A couple of nights ago, the brilliant actor/comedian Tal Friedman appeared for an interview on London and Kirschenbaum, a nightly television current affairs show, to promote his latest film - The Schwartz Dynasty (Shoshelet Schwartz). Friedman plays a religious West Bank settler in the film, and during the interview he described how he prepared for the role, by dressing in the common "uniform" of a settler - a knitted skullcap, sandals, ritual fringes hanging out of an untucked shirt, and a pistol in his belt. Thus attired, he wandered the streets of largely secular, middle-of-the-road towns in central Israel.

He said that he was amazed at the negative responses. On one occasion, in Rishon LeZion, a middle class town about 20 minutes' drive from Tel Aviv, he was cursed by a shopkeeper and told he was destroying the country. Friedman said that he had several similar experiences, and that he started to feel like a despised minority in his own country - simply because of the way he was dressed.

So now, he said in his impish and inimitable style, whenever I see someone dressed in orange,* I smile at him. Who knows? He might be a nice person.



*The colour adopted by the anti-disengagement movement

My friend Ilan doesn't really believe that it's possible to separate the personal and the political. Once, when we were seated together at a wedding reception, he refused to drink wine from a vineyard in the Golan Heights. "No, thank you," he said cheerfully to the waiter, "I don't drink wine from the occupied territories."

I told him that he could have stopped with "No, thank you."

But Ilan's attitude to politics is relatively rare in Tel Aviv - even these days, with news of the disengagement taking up so much newsprint and broadcast time.

When I accompanied an American reporter on a tour of Tel Aviv's nightlife last week, he kept asking people - on the street, at various bars - whether they discussed politics (no); and he kept asking me why so few drivers were flying orange or blue ribbons from their car antennae.* Mostly, people seemed perplexed by the nature of the journalist's questions. When he told the owner of a well-known cocktail bar that he had recently visited the West Bank settlement of Sa-Nur (soon to be evacuated), the bar owner said, "Sa who?"

After we'd left the cocktail bar and spent some time talking to various people on Lilienblum Street, which is a very happening scene, I took the journalist to Evita, a popular gay bar. There we met a couple of American guys who told the journalist that they felt more comfortable being gay in Tel Aviv than in New York. Later we went on to a nearby lesbian bar, which was still doing brisk business at 3.30 in the morning.

As we were preparing to end our night out, at around 5.30 in the morning, I said to the American journalist, "See, isn't it nice to meet real people instead of all those extremists you've been interviewing over the past few weeks? This is the real Israel."

The journalist looked at me kindly and said, "My friend, you're swimming in a deep Egyptian river."


*Orange ribbons are anti-disengagement; blue ribbons are pro-disengagement.

Fun for kids (and overgrown kids) in Tel Aviv, summer 2005.

Fun for kids in Jerusalem, summer 2005.

I took the second photograph around 8.30 AM, just outside the central bus station in Jerusalem. Groups of teenage girls had gathered to spend the day handing out orange ribbons* and little flyers printed in colour on glossy paper. Written on one of the flyers was the following: "Border police! Can you live with this on your conscience? Can you drag your fellow Jews out of their homes, and give them to the same people who murdered Tali Hatuel and her children?"

The flyer went on to advise soldiers who wished to refuse orders of their legal rights.

One of the girls confronted me and asked aggressively which newspaper I worked for. I asked her why it mattered, and she had no answer.

Later in the day I was in a taxi driven by a guy named Mustafa, who was flying a blue (pro-disengagement) ribbon from his antenna. When questioned about this political statement, he smiled cynically, opened the little storage box between the two front seats, and produced an orange ribbon.

"I change them, depending on the neighbourhood," he explained.

*Orange is the colour of the anti-disengagement movement.

At the scene of this evening's terrorist attack in Netanya, the Channel 10 reporter asked a high-ranking police officer a question: If there is a wave of terrorist attacks this summer, will the police have enough officers to deal with that, in addition to the anti-disengagement protestors and the disengagement itself?

To which the police officer replied, emphatically: No way.

