Beyond the Green Line

Israel

I was sitting in the cramped office of the youth movement in Euston the heart of London, though not many would describe it as such. I was 15 years old and being interviewed for a place on a leadership camp in America. The man interviewing me had made the same trip himself when he was my age and now at the grand old age of 17 he was sitting opposite me interviewing new candidates. “So why do you think we should choose you to go to America?” He asked. He had a light Mancunian accent and his black hair was parted down the centre, as was mine for it was the fashion at the time. I knew I couldn’t answer the question as soon as he asked it. I didn’t want to go to America. My 2 best friends were applying at the same time as me and it was already known that they were shoe-ins for the places but I had no interest. “I don’t want to go to America, I want to go to Israel.” My reply was somewhat unexpected. The America trip was for the hard core members of the movement whereas the Israel tour was something that was offered in order to pay lip service to the fact that all Jewish youth movements sent at least 1 group of kids out their for their 16^th summer.

He looked back at me through black eyes, “if you didn’t want to go on the America trip then why are you here?” I pondered the question for a moment unsure how to proceed. The truth was that I had come on this selection day because I knew that if I didn’t then I would be badgered to do so during numerous phone calls from various movement officials. After all how elite could a trip to America be if only 5 people applied for the 5 places that were available? It wasn’t my first lesson in the importance of appearances but it was one of the most enduring. I looked into the face of the National President of my youth movement and mumbled some kind of answer about wanting to try for a place anyway.

America was boring. America I had been to before. America was the land of Mickey Mouse and great milkshakes, America was a known entity. But what was Israel? Israel was an unknown, a land that had vague associations with religion, with Jews and with fighting. Israel was the land of the ‘other’ Jews. Jews who did the army, who didn’t wear suits and become lawyers or accountants and who lived under an eternal sun. Israel is where I chose to spend the summer that ended my 15^th year and began my 16^th.

My story starts here, it starts from the instant I stepped out of the door of the aeroplane and smelt the air and felt the sun on my face. I toured around the land fertilized by the blood of the Jewish warriors who had fallen before me. I saw Jews wandering around carrying guns and wearing the Star of David. I watched a Jew run for a bus, he was wearing a kippa on his head and the fringes of his TsitTsit were hanging from under his shirt. My instinct was to admire his bravery at exposing his Judaism so blatantly for all the world to see before understanding my error. To live in Israel was to live as a normal human being without labels and without fear.

The trip ended after a month and I resolved to return for a year once I had finished school.In that year I felt the army call to me. The idea of being a Paratrooper, wearing the red beret and following in the footsteps of the fighters who jumped into the Sinai desert in 1956 and those who stormed into Jerusalem in 1967. But first Manchester Metropolitan University beckoned with the promise of a BA in History.  

Israel

I was 15 years old and being interviewed for a place on a leadership camp in America. The ‘man’ interviewing me had made the same trip himself when he was my age and now at the grand old age of 17 he was sitting opposite me interviewing new candidates. “So why do you think we should choose you to go to America?” He asked. He had a light Mancunian accent and his black hair was parted down the centre, as was mine for it was the fashion at the time. I knew I couldn’t answer the question as soon as he asked it. I didn’t want to go to America. My 2 best friends were applying at the same time as me and it was already known that they were shoe-ins for the places but I had no interest. “I don’t want to go to America, I want to go to Israel.” My reply was somewhat unexpected. The America trip was for the hard core members of the movement, those who went ended up running the movement upon their return. The Israel tour was something that was offered in order to pay lip service to the fact that all Jewish youth movements sent at least 1 group of kids out there for their 16^th summer.

He looked back at me through black eyes, “if you didn’t want to go on the America trip then why are you here?” he asked. I pondered the question for a moment unsure how to proceed. The truth was that I had come on this selection day because I knew that if I hadn’t then I would have been badgered to do so via numerous phone calls from various movement officials. After all how elite could a trip to America be if only 5 people applied for the 5 places that were available? It wasn’t my first lesson in the importance of appearances but it was one of the most enduring. I looked into the face of the National President of my youth movement and mumbled some kind of answer about wanting to try for a place anyway.

