Blogcritics Author: Corinna Hasofferett

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Sadly Funny

Corinna Hasofferett — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 05:06:26 EDT

Just found in a books chainstore a heavily discounted beautiful book - red hardcover, excellent paper, jacket - a pleasure to hold and behold: Mark Twain's "A Tramp Abroad".I'm still at the beginning yet already reading Twain's humorous description of the German students' spartan corps code and their insane dueling, one stops smiling. A root, unstroken. >"...It was considered that a person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnest interest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his antagonist, therefore comradeship between the corps was not permitted...""...I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the sharp pain the hurts were inflicting..."

Unknown Territory This is one of the more unusual books to have been published recently in Israel. It's also a book that's hard to categorize. It's not a standard novel, not really a book of memoirs, not actually a work of history - but it is a book that offers a different, surprising take on Israel's first years. A loving and painful take, to resort to a cliche. Corinna Hasofferett, embarked on this literary journey in the wake of two friends who were with her in a youth movement and were killed in Israel's cross-border reprisal raids. For years she collected testimonies of people who knew them, taping and editing. She interweaves the testimonies, almost without intervention on her part. The result is a narrative flow that revives the period without any prettification or mythologizing. She jokingly describes the book, "B'Eretz Lo Yadati" ("Unknown Territory," in English), as a Fighters Talk - referring to the famous book ("Siah Lohamim") in which soldiers described their experiences in the 1967 Six-Day War - but with no censorship. There are a few interesting revelations in the book, apart from the story of Yehuda Kan Dror. For example, confessions about the killing of captives, or a surprising confession from a member of Unit 101 - the precursor of the Paratroops, Unit 101 was established by Ariel Sharon in the early 1950s - that the unit did not have any fatalities because it operated almost exclusively against civilian targets. But concentrating on these aspects of the book could be misleading. It offers a far broader picture of a society that was still licking its wounds from the War of Independence, the picture of a country in which the signs of the previous Palestinian inhabitants were still visible, a picture of people whose memory of the Holocaust is not something they learned in school. This is Corinna's sixth book, and she has published it herself - both for economic reasons and also to avoid having an outside eye that might cut sensitive passages. So it's not easy to find the book in bookstores. But it's worth making the effort. Corinna's books, in Hebrew, are available for purchase directly from her Hebrew blog: http://www.notes.co.il/corinna/1823.asp

Strike the root, but make sure you see it...

Corinna Hasofferett — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:01:45 EDT

Upon reading another article on the problem The Other poses here and there:In my whole life, I've never met a person of Armenian origin and still no one has managed to persuade me that "Armenians are" (actually all the list that some easy riders proclaim about the Jewish people). As Franz Werfel testifies in his important Forty Days of Musa Dagh, it was, and unfortunately to this day it is still possible to manipulate and brainwash groups of people, to instill hatred toward The Other, the stranger, the minority. It is my conviction that evil will continue to flourish as long as the Individual person won't accept responsibility to think clean of stereotypes, with a pure heart. Not an easy feat, indeed, but the alternative has proved itself as much more worse, throughout generations. The same goes to ideas. It was not the idea of communism that failed, but the same trait of hunger for unlimited power which it was supposed to help strike at the root. The idea of Zionism, as a liberation movement, is not to be blamed nor the idea of national liberation for the Palestinians, but again the same trait of hunger for unlimited power which turned upon all of us here in the Middle East crashing as a boomerang. It is our responsibility as individuals, to limit power. We won't succeed in doing so as long as we accept manipulations and stereotypes.

Ben Gurion, Nixon, Bush, Sharon...

Corinna Hasofferett — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:59:04 EDT

The more I read about USA, the more I feel really baffled - is it about USA or about my country? When it comes to news on Bush - I'm completely in the dark. Are they misspelling Sharon's name?Countries are easier to understand. Physically, Israel is small - USA is huge. With Bush and Sharon it goes the other way. No wonder I'm confused daily.Then, the media. In Israel it used to be that every political party had its own newspaper. Those were replaced later by independent, commercial media. The journalist was entitled "the author". No more. Now we are back to square one, with a small difference. If at the olden times "the author" was the mouthpiece of the political party, directly - now the journalist is enjoying the services of the PR or Press Assistant.To-night, reading Antonia Zerbisias, as re-published at the excellent truthout, I can only respond with the Hebrew slang, "I've already been in this movie"... "Probably the most troubling admission comes from Karen DeYoung, a former assistant managing editor who reported on the prewar palavering: "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power," she says. "If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said." But since when is a presidential pronouncement The Word Of God? What happened to inquiry, investigation and, what's it called again, journalism?"