Once, I visited Varanasi in August. (Don't do that). Daytime temperatures were around 45 Celsius, humidity was above 90 percent, and the only difference between day and night was the absence of sunlight. My guesthouse didn't have air conditioning, and the water from the cold tap flowed hot - no matter how long I left it open. The motor rickshaw drivers wrapped tea towels around the steering wheels to keep their hands from slipping, and the little towel I used to wipe my face went mildew-y after lying in my bag for a single day.

So when there's a heat wave in Tel Aviv, as there is now, and temperatures hover around 40 with a humidex of 80, I keep on telling myself: "You've been hotter."

On the plus side, my laundry dries really quickly.

I took this photo at the taxi stand on Balfour Street where it meets Rothschild Boulevard - just around the corner from my apartment in Tel Aviv. The sticker on the left says, "A Jew doesn't deport a Jew"; the one on the right says, "We must leave Gaza. IMMEDIATELY!"










This is a plate of hummus. Hummus is apolitical.

"I've got interviews lined up tomorrow with some top Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in Ramallah," Gal told me over the phone. "Do you want to come?" Yes, he said in response to my questions, I could sit in on the interviews and ask my own questions.

So who are these officials? I asked.

I'm not saying, he answered teasingly. But they're very high up. You'll be happy.

There was just one problem: My press card hadn't been processed, and my Canadian passport had expired. The IDF does not allow private Israeli citizens to enter Area A (controlled and administered by the PA), which includes Ramallah. But I really, really wanted to go - so I started making phone calls. I called the army spokesman's office, the civilian issues office and the Government Press Office, and they all said "no way." Nobody was impressed by my lovely Canadian manners or my earnest pleading. No. No. No. No exceptions.

Entering Ramallah is no problem. You just walk through a tall, squeaking, multi-arm turnstile; no-one checks ID cards going in - just going out. So Gal couldn't understand why I was making such a big deal out of getting permission. His unspoken attitude was, basically, let's just go and we'll worry about your not having a press pass when we leave. After all, what could possibly happen? The IDF wasn't likely to keep me a prisoner in Ramallah, right?

Well, no. But I had a reason to worry a little. The thing is, I went to Ramallah, alone, a couple of weeks ago. One of the journalists I'd met in Amman picked me up on the other side of the checkpoint in her adorable little Audi sportscar, took me out for lunch and a tour of the town, and then drove me back to the checkpoint. And that's when I got into a bit of a situation.

The young Israeli woman soldier who checked my ID card took one look at my address, stared up at me from under her oversized helmet, upon which she'd doodled with a black marker, and said, in an incredulous tone, "You're from Tel Aviv? What are you doing here?"

Playing it cool, I said, "I just went to have lunch with a friend. She's a journalist based in Ramallah and we know each other professionally."

This young woman soldier may have been half a head shorter than me and barely out of her teens, but she had, as my mother would say, "A mouth on her."

"Liar!" she said. "You're one of those Tel Aviv leftists. You probably go into Area A all the time, to do God knows what. You know it's illegal to go there. Did you know that I could call the police now, that they could arrest you and make you pay a 5,000 shekel fine? What, are you going to go out to Dome (a Tel Aviv disco) tonight to dance with all the homos?"

Ding, ding, ding! See Lisa's fuses light up?

A white-haired soldier who looked far too old to be doing reserve duty intervened before Corporal Mouth and I could get into a hissing match. He gave me a fatherly lecture about all this being for my own good. I listened patiently until he'd finished; I could see that he was a nice man doing a really shitty job, and he meant well - and besides, I wasn't so stupid as to make an issue out of the woman soldier's totally unacceptable behaviour when my position wasn't exactly solid. And that was it. I took a mini-van taxi back to Jerusalem and went home to Tel Aviv.

But I didn't want to risk another run-in with the same soldier; I knew she wouldn't have forgotten our encounter that quickly, which meant that she'd have it in for me. So in the end I called Gal and told him, regretfully, that I wouldn't be able to accompany him to Ramallah the following day.

Less than 10 minutes after I spoke with Gal, my mobile rang.