For me America was boring. America I had been to before. America was the land of Mickey Mouse and great milkshakes, America was a known entity. But what was Israel? Israel was an unknown, a land that had vague associations with religion, with Jews and with fighting. Israel was the land of the ‘other’ Jews. Jews who did the army, who didn’t wear suits and become lawyers or accountants and who lived under an eternal sun. Israel was where I chose to spend the summer that ended my 15^th year and began my 16^th.

My story starts here, it starts from the instant I stepped out of the door of the aeroplane and smelt the air and felt the sun on my face. I toured around the land fertilized by the blood of the Jewish warriors who had fallen before me. I saw Jews wandering around carrying guns and wearing the Star of David. I watched a Jew run for a bus, he was wearing a kippa on his head and the fringes of his TsitTsit were hanging from under his shirt. My instinct was to admire his bravery at exposing his Judaism so blatantly for all the world to see before understanding my error. To live in Israel was to live as a normal human being, without labels and without fear.

The trip ended after a month and I resolved to return for a year once I had finished school. In that year I felt the Israeli Army call to me. The idea of being a Paratrooper, of wearing the red beret and following in the footsteps of the fighters who jumped into the Sinai desert in 1956 and those who stormed into Jerusalem in 1967 cried out. I imagined myself becoming a hero, a great, Jewish warrior, I imagined myself becoming something other than all those around me were destined to become. I felt the weight of a future that I didn’t want on my shoulders, the weight of expectation sat heavy and uncomfortable but it could wait. If I still wanted the red beret after 3 years of university then I would have more than enough proof that it wasn’t just a kid’s fantasy.

Manchester

The usual light drizzle fell contentedly on my black puffer jacket as I stood outside one of the many graduate fairs that were being put on for my graduating class. The brick wall I was leaning against belonged to (what was then) a brand new building called the Geoffrey Manton building. I never learned just who Geoffrey Mantern was in life, but the building that bears his name was a modern, orange brick and glass monstrosity, perfectly illustrating the desire of a Metropolitan University to be regarded as highly as the prestigious Manchester University located a mere 2 minutes’ walk down the road. Inside are hundreds of excited soon to be graduates pondering their futures. At that moment there were excited, chattering students being awestruck by the slick firms who have arrived to make their presentations to the next generation of cogs in a huge capitalist machine. Back then the big buzzwords were ‘management consultancy’ and they were very capable of doling out massive amounts of money to those willing to play the game by the rules. I watched a girl leave the building; she had curly black hair and was wearing woollen gloves and a thick jacket to protect her from the cold, grey Manchester weather. She was clutching a treasure trove of corporate bullshit under her arm while chatting to a friend on her large mobile phone.

I slouched there on this brand new wall of a brand new building, smoking a brand new cigarette trying to urge myself inside. I imagined row upon row of banks, management consultancies and other large corporate entities all selling their wares to the mediocre graduates of the mediocre Manchester Metropolitan university in an attempt to persuade them to try out for their mediocre graduate schemes that promised a life of middle class anonymity. All of them standing there with their best smiles on while handing prospectus after prospectus to bright eyed beaming students who were standing where the corporate employees themselves stood a mere year or two earlier.

They weren’t selling anything I was interested in. I was here at the urging of my mother who had heard from all of the other mothers that their own, graduate age, kids had been babbling about where to apply for the next stage of their lives. The next stage of a life that had for the past three years involved nothing more than waking up at four O’clock in the afternoon and getting stoned as soon as possible. My motivation to devote my life to the big businesses inside turned to ash as quickly as the Marlboro in my hand, if indeed it ever existed at all. I had thought perhaps that my dreams of Israel that had begun when I was a 15 year old away from home for the first time would have turned to smoke after 6 years of life experience, but they had not and I was glad that they hadn’t.

I threw my cigarette butt to the ground where it joined several others and headed for the Oxford road in the direction of my rented home in Fallowfield, the student area. I needed some time to think and the forty five minutes or so that it would take to get back there by foot would do nicely. For three years I had been dreaming about moving to Israel and joining the Israeli army. I knew exactly which unit I wanted to join and how many tests I would have to take in order to get there. My plan hadn’t changed since I was eighteen and perhaps even before that. In fact it had grown in sophistication. Sayeret Tzanhanim was the name of the unit I yearned after. It was the fabled reconnaissance unit of the IDF paratroopers. They had been involved in pretty much every high octane, super cool mission that had made print and I wanted in…badly!

