From my viewpoint in Israel

2009-10-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Do children add to our level of happiness?

Most people seem to have the understanding that children brings happiness into life. Research however, shows that the level of happiness in marriage is declining with the birth of the first child. It is called the “ U- effect” as the decline continues until it reaches the bottom when the children are 12 to 17 years old and from there it rises again.
Children often “ruins” a woman’s career, they cause a couple to have less time for one another and they are “heavy” on the bank account.

A research on what women like to do showed that to spend time with friends, to rest, to eat, to do sports, to watch television, to prepare food, to talk on the phone are enjoyed more than to take care of children.

I must admit that I was more than shocked about these results as I would have had a completely different order on my list of what I like do. Spending time with my girls would definitely be on top of my list and that has been the case since they became a part of my life. Actually I didn’t like this particular program until the following point…….

Professor Tal Ben Shachar has defined happiness as follows:
Happiness = pleasure and meaning. ( he would even write it like this: Happiness = pleasure and meaning.)
For something to be meaningful you need to feel that it is important and that it adds something to the world, and it has to be something that you are willing to pay a high prize for. With other words; For something to add meaning to life there is a need to work hard and for a long time.

So the conclusions concerning children are that:
Children do not necessary bring pleasure, but still they bring happiness to most of us because happiness is a combination of a little pleasure mixed with a lot of meaning.
We are the ones to decide what is meaningful to us.
Maybe it would be good for some people not to have children.

Elin Elkouby

2009-10-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

How does work influence ones feeling of being happy?

An average person living till the age of 80 will spend his/her adult life as follows:
20 years sleeping
15 years working
10 years in front of the television.
6 years cleaning, preparing food and dealing with bank, post office etc.
3 years in a car
2 ½ years shopping
4 months sex ( with an average of twice a week )
The rest of the time is spent waiting for the lift, going for a walk, having coffee with friends etc.

From the above list we can see that working takes a big share of our lives. Research has shown that a person who works lives longer, is more healthy, is less depressed and has more satisfaction in life. 9 out of 10 winners of a lot of money actually continue to work.

For work to be satisfactory it is important that the worker has a feeling of doing something important and meaningful. Research has shown that nurses, workers in kinder gardens and primary school teachers are the people that express the highest level of satisfaction concerning their work. It is interesting to note that these professions are usually not very well paid. Lawyers, people who work with hi-tech, business men etc are paid much more but express less satisfaction.

Happiness is a feeling or an understanding and therefore is also very individual.
For people who work it can be useful to ask one selves a few questions:
Do I work only to get money?
Do I dream about quitting?
Do I feel that time stands still at work?
Does my work has any importance at all?
If all the answers are negative it is about time to do something about it.

Elin Elkouby

2009-10-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Happiness.
I do not spend too much time in front of the television but there has been a really good series on happiness for the last few weeks. Usually I don’t make notes as I am watching but this time I felt that I really wanted to get some of the information down on paper. It seems like we have lots of wrong ideas concerning what this is all about and what can add to it and because it is so important to us scientists have spent a lot of time trying to learn more.

How much is happiness dependent on wealth?

Many people seem to believe that if they won a lot of money they would be more happy but research have found that this is far from being the truth. Money does have an impact on our lives, but to be rich does not bring more happiness than having enough to pay for house, food and clothes. Most people get used to whatever is “more” or “better” very quickly and therefore gets back to the same level of happiness very soon after the “achievement”.

What makes us really happy cannot be bought for money. Whether we are happy or not has less to do with how much we earn and more to do with how we choose to live. Research show that the amount of money that people earn is less important to them than earning more than their friends. It is a sad fact that we seem to compare ourselves to others and this affects our level of joy. – A research made among sports men who won silver or bronze medals during the Olympic games showed that the ones who won bronze were happier than the ones who won silver. The explanation is that they compare themselves to the ones who didn’t get any medal while the ones who won silver were sad that they didn’t win gold.

People who let money direct their lives and who spend too much time thinking about it are less healthy. A wise man once said “what does it help to have all the money in the world if the angel of death won’t take bribes.

There are a few conclusions to be drawn from this:
1. Above a certain level it is true that more money does not bring more happiness.
2. If you want to be happy do not live next to people that are more wealthy than yourself.
3. Be a volunteer! It is healthy!
4. Thinking too much about money is a risk to ones health.
5. In order to be happy it is important to “invest” in good experiences (dinner with friends, a walk by the sea etc.) rather than in things.

Elin Elkouby

2009-10-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sukkot- The Feast of Tabernacles

We have celebrated Jewish New Year and fasted on Yom Kippur and will be entering into a new holiday in just a few days. This time it will be one of the three festivals for pilgrimage and it is called Sukkot in Hebrew and the Feast of Tabernacles in English.
The two other festivals for pilgrimage are Jewish Pessach, translated to Passover, and Jewish Shavuot, translated to the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. These two Jewish feasts have Christian parallel feasts, but that is not the case for Succot, at least not yet………

It is interesting to read the prophecy in Zachariah’s last chapter from verse 16 which describes that non Jews from all over the world will come to celebrate this particular feast every year. Many have wondered what is so special about this particular feast.

The Bible tells us that the reason why the people of Israel have to live in booths on this day has to do with remembering that the Lord brought them out of Egypt from slavery to freedom.

Many Bible scholars believe that Jesus was actually born into this world on the Feast of Tabernacles. They base this belief on information in Luke: 1 which gives information about Elisabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist, and of Mary who goes to stay with Elisabeth for three months after she has become pregnant herself. It says in verse 41 that the baby leaped in her womb when Mary told Elisabeth that she was pregnant.
Earlier in the chapter we get information about Zechariah who is a Levite and therefore has service in the Temple. We learn that he belonged to the 8’th rotation of Abijah and therefore, based on information in 1. Chronicles:24,10, we also know when his time for serving in the Temple was.
When we put all these pieces of information together it points to the time around Sukkot to be the time for the birth of Jesus. In a spiritual way it makes perfect sense that the Messiah should be born on a holiday remembering the freedom from slavery.

But there is more to it: The seventh month is obviously not the first month, yet it is in this month that we celebrate Jewish New Year. New Year certainly symbolizes some kind of new beginning.
It will probably be during this time that the Messiah will come back and again cause the world to enter into another kind of “season”. Time will reveal all these secrets to us one day.

Elin Elkouby

2009-09-26T02:37:00.001-07:00

Yom Kippur

is coming up. This day everything stops in Israel. No cars, no TV, no synthetic kind of noise…..Wonderful.

This is the holiday for bicycles and for walks but most of all it is a day of prayer and fasting. There are more secular than religious Jews in Israel, but Yom Kippur seems to be Holy to most people.