Relevant Wisdom

Corinna Hasofferett — Sun, 22 Aug 2004 07:49:41 EDT

This site is not one voice, as a proper blog should be. A polyphonic compilation, a basket full of wisdom. Some of them you might have heard already, like this one:Pastor Martin Niem�ller (1892-1984)First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and by then there was no one left to speak out for me. A good place to come when life seems too much for you.

How should one regard prisoners? Depends...

Corinna Hasofferett — Sun, 22 Aug 2004 07:07:33 EDT

Since last week, Palestinian prisoners in Israel are on a hunger strike. Why, and what are their demands you may read at length in the Israeli media. Uri Avnery has his own take. Give it a thought. It's an universal issue.A Very One-Sided War -- Uri Avnery 21.8.04 "For all I care, they can starve to death!" announced Tzahi Hanegbi, after Palestinian prisoners declared an open-ended hunger strike against prison conditions. Thus the Minister for Internal Security added another memorable phrase to the lexicon of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hanegbi became famous (or infamous) for the first time when, as a student activist, he was caught on camera with his friends hunting Arab students with bicycle chains. At the time I published a photo of him that would not have shamed German or Polish students in the 1930s. With a small difference: in the 30s the Jews were the pursued, now they were the pursuers. In the meantime, Hanegbi has changed like many young radicals - he has turned into an unrestrained careerist. He has become a minister, wearing elegant suits even on hot summer days and walking with the typical, self-important gait of a cabinet minister. Now he even supports Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, much to the distress of his mother, Geula Cohen, an extreme-right militant who has not changed her spots. But beneath the minister's suit and the statesman's robe, Tzahi has remained Tzahi, as evidenced by the total inhumanity of his statement about the prisoners for whose well-being he is officially responsible. His influence is not limited to words: the current prison crisis was caused by his appointment of a new Director of Prisons, who immediately proceeded to create intolerable conditions for the Palestinian prisoners. Let's not dwell too much on the personality of the honorable minister. It is much more important to turn our thoughts to the strike itself. Its basic cause is a particularly Israeli invention: the one-sided war. The IDF generals declare again and again that we are at war. The state of war permits them to commit acts like "targeted eliminations", which, in any other situation, would be called murder. But in a war, one kills the enemy without court proceedings. And in general, the killing and wounding of people, demolition of homes, uprooting of plantations and all the other acts of the occupiers that have become daily occurrences are being justified by the state of war. But this is a very special war, because it confers rights only on the fighters of one side. On the other side, there is no war, no fighters, and no rights of fighters, but only criminals, terrorists, murderers. Why? Once there was a clear distinction: one was a soldier if one wore a uniform; if one did not wear a uniform, one was a criminal. Soldiers of an invading army were allowed to execute local inhabitants who fired at them on the spot. But in the middle of the 20th century, things changed. A worldwide consensus accepted that the members of the French resistance and the Russian and Yugoslav partisans and their like were fighters and therefore entitled to the international protection accorded to legitimate fighters. International conventions and the rules of war were amended accordingly. So what is the difference between soldiers and terrorists? Well, the occupiers say, there is a tremendous difference: Soldiers fight soldiers, terrorists hurt innocent civilians. Really? The pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians - was he a soldier or just a criminal, a terrorist? And what were the pilots who destroyed whole cities, like Hamburg and Dresden, when there was no valid military necessity anymore? The declared aim was to break the will of the German civilian population and compel them to capitulate. Were the commanders of the British and American air forces terrorists (as the Nazis indeed called them, inventing the term "Terrorflieger")? What is the difference between an American pilot who drops a bomb on a Baghdad market and the Iraqi terrorist, who lays a bomb in the same market? The fact that the pilot has a uniform? Or that he drops his bomb from a distance and does not see the children he is killing? I am not saying this, of course, to justify the killing of civilians. Indeed, I strongly condemn it, whoever the perpetrators may be - soldiers, guerrillas, pilots above or terrorists below. One law for all. Soldiers who are captured become prisoners-of-war, entitled to many rights guaranteed by international conventions. A particular international organization - the Red Cross - oversees this. P0Ws are not held for punishment or revenge, but solely in order to prevent them from returning to the battlefield. They are released when peace comes. Underground fighters captured by their enemies are often tried as criminals. Not only are they not entitled to the rights of POWs, but in Israel their prison conditions are even worse than the inhuman conditions inflicted on Israeli criminals. The American have learned from us, and President George W. Bush has been sending Afghan fighters to an infamous prison set up for them in Guantanamo, where they are deprived of all human rights, both the rights of POWs and the rights of ordinary criminal prisoners. Years ago, when the Hebrew underground organizations were fighting the British regime in Palestine, we demanded that our prisoners be accorded the rights of POWs. The British did not accept this, but in practice prisoners were generally treated as if they were POWs. The captured underground fighters could enrol for correspondence courses, and in fact, many of them completed their studies in law and other professions in British prison camps. One of the prisoners at that time was Geula Cohen, Tzahi Hanegbi's mother. It would be interesting to know how she and her Stern Group comrades would have reacted if a British police commander had declared that he didn't give a damn if she died in prison. Probably they would have tried to assassinate him. Fortunately, the British behaved otherwise. They even brought her to a hospital for treatment (where she promptly escaped with the help of Arab villagers.) Towards the Irish underground fighters, the British took a different line. When they declared a hunger strike, Margaret Thatcher let them starve to death. This episode, on top of her attitude towards workers and the needy, contributed to her image as an inhuman person. A humane treatment of political prisoners is preferable even for purely pragmatic reasons. Ex-prisoners are now filling the upper ranks of the Palestinian Authority. Men who have spent 10, 15 and even 20 years in Israeli jails have become political leaders, ministers and mayors. They speak fluent Hebrew and know Israel well. Almost all of them now belong to the moderate Palestinian camp, advocating co-existence between Israel and a Palestinian state. They also head the forces seeking democracy and reforms in the Palestinian Authority. The fair treatment they got at the time by the prison personnel must have contributed to this. But for me, the main thing is that the State of Israel should not look like Tzahi Hanegbi and his ilk. It is important for me that human beings - Palestinians as much as Israelis - should not starve to death in Israeli prisons. It is important for me that prisoners - whether Israelis or Palestinians - should be accorded humane conditions. If Tzahi Hanegbi were in prison, I would be demanding the same even for him.