"LEE-sa," said a familiar voice, "Keef?*"

It was "Youssef," another Palestinian journalist I'd met in Amman.

We exchanged happy greetings, and then Youssef came to the point of his call. Listen, he said in a humorous tone, I heard you want to come visit me but you can't get permission. Write down this mobile number for Captain X (an IDF officer). Call him, use my name and he'll sort everything out. See you tomorrow.

Which is how Gal and I ended up having lunch with Youssef and a few other "Amman veterans" at a restaurant in downtown Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon.

The PA officials Gal had arranged to interview were, as he'd promised, very senior. We sat in well-appointed offices, drank the sweet tea that was served on a tray, and I finally got to ask some of the questions I'd been wishing I could ask Palestinian officials since the beginning of the intifada.

The second interview was conducted in Hebrew, Arabic and English. The minister spoke Arabic with Gal, while one of his aides translated into Hebrew for me. I took notes in English and Hebrew. But Gal's spoken Arabic is not fluent, so occasionally he would ask for a clarification in Hebrew. And when the Hebrew speaking aide left the room for a few minutes, I asked some questions in English - speaking slowly and clearly because the minister's grasp of the language was pretty sketchy. Everyone chain smoked, the windows were closed because the air-conditioning was on and pretty soon we were enveloped by a revolting gray cloud of cigarette smoke. Every so often, a young man would enter carrying a tray of freshly-brewed sweet tea, served in small glasses.

After the interview was over, I pulled out my camera and did the photo op thing. Then the aide insisted on accompanying us downstairs and inviting us for a cold drink in a little cafe. He wouldn't leave us alone until Youssef arrived to take us for lunch, and he wouldn't let us pay. We drank a refreshing bottled yogurt drink and chatted while "Hotel California" played on the stereo in the background.

How did you learn Hebrew? I asked the aide.

Oh, he said, I spent 10 years in Israeli jails. I was arrested when I was a student because I'd joined Fatah, and when I got to jail I taught myself Hebrew from a book called "Elef Milim" (A Thousand Words). You know "Elef Milim"? It's an Israeli textbook. They use it to teach Hebrew to new immigrants.

*"How are you" in Palestinian dialect.

A strange spike in traffic at "on the face" was traced to this article on the Hebrew daily Ma'ariv's Web site.

I'll avoid the blow-by-blow translation, since it's late and I'm far too lazy, and just give you the general idea. It seems that last month a columnist for Ma'ariv wrote an article complaining that there are no good Israeli blogs, the kind that discuss politics and society instead of "pee pee and kaki." In response, Hanan Cohen wrote the piece I linked to. According to Cohen, the best Israeli blogs are written in English. True, he admits, it's not so easy for Hebrew speakers to read in English, but "Anglo Saxon" blogs frequently offer "surprises and wisdom." He explains that all of the bloggers have blogrolls, so it's easy to click through to lots more surprising and wise Anglo-Israeli writers.

The blogs specifically mentioned - and summarized - in the article are:

Moi (duh) (Quote: "I'm not sure what she does for a living, but she seems to move around this area a lot so maybe she's a journalist.")

Dutchblog Israel (Quote: "Writes in English and Dutch. It seems that most of his readers are Dutch, and he feels the need to explain 'what's going on here' to them.")

Balagan (Quote: "A week ago she got stopped at the Knesset, where she works, because she was wearing orange shoes. The security guards thought she was making an anti-disengagement statement. She is pro-disengagement.")

The View From Here (Quote: "Harry and Ziva are a young couple who live in Modi'in. They have a sense of humour, and they have a weekly podcast!")

Orthodox Anarchist (Quote: "Ever heard of an Orthodox anarchist? There's one living in Jerusalem, and based on his blog he's a super cool dude.")

Ari Lives in Israel (Quote: "A leftist asshole. (the kind I like).")

Five Years Later (Quote: "She shares very personal feelings that make me...feel alternately like a participant and a voyeur.")

Israelity (Quote: "A group blog that describes life in Israel and tries to avoid politics. Lovely writing.")