It all started in the Bible when G-g instructs the people of Israel the holidays of the seventh month. It says that on the tenth day of the seventh month, which actually begins at sundown on the day before, shall be a day of fasting and sacrifice. As the Temple in Jerusalem is no more and sacrifices cannot be done prayer has become the substitute. It is not allowed to do any kind of work on this day.

Yom Kippur in Israel starts with an early evening meal. It is usually a big meal as it is supposed to keep people going until sundown the following day. Fasting is understood as meaning no eating as well as no drinking. …….That is the hard part of it !

Children up to the age of 12 or 13 , Bat- or Bar-Mitzvah age, do not have to fast. Elderly people or people with diseases and pregnant women also do not have to fast.

One of the passages read from the bible on Yom Kippur is the prophet Jonah. This book has four chapters in it and the first three verses of each chapter says something about Jonah’s position to G-d; running away, coming back to, walking together with or running ahead of.

It is good to take at least one day a year for the entire people to give a thought to this matter.

Elin Elkouby

2009-09-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

It’s Jewish New Year or Rosh HaShanah.

There are so many things to say about this holiday but I will only get into a few things. First of all it is strange that “New Year” is celebrated on the first day of the seventh month. This makes sense only if we remember that “our ways are not God’s ways and that our thoughts is not God’s thoughts.”
We need to be released from our way of understanding “time” which is controlled by the sun and the moon, day and night, the seasons of the year. If we try to relate to time not as a straight line but rather as a circle where the “beginning and the end” meets up it may start to make more sense.

God created the world in six days and He made the seventh day a day of rest. This number seven has ever since become a symbol of “the beginning of a new spiritual season”. (Just check this with Leviticus 23 and pay attention to how many times the number 7 is mentioned.)

So the Jewish New Year starts on the first day of the seventh month. (…a month which contains some other major holidays as well; Yom Kippur and Succot/ Feast of Tabernacles) One other name for the holiday is “the feast of the blowing of the shofar”. A shofar is a ram’s horn and it resembles the ram which was caught by it’s horns and which was used as a sacrifice instead of Isaac. The story from Genesis : 22about Abraham ‘s willingness to sacrifice Isaac on God’s command is read in the synagogues.--When Isaac asks about the sacrifice Abraham replies that God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering. The ram was not a lamb and it belongs to the goat family and not to the sheep family.
If we add to the story that Isaac was in his thirties when this happened, that he had to carry the woods for the sacrifice on his own back, that the blowing of the ram’s horn symbolizes “God as King of Kings and Lord of Lords” and that the word ram in Hebrew actually is from the same root of words as God it may cause our understanding of the story to grow in a prophetic sense.

Elin Elkouby

2009-09-11T03:55:00.000-07:00

Haj Amin el-Husseini
is a key person to the understanding of the conflict in this land. He was born into one of the richest and most powerful of all the rivaling family clans in the region in 1893 (or 1895). He studied religious law at a university in Cairo and continued at the Istanbul School of Administration. A pilgrimage to Mecca in 1913 assured him the title Haj.

He fought with the Turks during World War I, but switched side to support the British upon his return to Jerusalem in 1917. He was a pure breed “Islamist” and the engine behind the Arab anti Jewish riots which swept over the land from 1920 and onwards. His instruction were simple; Kill the Jews and loot their homes! ….Jerusalem. Rehovot and Petach Tikva were attacked within the first year and 47 Jews were killed as a result.

Haj Amin el-Husseini was supported by anti Semitic forces within the British Administration in the region and given the title of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem as well as appointed President of the Supreme Muslim Counsel thereby making him both the religious and the political leader of the Arabs. Once he was in power he started terrorizing and intimidating anyone who opposed him. He killed Jews and eliminated any Arab who opposed his strategy of violence.

His methods were no different than the methods used today. By using lies he managed to fuel the Arab hatred against Jews. In 1929 riots broke out in Jerusalem, Safed, Hebron, Motza and Jaffo and resulted in 133 Jews being killed 67 of them belonging to the Jewish community in Hebron. The background of these riots were false accusations about the Jews being a threat to the local mosques.

From 1936 to 1939 the riots led by Haj Amin el-Husseini costed 415 Jewish lives.
In 1937 he expressed his support for Germany and asked the Nazi Third Reich for help to prevent Jewish immigration to the land, to oppose the establishment of a Jewish State and to provide the Arab population with arms. He was finally deported and exiled by the British.

Haj Amin el-Husseini developed close relationship with the Third Reich and its leaders. He received financial support from Germany during the riots of 1936-39 and actually had Adolf Eichmann paying him a visit in the land. While in exile in Syria he aided the pro Nazi revolt in Bagdad and ended up being Hitler’s special guest in Berlin until the end of World War II.

After the war he moved on to Egypt and was received as a national hero. He was never tried as a was criminal, in spite of numerous accusations against him, because the Allies were afraid of reactions from the Arab world. While living in Egypt he arranged the assassination of the Jordanian king Abdallah because he had given the position as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to someone else. The Jordanian kings to follow ensured that Haj Amin el-Husseini never came back to Jerusalem. They knew that it would be a threat to peace in the region.

Haj Amin el-Husseini died in exile in 1974.

Elin Elkouby

2009-09-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

Summer holidays are over

and 1.5 million Israeli children are back in school. Some of them have been looking forward to it while to others it means “endless humiliation”. Israeli schools offer small class rooms with up to forty children per teacher. In most schools the parents have to buy all the books as well as pencils, rubber, rulers, note books and t-shirts with school emblem. School fees of various kinds and school trips have to be paid for in advance and all these expenses are a heavy burden on many families. Some parents seem to try to avoid as long as possible to pay for these things which makes going to school a “heavy walk” for their children as the teacher will remind them every day of “who have still not paid” in front of the rest of their class mates.

I grew up under very different circumstances. Our school was “all paid for” even down to pencils and note books. We had no more than 30 children in a spacious class room equipped with shelves and drawers for every child as well as for the teacher. Biology, chemistry, physics, gymnastics, handcrafts and cooking were taught in special class rooms equipped for those particular subjects. We had a nurse working every day in her office at school as well as a dentist with an assistance who would check on all the childrens teeth twice a year from age 7 and nine years on. The dentist had her own fully equipped dental care office within the school building.

But Israel is far from Norway both in kilometres and standard of living.

I was surprised this year that school started without any threats of strikes lurking in the corridors……… but only to find in todays new paper that there is a possibility for a strike as soon as next week as the annual education budget has been cut rather than increased. An increase was promised last year following a several weeks long strike covering the entire country. Some teachers won’t get paid the two first months of the school year as there is no money on the budget for them….