But now the time had come to make it all happen or to let these nonsensical dreams die the death of all adolescent dreams. I had passed off my ambitions as a mere fantasy, an indulgence that could barely be made out through the haze of thick weed that I had smoked for the last 3 years. Now the time had come for a real decision, l knew that going to Israel wasn’t a logical choice, maybe it was running away from something I didn’t like about the UK, maybe it was an attempt to push away becoming a grown up for a few more years. Whatever the reason, the unshakable fact remained that the alternative of working in a corporate empire filled me with dread and the red beret of an Israeli paratrooper was calling me loud and clear.

For 3 years I had felt guilty that an Israeli my age was serving his country in uniform, that he was sitting somewhere in Lebanon killing and being killed for his people and I was sitting in a student flat getting alternatively drunk then stoned, then stoned and then drunk as well as occasionally turning up to lectures. There was the little pantomime of the Union of Jewish students fighting the political fight with their opposite Islamic number. The two organisations went head to head regularly, usually about Israel, or more specifically Zionism. They would argue at the yearly National Union of Students conference every year without fail, I was a part of it too…kind of. I went and I wore the UJS sweatshirt but the whole thing felt farcical. None of it really mattered, none of their arguments made any difference on the ground in Israel. I wanted to be a part of the action, a part of the unfolding story.

Being utterly honest Britain came a low second next to Israel. I hated living in the UK, I hated the BBC, hated the fact that I was a minority. I felt like an outcast in England. I hated walking to synagogue in my suit on a Saturday with thousands of unseen eyes peering at me, wondering who these odd people were. London just happened to be where I was born but Israel is where I belonged. I didn’t know or care whether all Jews should live in Israel, I knew that I should. In a world that didn’t give a shit about Jews Israel was the only place that cared, Israel was the light.

The British student officer training programme had been interesting enough for me to make a couple of inquiries from friends about it. What I heard had cemented my opinions about the British Army. I had never considered myself particularly patriotic and the thought of serving in the British Paratroopers had never filled me with anything other than dread. I wouldn’t have fit in with them, I was a Jew. The British Army was for your average white, Christian who loved drinking, rowing and rugby and who probably thought that Jews had horns on their heads. I declined to join the Officer Cadet School.

I continued on my way deep in thought as to my own future. Israel was calling me in a voice so loud I couldn't fail to hear and so feminine I couldn't fail to obey. I would answer, nothing else would do. A career beginning in Sayeret Tzanhanim and ending with me becoming Chief of Staff of the IDF was the way forward. During that 45 minute walk down the Oxford Road, through Manchester’s curry mile I allowed my hopes and dreams for the future to flow through me unsuppressed  To join the army was a real possibility, there were Israeli kids in the Paratroopers so why not me too? Once a paratrooper why not officer course? Once an officer why not a military career? Step by step I could see myself rising to the very top of the Israeli military establishment.

When it was broken down into little pieces it seemed possible, just so long as I didn’t think about the ultimate goal of becoming a world famous general on a par with Moshe Dayan and concentrated on the next step I could get anywhere I needed to. Step number 1 was to get myself out to Israel and become a citizen, step 2 to get into the army and every step afterwards could take care of itself. The dawn was upon me and the haze of university life had to clear itself away. University had been the only barrier between me and Israel and University was finished.

All I had to do now was tell my parents.

.

Rocket Launching Garbage Truck

UPDATE:
This pic is a fake, sorry everyone, there's a British military vehicle in the background on the right hand side, this is most likely from Iraq or Afganistan.

This pic is doing the rounds on Facebook and I thought I would upload it to the blog*.

There were lots of comments attacking the nature of this vehicle, it having been modified from a civilian purpose to a military one. Weapons platforms of this kind are the hallmark of the guerilla fighter and using this kind of technology shows a great deal of inventiveness on the part of the enemy which I can certainly respect. Inventiveness I can respect, other things less so.

For me the point is not the methodology of firing rockets but the point of firing them at all.

These rockets will bring the fury of the IDF down upon the vehicle and inevitably the area that is was fired from. Those shooting the rockets from this vehicle are aiming at nothing other than the general direction of Israel. Should the missiles they are firing happen to fall on some poor bastard or his family then that will be marked down as a big success by Hamas. Yet all it will mean is that once again Hamas have killed innocent people and brought the IDF down upon their own people. To what end?

With no objective in mind other than the eradication of Israel Hamas have doomed us all to a perpetual dance of death.

