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."