What Really Really Happens in Iraq?

Corinna Hasofferett — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 09:51:36 EDT

1. We know so little - we grab each piece of direct information. CBFTW was an anonymous soldier in Iraq. Still alive, hopefully, yet no more anonymus. You might have read his "My War" blog.I've read him for the first time only today, following a link for An Interview with an Iraqi Man. He says he was not armed when he interviewed him. And the Iraqi man? Full of praises for the US army and goverment he is indeed.2.Once I had a Palestinian plumber working some in my house here in Tel Aviv. He promised to come on a certain date. When I finally got hold of him and asked why had he promised since he knew he won't be able to make it, he said: "I didn't want to insult you."Reading that interview I assumed the Iraqi volunteer did not want to insult our soldier, so he told him what he knew was expected of him to say. Then CBFTW did not feel like insulting his readers, so he told us what he seemed to perceive as most pleasing to the ear of the uninitiated. Not an easy position for both of them, not a happy one for all of us involved in this tragic existence nowadays.3. Reading further into the blog, I was perplexed, since the guy was all along writing from his guts, with much courage, intelligence, sensitivity and a great natural talent.4. Then I came upon the previous post:In this episode CBFTW is called to order by his officer. They won't censor him, but he should show his post to his commander, prior to publication.5. Why now? The guy was blogging for two months already. A few posts down, the answer stares you in the face: A most graphic, detailed report from the scene of war led entirely by USA troops such as our blogger- in stark contradiction to the CNN reporting of "Clashes between police and insurgents". 6. CBFTW, why do I decipher in the last three letters of your name the acronym for "F. The War"?Or is it "Cool Brother Forsake True War"?

On Being an unpaid writer...

Corinna Hasofferett — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 01:45:42 EDT

Everybody seems to be still full asleep - the first bus, the closed eyed shutters in the buildings, the butterflies in my green garden. On the electric wire, two young crows, a wing distance between the two of them. She's looking straight ahead. His head is turned towards her, his beak moving.My window is closed, I cannot decipher the crow crow monologue, yet for sure I won't open the window and invade their privacy.She stays still, unmoved. He ventures two tiny steps closer.Immediately she takes flight, disappearing among the trees. He stands still, his beak raised to the rosy fingered sky.Then off he flies. Where to?

Incredible Cheap Beer

Corinna Hasofferett — Sun, 8 Aug 2004 08:00:06 EDT

Still time to get there:"The Dachau Folk Festival is well known in Bavaria and will take place from 7 to 16 August. The Dachau Folkmusic associations have prepared their traditional programs. A pint of beer will cost only 3.50 Euro.The Festival will take place on the meadow beneath the Old City, whereas a Luna Park will be created by 77 booth owners which will present a variety of games and entertainment.25 booth will offer typical Bavarian food, so that the genuine old Bavarian Wies'n-Stimmung (festival atmosphere) will be guaranteed.In the 5 big festival tents the spectators will get food and drinks.The town of Dachau will present this year also attractions for all ages: for kids there will be 7 lovingly decorated driving and carouselle facilities. For the youth and those young at heart there will be some speedy and very modern driving-games facilities. Inside, Free style, Wild House, Petersburg slide. Furthermore, the fun & comedy booth of Michael Kollmann will be present.Bicycles preferred.The town of Dachau is expecting this year as well many hundreds of thousands of visitors during the folk festival. That's why the public is happily welcomed to prefer public transportation. The festival meadow is only a short distance from the train station. The visitors coming by bike will find over 700 parking facilities.This year the bike parking will be protected by security guards.The town of Dachau is stressing furthermore that the fireworks will take place this year on Thursday, 12 August 2004."(free translation by Elena)