---This is happening because the State had to coop with a war in the middle of last school year. The promise was made before the outbrake of the war. It seems like this is just another way we will have to continue paying for the right to survive…

Elin Elkouby.

2009-08-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Miri Awad and Ahinoam Nini

are two women who represented Israel with their song; “There Must Be Another Way” in the European song contest this year. This is also the title on their new album with 12 songs in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Miri Awad is an Arab looking like a Jew and Ahinoam Nini is a Jew looking like an Arab. Together they are “dynamite”.
None of these women are hypocrites. They wouldn’t go for something like this just to sell well or to just add some temporary sweetness to a rather sour reality. These two women have courage and the ability to see the potential in a situation where others see only closed doors and shades of black and grey.
Miri Awad has been much criticized by the Israeli Arab community who accuses her of being used to create a false impression of the situation between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
These accusations are shallow and just testifies to the fact that the ones who criticize didn’t even bother to listen to the words in their songs.
Neither Jews nor Arabs are happy with the situation in this country. Both sides suffer.
I think they do well when they sing; “And when I cry, I cry for both of us. My pain has no name. And when I cry, I cry to the merciless sky and say, “There must be another way.”
Later the words go, “Where can we go from here? Sister, it’s been a long night. What’s to come? I fear. Give me something to restore my faith in the light. Tell me that we’re here to stay, and that we can set things right.”
To all the pessimists in the world there is a message , “You’re broken when your heart’s not open. There is no point in placing the blame. And you should know I suffer the same.”
Both Jews and Arabs are descendants of Abraham through their forefathers Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham cared for both of his sons and for the others to be born to him later, and when he died both Isaac and Ishmael were there to bury him. If they could do such a painful act together I see the potential of hope in present day’s situation.
The song ends by stating that,”…the clock’s still ticking in a frantic trance, and we are locked together in a tragic dance, remember that every second offers a second chance.”

Elin Elkouby

2009-07-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

Two heads are better than none.

Michal and Meir Negrin are husband and wife and as well as business partners.
Michal is a 1957 model and she grew up in kibutz Naan which is located in the center of Israel.(The kibutz is famous for inventing the drip irrigation system.) Her family name used to be Green. (Some may know that David Ben Gurion’s family name used to be Grun which is German for Green, and guess what; Michal’s great uncle was David Ben Gurion)
From an early age she enjoyed creating jewelry with lots of colors. She was not as enthusiastic about school, but her mother saw that she was good at what she was doing and encouraged her and provided tools for her works.
She got married to Meir Negrin in 1984 and he also believed in her talent. Soon they started selling her jewelry on the open-air-twice-a-week-artists-marked in Nahalat Benyamin in Tel Aviv.
After some time they had enough money to open up a shop in Tel Aviv’s trendy Sheinkin Street and in 1996 the factory was opened in Bat Yam. From that point on it completely took off…..
Michal Negrin creates jewelry, home décor and clothing inspired by Victorian style or from the 1920’es. Her style is frilly, fanciful and full of fun and color.
Today she employs close to 200 artisans who work at the factory and she has 23 shops in Israel. The Japanese love her style and 16 shops can be found around their country.
She has 4 shops in the USA, 5 in Mexico, 2 in Spain, and one in Croatia, U.K, Switzerland, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan and Holland.
Her success story is a mixture between her artistic talent and her husband’s business talent. How fun to see that things can work out when both talents are honored!!!

Elin Elkouby

2009-07-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

It is 40 years since the first man put his feet on the moon.

I watched it on our black-and-white-TV and as such was one out of an estimated 450 million people around the world who actually followed the event through TV or radio. My mother was very exited about “how far mankind had come”, but I was a simple child at the time and what fascinated me the most was that the astronauts were jumping around being weight less. I would have loved to bump around in a place like that.

Neil Armstrong was the first man to put his feet on the moon. Upon doing so he said these words; “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
He walked on the moon on July 21, 1969.

Armstrong became a believer in God out in space. At one point in his life he came to Israel to “walk in the footsteps of Jesus”. Meir Ben Dov, one of Israel’s great archaeologists, was the one to show him around.
Meir Ben Dov is a Jew and not in particular a religious man. So he took Armstrong around to the different churches in Jerusalem and told him both the “Christian traditions” claims concerning the sites and his own reflections based on his knowledge of history and archaeology. As Jerusalem was destroyed and rebuilt completely after the time of Jesus it is hard to claim with certainty that Jesus actually “had his feet” on any specific spot in present days churches.
At the end of the tour Mr. Ben Dov wanted to show Armstrong the area close to the southern wall surrounding the Temple Mount. He was actually digging in that area at the time. On this particular part of the wall the two main entrances to the Temple from the south are still visible. The gates are closed today, but in front of them there are huge original stone slabs.
While standing on the one in front of the middle gate Armstrong asked the archaeologist if there were any place at all where one could say for sure that Jesus must have stood. “Right where you are standing now”, was the answer.
(I know this story from Meir Ben Dov. I was fortunate to be taken around by him myself when I was studying to become a tourist guide in the early nineties.)

It took many years for Christians to understand that the closest they could get to “walk in the footsteps of Jesus” was to enter into the area of the Archaeological Park south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jesus spent most of his time in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount teaching the crowds. In order to get up there he must have entered through this middle gate as did other rabbis at the time.

It is almost too Jewish to be true…..

Elin Elkouby.

2009-07-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

1,350 Palestinian refugees from Iraq on their way to US.

As the US is preparing to leave Iraq the State Department confirmed that as many as 1,350 Palestinian refugees will be resettled mainly in southern California. The US allowed 7 Palestinian refugees to enter into America in 2007 and 9 in 2008.
34.000 Palestinians used to be well treated guests of Saddam Hussein before the American invasion. As many as 21.000 of them fled to other countries after 2003 and approximately 13,000 are left within the borders of Iraq where most of them live under extreme conditions in refugee camps in the desert bordering Jordan and Syria . (Both Syria and Jordan has been willing to accept around 300 Palestinian refugees each but there is an absolute closure on both borders for more.)
Palestinian refugees have come in waves to Iraq. The first ones to arrive were refugees from the war in 1948. Most of these refugees were originally from either Yaffo or Haifa but they fled their homes and sought shelter with the Iraqi army which had arrived to fight the newborn Jewish state. As they did not succeed in doing so the refugees were joining them as they withdrew back to Iraq.
The second wave came during the war in 1967 and the third came as a result of massive Palestinian support of Saddam Hussein as he attacked Kuwait in 1990.
Kuwait used to be the country with the highest Palestinian population of all the Arab states. Up to 1991 they numbered more than 400.000 but since the attack on Kuwait in 1990 the Palestinians have been chased out of the country by the Kuwaitis.
No Arab country has ever offered Palestinian refugees citizenship. Even those born in the country do not have the rights of a citizen. Arab countries are scared of other Arab countries and do not want any other Arabs to enter into their territories. This is in a way strange as they all belong to the same ethnic group, share the same religion and speak the same language. However, every Arab knows that the worst enemy to an Arab is always another Arab.
When the US army entered into Iraq the good conditions for the Palestinians in Iraq changed. They had been issued special travel documents, had the right to work and were given full access to health, education and other governmental services. They also enjoyed subsidized rent or lived in government owned houses. This has been a source of resentment for Iraq’s poor Shia’ population who turned to be fierce enemies of any Palestinian as soon as Saddam Hussein was off “stage”.
Since the US invasion the Palestinians in Iraq have been chased out of their rented homes or have had their neighborhoods bombed continuously. They have been terrorized with robbery, rape, torture, kidnapping and murder.
What happens in Iraq is what happened in Kuwait in the 90’es, in Lebanon in the 80’es and in Jordan in the 70’es. The only safe haven for Palestinian refugees has been in non Arab countries.
Good luck California.