*NB I have note been able to verify the authenticity of this pic.

Beyond the Green Line

Ok basically I am getting nowhere writing my book so I have decided to divide up what I have written and publicise it as a series of posts here on Marc's Words. Perhaps the praise will encourage me to get on with the rest or the criticism will convince me to knock the whole thing on the head. The book is an auto-biographical account of my service in the IDF during the Second Intifada. (2002-4)

This is the first couple of pages:

FIRE IN ANGER

It was the flash of white light followed by an ear splitting boom that made me think I had been killed. That brilliant white light had utterly engulfed me, the noise had left a steady, high pitched whine in my ears. I couldn’t see anything through the thick cloud of dust that had been thrown up into the air. I thought of Forest, he had been smiling at me as if to say “Don’t worry”. A moment later the light had consumed him. Light from a nearby lamppost slowly filtered through the dust and smoke that had been so rudely thrust into the air around me. Slowly shadowy silhouettes of my friends appeared out of the gloom. One by one they shouted out their names followed by okay; “Knife ok, Snake ok, Bull ok”. Their voices pulled me out of the shock that had engulfed me. I ran my hands over my body, feeling for blood in the dark. 

When I didn’t find any injuries I patted myself down again, certain that I hadn't escaped unharmed. My attention was inevitably drawn to my left to look for Forest, my gaze set upon a shadowy figure, shouting; “Forest okay”. How could he possibly have been okay? I had watched him disappear. I chimed in with my own “Marc okay”, still not quite believing it. The Major stepped out of his Jeep and conferred with the two officers responsible for the teams under his command. Satisfied that everything was in fact okay he simply said, “Get moving we’re already behind schedule.” Apparently a booby trap blowing up in the middle of his men wasn’t a good enough reason to delay a mission, carrying on was the last thing I wanted to do but no one asked me for my opinion.

We moved forward no more than a few more meters before stopping once again. Adam, the officer of Team 1, was looking at an Improvised Explosive Device further into the alleyway. He threw a grenade at it but the explosion failed to detonate it, he threw another but was met with the same result. The Major ordered us all back to the vehicles for a rethink. No sooner had we entered the vehicle than I could hear his monotonous voice over the radio: “Team 2 are to join the observation team; Team 1 are to remain in their vehicles.” As an afterthought he ordered the first team’s driver to rev the engine to keep anyone watching on their toes.

With our orders received Druker put our armoured car into gear and turned it around. He drove several hundred meters to the building that an observation squad of 4 men had made their home for the night. Like a well oiled machine we broke out of the vehicle and climbed up flight after flight of stairs to join the observers on the roof. We arrived and greeted the guys who, ten minutes ago, had watched their friends disappear in a cloud of dust and smoke. I moved up behind my sergeant, Ofir, and greeted the commander of the observers who had set up his squad and optics in front of a window that had no glass. We were in the stairwell on the top floor, a steel door led out to the roof. Ofir pushed the door open and led us out into the night, leaving the observers in place. I followed him out there with Tom behind me and Druker behind him. Forest was the last man out and left the door open behind him.

We set ourselves up in the best firing conditions that we could find amongst the satellite dishes and assorted junk that had been left there. I could hear the engine of the armoured car beneath us. My view of the street we had been blown up on was obscured by a row of buildings in front and beneath me. I set up my position sweeping the rooftops below with my night scope. To my right I heard a babble of muted excitement coming from the observers; a moment later they were on the radio to Ofir telling him that they had spotted three armed men on the rooftop directly below us. They were overlooking the street that Team 1 would have moved down to had Adam not spotted the second mine and thrown grenades at it. The armed men lay prone on their rooftop hardly moving.

Ofir counted us down from three and all of us opened fire simultaneously. We had been told to fire only three rounds but we all ignored him and emptied entire magazines  into them. As we reloaded I could hear the observation crew going nuts: “You didn’t hit them all! Quick, quick open up on them again!” As one we finished reloading and let loose once again. I was surprised at what I was feeling while pulling the trigger.

I could have been on the shooting range for all of the emotion that I felt at that moment. The thoughts of the lives that I was taking didn’t register; there were no thoughts of ideology, not even excitement. I simply pulled the trigger, again and again and again until they were all dead. One of them had almost made it off the roof, but Druker cut him down as he touched the door to the stairwell. The whole thing had taken just a few seconds from our first volley to our last. The three bad guys lay dead on the roof that they had been lying on. They had planned their ambush well, from setting up the IED’s to positioning themselves on the roof overlooking the only alleyway that we would pass through on our way to our target.

