battle against the BDS campaign, Israeli politicians and mandarins are going to have to realise that this is a battle that is not fought and won by the Foreign Ministry but by the Interior Ministry. The argument is over Israeli 'domestic' policy and there needs to be the understanding that there is no positive spin that can be put on occupying Palestinians for over 40 years nor on killing 1500 people, as during Cast Lead. These are the things that lead fair minded people to join the BDS campaigns not their actual ideologies.

BDS itself is not the national security threat but the symptom of the sickness which is the lack of any kind of movement towards a Palestinian State. Were there a serious peace process embarked upon by the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority the BDS campaign, such as it is, would lose its momentum. Were a peace deal signed by the two sides today the campaign would find itself irrelevant,overtaken by events.

To avoid the argument that perhaps those who are campaigning against Israel may be making a valid point in their anger against Israel is to make a mistake. Groups such as the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre aren't wrong and they certainly aren't lying when they bring out reports such as this one detailing the success of Hamas in the UK but they are also missing the point. People who are campaigning against Israel only identify with Hamas in as much as they (wrongly) have been pushed towards them by continued Israeli intransigence and a refusal to admit that so many people have taken positions against Israel not because they have fallen under the spell of the representatives of our enemies but because they are sick and tired of the fact that we are still occupying Palestinian territory and aren't even appearing to be searching for a solution.