Elin Elkouby

2009-07-10T04:59:00.001-07:00

Penina Pie.
I remember it well;
One of my best friends in Israel, Penina Konforti, went to study in order to be a professional confectioner. The place of study was at the Dan hotel in Tel Aviv and her teachers were the best in the country. Every Sabbath after our service in Tel Aviv we would go south to Gan Yavne and spend the rest of the day with our friends.
We lived in Tel Aviv back then, so for us to go to our friend’s home was like going to be in the country side. We both had daughters the same age and we all loved this time of rest and fellowship with people that we communicate easily with.
Every Sabbath Penina had prepared three different luxury cakes for us to test. They were all beautiful to look at and the tastiest cakes you can imagine…..Penina wanted to know our opinion about how they looked, how they tasted, if they were too sweet etc.
After she finished her studies she opened a confectioner’s shop at her house and later moved into new facilities in one of the shopping centers close to her house.
Our family left Tel Aviv and moved to Gan Yavne. Penina’s girl and my oldest girl are the same age. They went to the same kinder garden and class at school and every afternoon they would spend in my house.
One day we woke up to a new and strange reality. Someone had put up posters all over Gan Yavne with Penina’s picture on them. They were warning people from buying cakes at her shop claiming that she was a missionary “hiding” behind her shop. Rumors had it that she prepared the dough at the “priests” home and that she mixed “pig’s blood” in her cakes.
Few people had known that Penina was part of the Messianic fellowship before this happened. Now people came to ask what her faith was about and to express that they did not agree with what was happening, but she also lost many of her customers who decided to believe in the lies of some of the religious Jews in Gan Yavne. The nicest thing that happened was that the friends of her children went to take the posters down the same afternoon.

Since this first act of persecution Penina has been haunted by the religious Jews both in Gan Yavne and in Ashdod. More posters have been put up and small papers with warnings on them have been copied by the thousands and put in people’s mail boxes.
The Rabbis have refused to grant her a “kosher certificate”.
Penina finally decided to bring her case to court. I could assist with a “nice collection’ of posters, letters and everything that had been said or printed about her since this first event.( I collected the originals as they were being“published”)
Israeli bureaucracy is slow and her case has been moved through different court levels until it reached the Supreme Court.
Last Sabbath we celebrated that finally, after all these years, she got support from the court which ruled that there is no reason why she should not get a “kosher certificate” and which decided that the rabbis will have to pay all the court expenses.

So we have celebrated for one day, but that does not mean that the problems are over…….

Elin Elkouby

2009-07-03T05:46:00.001-07:00

What did Raed Wael Sawalha do wrong ?

I have two teenagers at home and I enjoy seeing them grow and develop as independent individuals. Every step of this journey, since they were born, has added a lot of joy to my life. I loved to take care of them as babies, I enjoyed watching them as they learned to walk and I have enjoyed the conversations between us which have been taken to higher levels as they have grown. I have never considered them a problem of any kind to me.

We do not always agree. In fact there is no need for them to agree with me in everything. Growing up is about relating to the surroundings in a mature way and to take responsibility for ones actions. It is easier to do that if a person had been allowed to grow up and is acting in harmony with his/her own understanding of things.

It seems like not every parent or family member agree with me on this. There are families where to ask questions are considered rebellion and where acting according to ones belief is considered dishonoring the family.

Raed lived in an area with a lot of tension within the Palestinian society. His village was close to Qalqilia where there has been a lot of trouble between Fatah and Hamas lately.
The problems often cause a split within families as different family members have sympathies with different political fractions.
I do not know the details about his family other than that his father, uncle and cousin decided to torture him brutally and finally hang him because he allegedly had connections with the Israeli authorities.
Hundreds of young Palestinians have been killed by their own people for the last couple of years for similar reasons, but it is the first time it happens within the closest family.
Usually the children killed by their own father, brother or uncle are girls.

It must be hard being a mother under such circumstances. When news reporters come to interview the family or neighbors in such cases we always see the women trying to be invisible by covering their faces, hiding and not talking to anyone.

Israel and America is of course to blame for this !?!?!?????

Elin Elkouby

2009-06-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hard questions.

I have just come home from guiding a group of tourists. Every time I go to the air port to pick up a new group I am wondering what it is going to be like. Most of the touring will be similar to what other groups have on their itinerary but it is amazing to see how different every tour turns out to be. The itinerary deals with the sites, stones and dust but the people in the group are what the Bible refers to as the “living stones”. When the two of them comes together only God knows what can happen……and something does happen.
I always learn something new being with a group and when they are gone that is what stays with me. This time is was a message from one of the tour leaders. She shared with us about the Queen of Sheba who came from a country far away in order to seek answers to her many questions.
Rumors had informed her about this Jewish king and his wisdom. Back in those days a trip like the one she did was tiresome, long lasting and dangerous. The Bible tells us that she came to the king to “test him with hard questions”.
Many people have questions which they cannot seem to find answers to and which are nagging from within. These are existential questions and when answers are sought but not found the person is left with a kind of sadness which often turns into a defensive and often also aggressive attitude towards people who claim to have the answers. The Queen came with this kind of attitude ready to push this king into a corner of no escape.
Her attitude changed, however, and she soon found herself having a conversation with Solomon where “she spoke to him about all that was on her heart.”
The gospel of Luke refers to this meeting between the Queen from the South and the King in Jerusalem an states that Jesus’ wisdom goes much further than the one of Solomon.
I am in the “question producer business”. We go through things in life and see things happening to others that leaves us with lots of question marks. I don’t know what my life would have been like if I had not had someone to turn to with my hard questions……and even better; I can speak to Him with all that is on my heart.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-06-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

Counting the dead.