We spent another hour on that roof directing the first team to the bodies. For an hour they moved into different homes in an attempt to reach them, but they just couldn’t find the right roof amongst the maze of alleyways and homes built one on top of the other. Eventually the call to prayer was broadcast over the PA system around the city. Soon it would be daybreak and the locals would be wandering around. The Major decided that three kills, even unconfirmed ones, were good enough for our first night back in Nablus. He called us down and we moved back into the vehicles for the drive back to base. I spent the journey back wondering what the hell was going to happen to the three corpses that we had left on that rooftop. 

Useful Mobile Phone Info

FOUR THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO !!!
There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. 
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. 
Check out the things that you can do with it: 

FIRST 
Emergency 

The Emergency Number worldwide for all Mobile Phones is 112. 
If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, 
dial 112 and your mobile will search any existing network in your areato establish the emergency 
number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. 
This works on all phones worldwide and is free. It is the equivalent of 000.

SECOND 
Have you locked your keys in the car? 

Does your car have remote keyless entry? 
This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: 
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call 
someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. 

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home 
press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. 
Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. 
Distance is no object. You could be thousands of miles away, and if you can reach someone 
who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). 
Editor's Note: 
I didn’t believe this when I heard about it! I rang my daughter in Sydney from Perth when we went on holiday. 
She had the spare car key. We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!' 

THIRD 
Hidden Battery Power 

To activate, press the keys *3370# (remember the asterisk). Do this when the phone is almost dead. 
Your mobile will restart in a special way with this new reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery life. 
This reserve will get re charged when you charge your mobile next time.
This secret is in the fine print in most phone manuals. 
Most people however skip this information without realising.

FOURTH 
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? 

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # 
Ensure you put an asterisk BEFORE the #06# sequence.
A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. 
Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. Ifyour phone ever get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. 
They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. 
You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. 
If everybody done this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones. 
This secret is also in the fine print of most mobile phone manuals. It was created for the very purpose of trying to prevent phones from being stolen. 

Also -ATM PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know !!

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. 
For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. 
The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. 
The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. 
All ATM’s carry this emergency sequencer by law.

This information was recently broadcast on by Crime Stoppers however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it. 

Please pass this along to everyone. 

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

How did we get here?

I'm searching hard to find the words to say.

A couple of moments ago I was sitting in my favourite Hummus place eating when the sirens went off. Everything and everyone simply stopped and looked up. The owner of the restaurant told everyone to leave the outside tables and stand inside but I wouldn't do it, couldn't do it, gotta show some kind of sign of I sat there sitting outside on my own listening to the sirens and waiting for them to stop. The boom, when it came was loud and nearby, a lot nearer than I thought it would be. Whatever, my Grandparents lived through the Blitz, I think I can manage this.

I have my papers, come Sunday I'll be all in green and carrying a rifle and I'll still be wondering why all of this is happening. The rockets flying out of Gaza don't do anything positive for Gazans, they bring the might of the IDF down onto Gaza killing and maiming everywhere. The damage that Hamas manages to cause to Israel doesn't help Hamas. So now I have to leave my comfortable life, my nice job and my friends, put on a uniform and go into harms way and for what? We've been here before.

In 2008 the IDF went into Gaza to create a safer environment for Israeli citizens living in the South. The operation was condemned throughout the world but it was reasonably effective...for a while. Now we're in an even worse place than before, now Hamas rockets are reaching Tel Aviv and the government has been backed into a corner, now we HAVE to mount a ground operation. Who does this operation serve? Gazans are going to get killed and have their homes torn apart, we're going to lose soldiers and I know that once we have withdrawn the heads of Hamas are going to come out from their little rabbit holes with their fists held high in the air and declare a victory. Israel will have a month or so of calm before missile and rocket attacks start slowly building up all over again.

The pointlessness of the situation, the sheer lack of any logical reasoning behind it is enough to make you cry.

Instead of concentrating on building up Gaza Hamas have concentrated on attacking Israel and for that they're going to pay. Hamas are bringing our wrath down upon them, they are bringing destruction down upon themselves and their own people and they're doing it for nothing.