New Palestinian Campaign targets Stones

No Satisfaction...The Rolling Stones, those sexagenarian uber-rockers who promoter Shuki Weiss has booked to play Tel Aviv in September, are being urged to boycott Israel.
Word is out that Britney Spears, no stranger to controversy herself, is due to sing here as well this autumn. But security issues make these big concerts iffy. Depeche Mode disappointed 40,000 fans by cancelling at the last minute last summer. The rockers Blonde Redhead and American Idol's Kelly Clarkson also got cold feet because of the Second Lebanon War and the rain of rockets as far south as Haifa.

This week the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel issued an open letter to Jagger's manager which reportedly says: "Performing in Israel at this time is morally equivalent to performing in South Africa during the apartheid era." Campaigners urged the Stones to refrain from performing in Israel "until the time comes when (Israel) ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and respects fundamental human rights," according to Haaretz.
The Stones joined a cultural boycott of apartheid-era South Africa during the 1980s, by playing on the 1985 single, Sun City, which raised public awareness about apartheid and its injustices. The lyrics are by Steven Van Zandt:

We're rockers and rappers united and strong
... we don't like what's going on
It's time for some justice it's time for the truth
We've realized there's only one thing we can do
...Got to say I aint gonna play
It's time to accept responsibility
Freedom is a privilege nobody rides for free

Getting the Rolling Stones in the Holy Land: an uphill struggle.

Ominous Knock at the Door for Ploni Almoni

Many ultra-orthodox bloggers in Israel are to be forced offline, according to Yair Ettinger in Haaretz. Kosher computing is quite a struggle. Already a home internet connection for the Ger Hassidics requires a rabbi's approval, so most family PCs are used just for word processing or to play G-rated kosher DVDs--though allegedly never on the Sabbath.

promotional for cartoonstock.com.

Ultra-orthodox online forums are braced for the fallout and most dread the plug being pulled. This Rabbinical decree against home computing will, er, forever Alter the hobbies of Orthodox nerds.(Pairs of Ger elders in fur hats soon will go house to house, knocking on doors to warn against the "spiritual dangers" of cyberspace. Last year, two ultra-orthodox brawlers were named and shamed by an anonymous John Doe, who dubbed himself "Ploni Almoni" on the internet. This post spurred a long drawn-out vendetta against orthodox bloggers after Gerrer Yisrael Ackerman, one of the accused, petitioned the court to force the cyber-slanderer to reveal his identity.

Big communities of Gerrer chasidim, originally from Poland, now are established in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, New York, London and Antwerp. More Israeli communities flourish in Ashdod, Bnei Brak, Arad in the Negev desert, and Hazor in the Galilee, as well as Beit Shemesh and Kiryat Gat. Will their emails cease?

In Modim Ilit, an all ultra-Orthodox community outside Tel Aviv, men who pursue religious studies are increasingly unable to provide for their large families. To fight poverty, which is as dire as for Bedouin families in the area, cyber-savvy wives and daughters have begun to work online from home, earning the entire household budget through outsourced telemarketing, or even tech support. Edicts like the Gerrer crackdown on the internet would lead to their financial ruin.

Airstrikes in Gaza

Here we go again. Hamas and Fatah, trying to draw Israel into their internecine bloodfest, let loose a big barrage of Qassam rockets and hit a high school in the Negev. Now the IDF has responded, and according to the latest news reports, airstrikes are underway inside the Gaza strip. Hamas has vowed to send new suicide squads across the border to wreak vengeance. Israelity bites.

Jews on Ice

Relax- Hassidic ice capades this is not. While out of Israel for the past couple of weeks, Izzy has been trolling about New York City. She was able to peruse an amusing interview on Salon.com to learn more about a fictional Yiddish community's sub-Arctic antics which draws some parallels with contemporary Israel. Mostly it examines Jewish identity, and, er, Chassids as hobbits.
Click here to link to this wry exchange with author Michael Chabon.

Makepeace --if only!--seeks to free hostage

A British Envoy in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, is one of those rare people whose surname suits his job perfectly. (It reminds me that there was an actual Doctor Bonebreak in my childhood neighbourhood, but this particular moniker, with its diplomatic impertive, is wonderfully upbeat.)
After Makepeace's recent attempts to find out from the Palestinian leaders the whereabouts of the BBC's missing correspondent, Alan Johnston, who was grabbed at gunpoint from the streets of Gaza on March 12th this year, there has been a minor breakthrough. Al Jazeera network has just received a tape from an obscure guerrilla group which calls itself Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam.) They were involved in the capture of an IDF soldier, Guy Shalit, last June, in cahoots with Hamas but are not normally counted among the street factions of Gaza's mean streets. Their tape, under scrutiny by authorities, is said to contain some new evidence, such as a snapshot of Johnston's ID badge. News reports are cautious, and do not point to an irrefutable proof of life. The abductors have demanded $5m ransom, prisoner exchange, and even a plot of land. (Another group even claimed that the 44 year old newscaster was already executed) The tape contained no new information on Johnston's whereabouts, his health or the group's intentions, but Al Jazeera noted that the absence of any threat could be a good sign. A second audio tape sent to al-Jazeera on Wednesday morning,cautioned against attempts to use force in order to free the British reporter.

Tomb with a View

After at least three decades of digging, Israeli archaeologists claim to have located the tomb of King Herod the Great in a hilltop fortress just outside Bethlehem. The sarcophagus was destroyed by rebellious Jews many years ago, and finding the site of the royal tomb in Herodium has long been a challenge for scholars and Biblical archaeologists. The Los Angeles Times recounts the search and weighs the new evidence here.
The traditional Herod family cave vault is located a few miles away in West Jerusalem, just below the King David Hotel. But this definitely was not the final resting place of the infamous ruler who was appointed by the Romans and best known for the "Slaughter of the Innocents". In fact, this well-known tourist site once housed Queen Mariamne and other victims of Herod's violent temper and persecution mania. During World War II, British officials used this tomb as an air raid shelter. International news reports enthused about the find in the West Bank. The Independent article suggested that notoriety was the legacy of Herod, the "Bible's biggest villain."

Mayday

The Winograd report delivered no huge suprises yesterday. It pointed the finger at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his ill-considered rush to war in Lebanon, which led to the deaths of more than 1300 people and the loss of Israel's aura of military invincibility. Now Israel's head honcho takes responsibility for the fiasco, but as expected, still clings to power. His party is scrambling for a facesaving formula for a resignation with dignity, because the pressure on Olmert to go is immense. Amir Peretz, his defense minister may be pushed out as a sacrifice, according to latest media reports. The former army chief Dan Halutz stepped down long before the Winograd report was made public. The Israeli public finds it hard to tolerate a loser. These leaders are reviled as the three stooges of the Lebanon campaign and blamed for further emboldening Hizbollah.

Meanwhile, Gilad Sharon, the son of the comatose warrior and ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, has advocated stripping Arab Israelis of their citizenship.(see Haaretz editorial). Hamas broke its tenuous 5 month truce with Israel, while gun-toting protestors dropped the corpse of a murdered man named Hassan Abu Sharkh into the Palestinian Authority Parliament. Message received.
Nearly a hundred rockets and mortars struck Israel from Gaza, with no injuries, a tactic that intelligence sources say was meant to distract Israeli forces while Hamas kidnapped another soldier or two. The Israel Defense Forces killed three Hamas agents who they said were planting a bomb next to the barricade at the Gaza border. Especially this month, Israelity bites.