The director of a Norwegian peace research center criticizes the Norwegian Army for not being capable of giving numbers concerning how many Afghanistan’s have been killed by Norwegian soldiers. He claims that the soldiers should keep statistics over every person being killed, how it happened and to what extent the Norwegian soldiers were involved.
The Norwegian Army answers by saying that dead people a carried away quickly by the Taliban and that they do not want to enter into any competition concerning numbers with them. It also states that no civilians have been killed but continues saying that it is hard to know who is a civilian. Sometimes a civilian all of a sudden picks up a weapon and starts shooting.
Really….!!!!!
How come that it is so hard to understand that this is exactly what is happening in this part of the world.
I am amazed to see how this “ugly game of war” is being “played” by different rules depending on location. I have been following the news reports from Pakistan, Somalia and Afghanistan lately and see that thousands have been killed, many of them civilians. It is always described as the “good” fighting “the bad” and if the fighters are considered to be extreme Moslems the picture is clear.
What is not clear to me has to do with why extreme Moslems who’s aim is to conquer the entire world and to make sure that people live according to shariah laws are not seen as such if they happen to be Palestinians.
To believe that Hamas is fighting for the rights of the Palestinian people is a sour misunderstanding. Their aim is to convert every Palestinian to become a devoted Moslem practicing shariah and through that to join forces against Israel and to wipe out “the infidels” of the land.
If they should succeed in doing so the women will be the first to suffer. The ones who have started to enjoy the taste of the right to make up their own opinions and to express them are the next in line. This is what is going on in Gaza right now and what Hamas groups are trying to enforce on the people living in PA controlled areas in the so called West Bank.
Who will demonstrate in the cities of Europe and be a voice to those who are not allowed to speak up?
Who decided that one person’s life is more valuable than another?
Why does lives in Africa, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and other places count less than the lives of Palestinians?

Elin Elkouby

2009-06-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

A dangerous place to live.

I enjoyed watching a list of supposedly secure and dangerous countries on earth. Norway was number 3 after Denmark and New Zealand. America landed on number 83 and Israel was listed as the fourth most unsecure place to live being all the way down to 141 and having only Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq being considered as even worse.
……and I say to myself, “What a wonderful world!”

What scares me the most in Israel is the bureaucracy.

Elin Elkouby

2009-06-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

Choosing what to hear, what to see and what to say.

The Norwegian doctor Erik Fosse was back in Gaza almost a week ago. His college Mads Gilbert was not allowed to cross the border by Israeli authorities.
The two were the first foreign doctors to enter Gaza during the war last December and January and as such became spokesmen to the world concerning the situation in Gaza. Their description of what was going on was heavily colored by their personal political standpoint which is far (and further than far ) to the left and “signal red” by dye.
The base of their understanding concerning the conflict between the Moslem and the Western world is that “Israel is to blame” and that “America is the source of most evil”.
Whoever listens to them should at least know that before they uncritically accept their reports.
Magdi Allam used to belong to the same side in politics. He was born into a Moslem family and raised in Egypt but left for Italy in 1972 where he studied and ended up as one of Italy’s most famous journalists. He used to work for the communist newspaper “Il Manifesto” and continued to the center-left leaning paper “La Repubblica.” He was outspoken as a supporter of the Palestinian issue, an admirer of Yassir Arafat, supported Moslem immigration as well as the building of Mosques in Europe and used every opportunity to speak and write against Israel.
But, this has changed. From 2002 on he went through a major change of mind concerning the issues which had been his main focus for more than 25 years. He all of a sudden got an understanding of what the leading Moslems are after and it has caused him to pull the breaks. He is now the deputy director of one of Italy’s oldest newspapers called “Corriere della Sera” and has written a book called “Viva Israele” or “Long live Israel.
He accused Italy and the West of ignoring the dangers of an imminent "Islamization" of the society, and a possible Jihad (Islamic holy war) in Europe.
He’s criticizing Hamas and is saying that "the origin of the ideology of hatred, violence and death is the discrimination against Israel”
"I thought it was a big mistake to allow a terror organization to participate in elections. Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair deluded themselves in believing that Hamas' very participation in the government would turn the group into a pragmatic political power. Instead, it turned out that Hamas will never recognize Israel's right to exist, will not relinquish terror and will not honor international agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority. Hamas wants absolute rule in order to impose sharia and to revive the international Islamic caliphate. As it pushes for absolute rule, it does not hesitate to massacre its Palestinian brothers in Gaza. It will try to do the same thing in the West Bank."

It is interesting that he sees what others refuse to see. Most people die with the opinions they had and the conclusions they made at a young age. Very few are brave enough to dare admit that what they used to believe is actually wrong. It takes courage to do so; especially when it causes danger to ones life. Magdi Allam never needed police protection before he changed opinion. Now he is surrounded by security guards around the clock.

What he said about Hamas is right. Last Saturday 6 people were killed as Abu Mazen’s security force came to arrest a couple of Hamas terrorists in the town of Qalqilyah. Three of the killed were policemen and the other three were the two terrorists and the house keeper where they were hiding. The case is considered the bloodiest intra-Palestinian incident in the West Bank in years and there is fear that the conflict within the Palestinian society will spread to other towns in the area. Hamas, of course, has promised revenge although it was the two terrorists who opened fire and shot policemen first.

How come that I cannot find this to have been reported in any media abroad ????

Elin Elkouby

2009-05-28T02:46:00.000-07:00

Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks.

This feast has several names; Shavuot which simply means “Feast of Weeks, Hag matan Torah which means “Festival of giving the Torah”, Hag Ha’Bikurim which means “Festival of the First Fruits” and Hag Ha’Katzir which means “Festival of the Harvest”.
The barley has been harvested and we have been counting the fifty days of Omer and are preparing for Shavuot and the harvesting of the wheat.
It has been a period of temperatures swinging from low to high in waves. We have felt the heat of the Chamsine which is the result of a desert storm being brought to us through strong hot winds and lots of desert dust. The word Chamsine is Arabic and actually means fifty so the Bible and nature is in agreement when it comes to this period between these two holidays in spring.

Both the giving of the Torah and the story about Ruth is part of this holiday.
We learn from the Book of Ruth that she was a widow who followed her mother in law, Naomi, back to Bethlehem.
Naomi had left Betlehem Ephrathah together with her husband and two sons in order to dwell in the country of Moab. After her husband and both sons had passed away she headed back to her hometown in the Judean mountains. Her Moabite daughters in law followed her on the first part of her journey but only Ruth insisted on continuing after Naomi had released them. “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried, “ she stated and continued walking into a new and completely unknown future. Her decision was to become a blessing both to herself and to her mother in law……and even to us. They were on their way to the place and family that would bring forth the Messiah.
The Bible tells us that they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest and that Ruth eventually “stayed close by the young women of Boaz, to glean until the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest.”
Ruth was completely accepted as “a daughter” by Naomi and her new family. She was to become the grand-grandmother of king David. She was “grafted in” physically just as Rahab had been one generation back in time. Rahab was the mother of the man Ruth was about to marry.