I have to admit, I'm pretty chuffed.

So I was up at the Government Press Office (GPO) in Jerusalem, filling in the necessary paperwork for my press card. While I was there, a young European journalist walked in and said she wanted to write an article about the international media's coverage of the disengagement. You've heard of the play within the play? Well, this is the story within the story.


It's not a bad idea, actually: I'm starting to think that the disengagement is going to be the most over-exposed and badly reported story in the history of modern media. Do you have any idea, dear readers, how many photographers and journalists are going to be here? No? Okay, I'll tell you: The conservative estimate is that there will be 3,000 photographers, and perhaps twice as many television and newspaper reporters. In case you didn't know, there are only 8,000 Israelis living in Gush Katif. Hmmm, that's more than one reporter per Gush Katif resident. Do you think those numbers will allow for in-depth reporting?

Don't count on it.

Because here's the best part: Most of the journalists are planning to arrive after August 1, and quite a few are going to arrive on August 15. The evacuation is scheduled to begin on August 16. Which means that they will have neither time nor opportunity to learn anything about the situation here.

They won't have time to make connections with Israeli journalists, either, and that will definitely be a problem. Because soldiers and border police are always nicer to Israeli journalists. They let them into areas that are supposed to be, um, sort of closed; they give them insider's information about good stories; and they allow them better access in general. When there's a pushing, shoving, heaving crowd, you want to be able to yell out in Hebrew to the officer in charge of the mess, "Rafi! Hey, what's up man? Long time no see... Listen, can you help me get in?" And yes, Rafi will help his fellow countryman - even if they have very different political opinions.

But if you're an unknown foreign journalist who doesn't speak Hebrew, Rafi will probably ignore you. Unless, of course, the Israeli journalist says to Rafi, "No, it's cool. He's with me, man."

The disengagement is starting to pummel The Bubble. Today a bunch of us regulars were sitting around the bar at my local cafe, Ginzburg, when suddenly Itai's* girlfriend called out, over the head of one guy who was typing on his laptop and another who had his head buried in a newspaper, "Lisa! How many more days until the disengagement?"

I looked up from my newspaper and said, "Um, 42 I think. It's supposed to start on August 16. Why?"

In response, she pointed to Itai. He had a call-up notice for extra army reserve duty in mid-August open in front of him, and he was busy talking to "the authorities" on his mobile phone, trying to find out more details. After he'd ended his conversation I asked him where he was being posted. In a bewildered tone, he said "East Jerusalem, for three weeks. Checkpoints and shit. I've never done checkpoints before. I did my regular service in an artillery unit."

He asked me what the checkpoints were like, and I just looked at him sympathetically. Not fun, I said. Long shifts, not much shelter from the sun, plenty of uncomfortable situations.

It seems that the Border Police who usually staff the checkpoints in East Jerusalem are being sent to Gaza for the disengagement, and that they're going to be replaced by reserve soldiers.

Itai is an actor whose last paying job was a small role in a TV advertisement for El Al. He's a bearded "struggling artist" type, a typical Tel Aviv bohemian, who doesn't let his dimunitive size stop him from flirting with practically every girl he sees. His girlfriend is a super-cool woman who has plenty of natural self-confidence; she just grins when Itai directs his ironic bedroom eyes at someone other than her. I can't quite picture him checking ID cards and looking for "suspicious objects." Actually, I can't picture him in an artillery unit either.

It turned out that Itai wouldn't be able to get out of his extra reserve duty.

It also turned out that the guy sitting next to me had been called up, too. He's a theatre lighting technician who did his regular service as an army photographer, and he's being sent to Gush Katif for 55 days - to document the withdrawal.

We said that we'd probably see each other in "the Gush" in August. I warned him not to eat at the shawarma joint in Neve Dekalim. (don't ask).

