To market? No, all little piggies stay home

Kosher grocer wars, and how Israel's secular consumers are caught like a piggy in the middle as an immigrant Russian billionaire eyes Jerusalem politics, makes fascinating reading in today's Independent of London. Check out the article by Donald Macintyre.
Stocks of the "other white meat" and shellfish still are available in boutique butchers for non-observant customers, but prices are expected to rise. The tycoon philanthropist Arkady Gaidamak, who also owns a football club (er, pigskin balls, anyone?) insists that he has never ever munched a morsel of pork and that to continue selling the meat inside the Holy land, where devout Jews and Muslims consider it unclean, is "a provocation." His is a highly unorthodox approach to vote-getting. The-th-that's not all, folks, in the loony-toon world of Israeli local politics.
Watch this space.
(There's no swine shortage in any Middle East election, I am told. Politicians on the trot will inevitably put their best foot forward.)

Unsettling history post 6-Day War

At the end of the pre-emptive Six Day War, a senior legal adviser for Israel cautioned the government in writing that any new expansion or settlements would violate international law. That secret memo, long ignored, makes headlines in todays's London Independent, and Judge Theodor Meron, a holocaust survivor, still stands by his advice to the cabinet. Settlement, he concluded, would directly conflict with the Hague and Geneva conventions governing the conduct of occupying powers.
The road forward for Israelis has been anything but straightforward, according to Jerusalem-based journalist Donald Macintyre's take on the past 40 years since that victory.

Own Goals: can football unite the Israelis?

As the Barmy Army of English football fans descends on Tel Aviv's Sportek for the Euro 2008 qualifier this Saturday, sportsmanlike conduct comes under scrutiny on and off the pitch. Racist chants definitely will be monitored.
Die-hard Israeli footy fans were hoping that the general strike might prevent the Brits from landing at the airport, making an extra 5000 tickets magically available. And some newly arrived British Jews still agonize over which side to support in such a momentous match. Is dual allegiance possible? Even after making the total commitment of Aliyah, by moving from the farflung Diaspora to start over in the Jewish homeland, these guys fear flunking the old Thatcherite Norman Tebbit test about loyalty to an adopted country.
Going beyond the standard sports mania and navel-gazing, the Independent's correspondent, Don Macintyre, takes another angle altogether. He examines the loyalties of the 1.4 million Arab-Israelis, of which only two (including the veteran player Walid Badir, pictured above) will play for their nation tomorrow night. Click here to read his thought-provoking piece.