Shavuot is all about giving; The giving of the Torah, the giving of the first fruits, the giving of equal rights for whoever chooses God and the giving of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

To give is a lifestyle. It seems to me that people who give never complains about being in need. God instructs us to give and to follow His directions always brings blessings.

A wise man once said: “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

Elin Elkouby

2009-05-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

The new Palestinian government.

It has been interesting to follow the Palestinian building of a new government. It does not have the support neither of the Hamas nor of the Fatah nor of some of the other groups within the Palestinian political landscape.
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is trying to please his own people, the Egyptians and the West all together and does not really succeed in doing so.
The Palestinian people are being torn between Hamas and Fatah as it is these two main groups which control the media. They decide everything concerning “what to say” and “how to say it”. The people do well in supporting whoever is the strongest in their region. Not doing so can be dangerous.
Egypt has had a few issues lately with Iranian supported Hezbollah groups operating within her territory. Everybody knows that Hamas is supported by Iran as well. There is a lot of friction within the Egyptian society but Housni Mubarak still tries to host peace talks between the Palestinians as well as talks on an international level in order to put Egypt on "the map".
The West needs a Palestinian “address” which recognizes Israel, but if it does not have any support among its own people it won’t be of much use.

The new government consists of 24 ministers, including Salaam Fayad, who is both continuing as prime minister and who also is ministering the “money box”. Seven of the ministers served in the previous government. Fayad is known to be a moderate politician with good connections to both Israel and the West.

A few months ago it looked as if the Palestinian government was all Fatah and that the biggest group in opposition was Hamas. The war last summer actually was presented to us as if that was the case. We know that Hamas took completely over the Gaza Strip and that it also has strong support within many towns on the West Bank. The media presented this war as to be “the bad guys fighting the good guys” ( My blog on Jan.20.2009 deals with that issue. )

There is a major crisis going on within the Fatah at the moment. Some seem to be leaning towards Hamas. It is amazing how “scaring people to death” can result in a wish to get closer to the enemy.
During the war last summer lots of Fatah policemen were shot in their legs in order to cripple them. (Seventy of these policemen have come to Israel to receive medical treatment and artificial legs.) This may be understood as a warning to cause people to behave according to Hamas set rules. Fatah claims that Hamas has killed more than 700 of their people since the uprising in 2000. They kill the ones they know will not change....

The new government has yet to be approved by the majority of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Elin Elkouby

2009-05-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

To be a guide

can be a wonderful spiritual experience. I meet with lovely people from many different backgrounds both geographically and spiritually. To show people the Holy Land is a true privilege. I am in the situation where I add knowledge and spiritual awareness to those who listen and I am fortunate to learn a lot myself from the people that I take around.
But in our walk in life we are not only on a spiritual journey. The body and the soul come along as well. As a tourist guide I need to keep my eyes open for people’s physical needs and to make sure that rest rooms are available and that people are not being exposed to too much sun as I do my explanation. People need to drink, to eat, to get some rest and it is important not to talk too much……(which of course is very hard for me …)

The travel agent is usually not very visible to the tourists, but they are working “behind the curtains” all the time. Tourism is a business. Families are depending on the income from this business. As a guide I am “recommended” to visit certain restaurants and souvenir shops along the way. The agent has made agreements with the owners and receives commission from visiting tourists. ( as do the team on the bus ) This is not something that is special for Israel but it simply is the way it works all over the world.
Don’t worry, it is not as bad as it may sound. Actually the system with “tourist restaurants” and “tourist shops” is a great help to us. These places make it possible to get lunch quickly and also to do shopping without wasting time and loosing people. The problem occurs when shopping become more important than the itinerary.

The driver is an important part of the trip. A guide and a driver is very much a team and the “taste of the trip” can depend on the relationship between the two. I have often recommended tour leader to ask for an Arab bus driver working for Arab Bus Company. It makes life easier for groups visiting Bethlehem or Jericho.
Jewish Bus Companies and drivers are not allowed into these areas. The group will have to change bus on the border if the itinerary includes visits to Palestinian Authority controlled areas. It is the “tourist shop” owners in these places that provide the bus for the visit and so of course they will make sure that the tourists are not only taken to see the Holy Places but also to visit their shop. In those cases where tourists are not interested in shopping but rather want to meet with people this can be a problem.
On the other hand we have a problem with Israeli Arab bus drivers working for Arab Bus Companies because they are not being paid.
People are so busy criticizing Israel for treating the Arab population bad. This is just one small example to illustrate how they treat one another.--- When I work with an Arab bus driver every conversation with him is about money. They loose money before they start working because they have to pay bribes to the person in charge of deciding which driver goes with which group. They have to pay the parking fee at the air port from their own pocket. If they do not live in Jerusalem they often have to pay for over night stays themselves. ---At home they have a wife and four, five six….children waiting for them to make a living.
My priority is always to spend enough time at the places according to the itinerary. When I work wit an Arab bus driver this is a constant source of confusion. If they do not receive commission from tourist shopping and a nice tip at the end of the trip they simply come out loosing money as they work.

So, pray for me. It is not easy to balance the different needs.

Elin Elkouby

2009-05-08T02:53:00.000-07:00

Lag B-Omer, a new holiday coming up.

In the beginning of next week we are going to celebrate one of the minor Jewish holidays called “Lag B-Omer” or “the thirty-third day of counting the “Omer”.

The “Omer” is Hebrew for sheaf, or a bundle of grain tied together, but it also means a specific measure of grain. The Torah instructs Jews to harvest the first “omer” of barley, the first grain to ripen in spring, at the end of the first day of Pesach, after sundown, and bring it to the Temple in Jerusalem. ( see Lev. 23, 5-15 ) The “counting of the Omer” refers to the period of forty-nine days that are to be counted from that first night on to the beginning of the “ Feast of Weeks”. In ancient times the wheat harvest started on Shavuot (“Feast of Weeks”) so the counting of the “omer” served to connect these two major agricultural events.

The celebrating of “Lag B-Omer” is not based in the Bible. It rather refers to events in Jewish history which happened after the time of both the Tanach (the Jewish Bible) and the New Testament. Most people connect it to the period of the Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans led by Bar Kochva in 135 AD.
Others connect it to death of Shimeon Bar Yohai, a major figure in Jewish mysticism. He instructed people to rejoice at his funeral and so his followers are celebrating with great festivities which include the fist haircut for three-years-old boys.