Later an Israeli photojournalist friend told me about this family he'd met in the area of Northern Samaria that's also being evacuated. The family consisted of octogenarian grandparents who barely speak Hebrew, their divorced middle-aged daughter - who supports the whole family - and her son, who's doing his regular army service. They originally moved to the West Bank for economic reasons. Now they're leaving their little house with the garden and moving to nearby Afula, to a small apartment in a not-so-great neighbourhood. It's all they can afford; their compensation is about $125,000, and you can't buy a whole lot with that - not even in Afula. My friend said the daughter was at work when he visited, and the grandparents were sitting there surrounded by boxes, looking as if they didn't know what had hit them.

I've been told - but haven't verified - that Gush Katif residents will receive substantially higher compensation than Northern Samaria residents. Hebrew speakers who are curious to find out how much they'd get if they were being evacauted from the Gush can plug their numbers into this government form and receive the answer instantly. My friend Ilan (he with the PhD in pure mathematics) lives with his wife and two small children in a 90 metre square apartment in central Tel Aviv; if the apartment were in Gush Katif, he'd get about $225,000 in compensation. Not a lot, to be sure, but enough for a reasonably nice place in a moshav or a small town that's outside of central Israel.

But there are other factors that can't be quantified, of course: like uprooting your children from their schools and leaving your community, a place where you didn't lock the doors and could trust your neighbours to watch the kids when you were late coming home from work.

Last week another Israeli journalist friend (Hi, A.) had his car windows smashed by some Jewish extremists. My friend was covering the IDF's evacuation of the extremists from the Maoz Yam outpost in which they'd taken up illegal residence. As those of you who followed this story know, the evacuation became rather, um, violent.

Meanwhile, hundred of foreign journalists are pouring into the country and rushing off to cover the story in Gush Katif. Based on the questions I've been asked and the stories I've heard, I'd say that the news from the Middle East this summer is going to be more live theatre than factual reporting. With a lot of these guys, it's not "take me to your leader" but "take me to your extremists."

All this is my way of saying the following: The situation is heating up here; it's not pleasant; it's very complex; as usual, the people with the least power are paying the highest price; and I really wish this painful enterprise had been planned and executed in a more organized, sensitive fashion.


*Not his real name, don'tcha know.

The first section of Time Out Tel Aviv is called "The Bubble"; it's a general survey of past and upcoming parties and events around the city, as well as ironic little info tidbits about cool places and happenings that are a bit off the beaten track. Like, oh, I don't know - an art show in Ramallah, perhaps?

Hey, it's no big deal: if you don't have a press pass or a foreign passport, you just have to get permission from the IDF to cross the Qalandiyah checkpoint. This involves signing a little document stating that you won't hold them responsible if anything bad happens to you while you're in territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. That's it - you're in.

And how do you keep up with the cool cultural events that are going on across the Green Line? According to Time Out, there's a fantastic resource out there: It's called This Week in Palestine, and it "surveys cultural events throughout Palestine."

"I thought of contacting the worldwide Time Out and suggesting a 'Time Out Palestine,'" editor-in-chief Sani Mayo (sp?) told Time Out Tel Aviv, "but I decided that it's too early. For now I want to re-design Palestine - from a land of suffering to a land of culture and tourism [tourism?]. Sometimes people accuse me of being disconnected from reality [Ya think?], but there are enough people talking about the political situation."

According to the blurb in Time Out TA, "Despite the occupation, the checkpoints and the generally crappy situation, Mayo insists that cultural life in Palestine is thriving."

"You only need the minimum to exist," he says. "As long as there's bread on the table, even oppressed people go out and look for culture. There are huge audiences for cultural events in Palestine, as if the political reality didn't exist."

Nevertheless, says Mayo, the occupation does have an effect on cultural events in the territories. "Because of mobility difficulties [the checkpoints], people can't get to the shows, so the shows come to them. The Israeli authorities also make it very difficult to obtain various necessary documents."

For example, says Time Out TA, "a performance by the popular Iraqi singer Ilham Al Madfai, who was supposed to appear at the Palestine Festival (which opened on Thursday) was cancelled, to the sorrow of his many Palestinian admirers."

[In case you've never heard of Al Madfai, here's an interesting article/interview about him that was published in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, when the singer came to perform in Cairo. ]