Another Voice

Corinna Hasofferett — Sat, 7 Aug 2004 09:03:00 EDT

The "Wall": A Barrier to PeaceDr. Tony Klug It doesn't seem so long ago when an explosion of joy consumed Israel and the wider Jewish world as the barricades that had divided Jerusalem for 19 suffocating years were triumphantly dismantled in the wake of Israel's military victory in the 1967 war. Now the barbed wire, fences and concrete barriers - eight metres high in some places - are back, courtesy of Israeli politicians and engineers, not only in the capital city but all over the captured territories. As a researcher, I used to move about virtually unhindered through the West Bank in the 1970s as, mostly, did its Palestinian inhabitants. There were few Jewish settlements, few roadblocks and few terror attacks. Even travel across the old Green Line border was barely monitored. The official Israeli approach was to let the Palestinians see the Jewish state for what it was - not as "mendacious Arab propaganda" had projected it for two decades. Once Palestinian attitudes had changed, the argument ran, the territories would be returned. Indeed, Palestinian attitudes and policy did go through a steady, profound transformation. The Israeli strategy was not unsuccessful. Peace was on the horizon - until the settlements policy started in earnest. With it came the waning of Palestinian hope for eventual independence and the onset of despair and fear for the future.The fine sentiments of the Oslo Accords restored hope for a while. But the concomitant division of the West Bank into three security areas, giving rise to a major expansion in the number of Israeli checkpoints (currently estimated at nearly 500), severely curtailed the Palestinian' freedom of movement between their own towns and villages. Humiliating searches by young Israeli recruits became commonplace. The enforced requisition of Palestinian land and other resources to accommodate the burgeoning Jewish settlement programme continued apace. Palestinian resistance grew in tandem, at times involving murderous attacks on Israeli civilians.And now, in apparent response, we have the monstrous "wall". Were its route to trail the markedly shorter "Green Line", as envisaged by its original architects, this would at least lend credence to the security argument (and keep it within international legality). Instead, it has been weaving its way around settlement blocs deep into the West Bank, effectively annexing huge chunks of Palestinian land and separating Palestinians from their fields, workplaces, schools, universities, hospitals, places of worship, and their families and friends. This is the other side of Sharon's "Gaza withdrawal" scheme. An entire population is being brutalized and alienated beyond endurance, and the future welfare of the Israeli people and state is being put at risk, to satisfy a dangerous ideological urge and reward a militant settler constituency.It will be argued, fairly, that attacks on civilians have dropped significantly since the erection of the wall. Even if we accept a direct, causal connection in the short term, where does this leave us in the longer term? If the Palestinians fail to gain their place in the sun, the Israelis will never be left in peace to enjoy theirs. Each holds the key to the other's destiny. The answer to Israel's security problems is not to tighten the screw and further inflame the passions. This will invite perpetual conflict. The erection of the wall is tantamount to giving up on peace - probably still attainable on well-rehearsed terms - and to an acceptance by Israel of a permanent international pariah status. This is not inevitable and is in no one's interests. We should not blindly be supporting it.Imagine that we switched on our radios one morning to learn that the Israeli government had stopped all work on building the new (very un- Zionistic) ghetto and declared instead its willingness in principle to terminate in full its 37-year occupation of Palestinian lands, subject to mutually agreed equitable land swaps and assurances on security. The local and global repercussions of an Israeli invitation to its neighbours to agree the modalities of such a withdrawal in the context of a full peace arrangement would be swift and profound. It would almost certainly trigger a new momentum. Why, then, do we not hear it? ========Dr Tony Klug is an international relations specialist and co-vice chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum. This article was published in: Jewish Chronicle 16 July 2004

Let me tell you...

Corinna Hasofferett — Thu, 5 Aug 2004 23:25:55 EDT

Working on my manuscript I had to find out about present Dachau.Remember the days you had to go to libraries, search through your dictionaries, encyclopedias, friends' or university libraries, under the bed?...Now all you have to do is, search the net. In a couple of seconds Google will Aladin-style bring you whatever you'll be asking for, and much much more. All of a sudden before your eyes glitters a jewel. It's like looking at your garden and suddenly discovering some beautiful leaves of an unknown plant.Here she is. Another free spirit in our boundless blognation: Croila.