Most Israeli children do not go too deep into the historical background of the holiday. What is most important for them has to do with the camp fires that are being lit all over the country. Children’s main occupation in the weeks prior to this evening has to do with the collecting of fire woods. (They turn it into any house builder’s nightmare…)
On the evening itself every open spot is covered with small and big camp fires. The nice part of this is that it brings the parents out of the house as long as the children are small. Potatoes are being wrapped in aluminum foil and thrown into the fire to bake and marshmallows are “puffed” on burning coal.
When the children gets bigger they prefer being alone with their friends. That gives the parents an opportunity to do something nice with their friends as well.

Lag B-Omer has turned into being the “Feast of the Camp Fires”. Most youth stay up all night so the schools have decided to stay closed on the following day. What dominates the atmosphere the next morning is the smell of “dying “ camp fires and quiet …….

Elin Elkouby

2009-04-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Another day of mourning.

Today is the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers. Every Israeli family has lost relatives or friends in wars or on army duty. The price for independence has been high.

One of my best friends in Israel is a 95 year “young” woman. She fled Germany together with her husband in 1934 and arrived in Israel. Before they left Germany her mother made sure to have some clothes made for her. These clothes and other personal belongings were put in two boxes and brought with them on the journey. She came from an “upper class background” and was heading for a new life in a kibbutz.
The two boxes didn’t really fit in with her new home. There were no permanent buildings other than the children’s houses and she and her husband lived like all the other adults in a tent. She was happy the day the boxes were opened for whomever to take what they pleased. There were no occasions for her to wear the clothes inside but others had never seen tailor made clothes of such quality before so they grabbed whatever they could get hold on and left the boxes empty for her.
My friend told me that nobody believed that she would ever make it on a kibbutz, but “ I had everything I needed in life as long as my best friend and husband was there right beside me.” They had left everything behind and were facing the future holding on to one another.
The War of Independence left her with the memories and a grave.

A couple I got to know in another kibbutz were both Holocaust survivors. He managed to flee Nazi Germany and she was from Italy and had survived a concentration camp. They got three sons and were proud and happy parents until the Yom Kippur War.
Today they have one son left.

I shall never forget the week when one of my neighbors received the message that their son had been killed. A special team from the army came to deliver the heaviest of news to the parents one evening. The fear of such news lives like a ghost together with every Israeli family for as long as their children are serving in the army.
Soon the news spread to all the neighbors and it seemed like all the other mothers came out from their houses. Some of them were holding their face in their hands as if afraid of loosing it and others were folding their arms around their tummies and were kind of bending forward as they were walking.
When a person passes away in Israel the family sits at home and mourns for seven days. During this time they are visited by friends and people who want to show participation in their sorrow.
The following morning and throughout the day our street was full of soldiers. They were both inside and around the house. People were coming and going non stop.
My oldest girl was in kinder garden when this happened. Her group of children adopted this family and tried to be a comfort to them throughout the year on various occasions.

As I have been writing the day has turned to evening and the stars are visible. Soon the celebrations of 61 years independence will begin and fire works will light up the sky.

Elin Elkouby

2009-04-21T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today is the worst day of the year. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Israeli year has two days that are extremely heavy to get through; one is today and the other one is in about a week from now and is the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers.

A new day starts at sun down and lasts until the next sun down. Last night had the lightening of candles and the memorial ceremonies at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) and other places. Today all the schools have their ceremonies and there has been a moment of quiet to honor to the memory of those who perished during World War II.

The most chocking experience for me when I arrived in Israel the first time in 1976 was that the Holocaust didn’t only belong to the history books. I actually met people who had “walked through the valley of death” and I couldn’t really tell if they had come out alive.
A human being is some kind of a body, soul and spirit-trinity and it seems like it is possible to kill part of that while the person is still “walking among the living”.
According to the historians 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. According to me the number is much higher. I have seen dead people walking.

We still have some of them among us. Judah is an old friend of mine who originally came from Lodz in Poland. The Ghetto of Lodz had 230.000 Jews in it to begin with and another 25.000 were added later. By the end of the war only 877 Lodz Jews remained.
My friend was transported to a concentration camp together with his younger brother but they ended up in different barracks because of the age. One day his brother had managed to sneak over because he didn’t want to be on a transport leaving for some other place.
My friend told me, as tears were running down his face, that he took his brother by the hand and brought him over to one of the camp guards. He was afraid of being punished and was going to apologize on his brothers behalf and explain the situation to him. The next thing he knew was himself laying on the ground being beaten while his brother was carried away crying and screaming. That was the last he saw of his brother.
My friend is an old man by now but he never managed to get his life back on track. He collects whatever people throw away and fills up his house and garden with the junk. It is as if he does not allow himself to enjoy life and he is constantly blaming himself for existing. “He was younger than me but he understood what was going on. My brother was smarter than me.” Judah is the only one left from his family.

One of his neighbors told me that he was “a cute little blond girl” during the Holocaust. His mother dressed him up as a girl and let his hair grow so that the Nazis wouldn’t find out that he was Jewish.

I have met lots of people with numbers tattooed on their arms. Most of them do not feel comfortable wearing short sleeves.
---A group leader from England once asked me if the survivors saw themselves as heroes. I was shocked by the question and by the way it was asked and found it hard to answer.—In order to ask smart question there is a need for a certain base of knowledge. Some question reveals the “screaming “ lack of such. All the Holocaust survivors that I have met are still struggling to survive.

The Holocaust Museum in Israel is called Yad VaShem which means a “place and a name”. Isaiah: 56,4-5 sais:” To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths and choose what pleases Me, and hold fast My covenant, even to them I will give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

Elin Elkouby

2009-04-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

The end of Passover and the Maroccan Jewish “Mimunah”.
We have come to the last day of Passover and every Jew with Moroccan background is looking forward to the sweets and the special pancakes (“ mufletta”) of the “Mimunah”.

I remember the first time I was introduced to this way of ending the Jewish holiday of “Pessach” (Passover). It was 1985 and I was a volunteer in a kibbutz called Alonim on the main road between Haifa and Nazareth. A friend of mine in the kibbutz told me that the Moroccan Jews were making sweets and that they opened up their homes to everybody who would enjoy the sweets with them. I was curious to check this out so we decided to go and visit some Moroccans that he knew of….
There were lots of Moroccan Jews living in a place called Migdal ha’Emek so we decided to go there. The car was parked and we heard cheerful noises from many places. Every Moroccan family had left the entrance door to their homes wide open for people to enter and enjoy their sweets with them. I had never experienced anything like this before. We entered a home and were well received. The house was packed with people standing around a table with home made sweets of kinds that were unfamiliar to me. I had never seen carrots completely soaked and dripping with honey and I had never tasted anything as sweet as that before.

There are a few theories concerning the reasons for celebrating “Mimunah”.
Some people say that it has to do with the redemption of the People of Israel in the future just as they were redeemed from Egypt in the past.
Some say that it has to do with a memorial day for the father of the famous Moroccan Maimonides as he passed away on this day.
Others again say that it has to do with some kind of a “New Year” celebration as it is close to the harvest and could be the beginning of a new financial year. The greetings for this celebration is “May you be prosperous and may you be happy!”

What I know the best is that my daughter loves the “muflettas” of this evening and that she is very disappointed if we don’t go to visit somebody who makes them.
A “mufletta” is a thin kind of pancake served with honey. It is so thin you can almost see through it.
What a lovely way to end the “Feast of the Unleavened Bread”.

Tomorrow the “Mimunah” is continued by having a barbeque in the park. Every Moroccan Jewish family will bring food enough for “an entire army” and spend the day under the trees while keeping the coal glowing from the morning on.

I am fortunate to have married a Moroccan…..

Elin Elkouby

2009-04-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

Tel Aviv celebrates 100 years.
When a small group of people gathered on the sand dunes close to Yaffo in 1909 their intentions were not to build a city but rather a suburb to Yaffo. The name of the place should be “Ahuzat Bayt” or “ Housing Property”.
Yaffo in those days had turned into a crowdy, noisy and busy place. It was the main entrance gate to the country from the sea and was connected to a well developed railroad system which could bring people to Haifa and further to Damascus, to Beersheba and southwards through the desert towards Egypt or up to Jerusalem. Yaffo was good for business but did not have any quality living conditions to offer.
The first house owners in this new neighborhood on the dunes did not want their living quarter to turn into a busy town. It took several years and many heated discussions for the first kiosk to be granted approval and even after it was built it was allowed to sell cold soft drinks only.
The name was later changed to Tel Aviv.
The word “Tel” in Hebrew refers both to a natural hill and to an archaeological hill of ancient remains. “Aviv” is the Hebrew word for the season of spring. On that back ground “Tel Aviv” can be translated to the “Spring Hill”.
The reason for choosing the name however has more to do with other factors. Theodor Herzl, who is known as the “father of political Zionism” wrote a book titled “Altneuland” (which translated from German means “new-old-land”) When his book was translated to Hebrew by Nachum Sokolov the title became “Tel Aviv”.
The first Jews to settle this land were more politically than religiously focused, but the Bible and the reading of the Bible has never been considered a part of religious peoples lives only but rather the “root” of every Jew. Tel Aviv is mentioned in the Bible as a city inhabited by Jews in Babylon. This together with the Hebrew “understanding” of the name made it an easy choice.
As such it “has it all”. Tel Aviv turns on the lights of “belonging”, “roots”, “Hebrew” as well as “religious freedom”. It was easy for the inhabitants back in those days to identify with such a name.
Only in 1924 did Tel Aviv officially turn into an independent city. It was the Arab riots that forced this reality into being and it resulted in the building of the Tel Aviv harbor. As banks, shops and offices were added the number of inhabitants grew quickly.

In the time of the Bible when the Land was divided between the various tribes this part of the coastal plain was the inheritance of Dan. In those days this area was not as much appreciated because of lack of water and problems with peoples who were superior in warfare on the plains. It was considered better and safer to live up in the mountains.
Today the situation is exactly the opposite. Very few Jews have settled the mountains while the majority of the people live on the coastal plains from Askelon in the south to Nahariya in the north. Two out of five million people have made Tel Aviv and the surrounding towns their home.

Tel Aviv is the symbol of Jewish success in this Land.
Congratulations!!
Elin Elkouby

2009-04-03T01:33:00.000-07:00

A visit from Poland.

I have had the pleasure to host a beautiful Polish teenage girl for the last three days.
My oldest daughter is participating in the Rotary youth movement activities and they have visitors from Poland.
Last year a group of Israeli youth went the other way. My daughter was one out of fifteen who spent a week travelling in Poland.
The Israeli schools are on vacation until after the Jewish holiday of Passover. Usually the kids get up late during holidays, but these visitors have made a change to that. The bus leaves for days trip at 06.30 or 07.00 every morning. They have been to the north and to the center of Israel and by the time they return they can hardly keep their eyes open.

Today Jerusalem is on the itinerary. When I was told that they will start by visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, I felt a heaviness coming over me.
It was the German invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War 2 . Hitler didn’t have any high thoughts about the Polish people as they were not Aryans and really didn’t consider them as worthy to have their own land especially not when they came “in the way” for German access to Prussia.
Hitler related to Poland as a “war dump”. Many of the concentration camps were built on Polish ground and most of them were of a kind that could not be survived. Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Krakow, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Lodz and many more, were all in Poland. 6 million Polish were killed during the war and half of them were Jews.
No doubt the Polish people suffered from Hitler…..

What saddens me is to know that Poland has been known as one of the strongest anti Semitic countries in the world. The “pogroms” were a fact long before the Nazis were even invented and the anti Jewish attitudes were based on teachings from the Catholic Church. The Church has a strong grip on the people even today and it seems that they still present the Jews as the “ones that killed Jesus”.
Pope Paul II was from Poland. He was the one who expressed the need for the Catholic Church to reconcile with both the Jews and the State of Israel. I hope his countrymen are following in his footsteps…..

What that this have to do with Olga? Nothing else than the fact that she has grand parents…..

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

The Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem.

Many years ago, when I visited Israel as a tourist, I had gone up to Jerusalem to spend some days in the Capital. There is so much to do in Jerusalem……even to do nothing but watching people can be more than entertaining.
I had bought a “ pictorial map” and found that it said “Biblical Zoo” in one of the religious neighborhoods. So off I went….. to something that should be more than a disappointment. The zoo was a smelly place with unhappy animals stuffed into cages which were much too small.
Fortunately things have changed. The zoo was closed in 1991 and reopened at a new location in 1993. Today it is a spacious park with lots of green and water flowing.
The vision of the zoo is “ To establish a zoological collection and to maintain it under optimal living conditions, in an effort to preserve rare animals and species threatened with extinction. Prominently featured in the collection are animals from the Land of Israel, with special emphasis on those species mentioned in the Bible.”
Besides “displaying” animals the zoo is aiming at conducting research, breeding and reintroducing animals to the wild. There is a zoo hospital on the spot to ensure good care for wounded or sick animals. ( You can check out their web site at http://www.jerusalemzoo.org.il/ )

One of the special things about this zoo is that it is “kosher”. As we get close to Pessach or Passover( the Feast of the unleavened bread), the animals will be fed unleavened food only.

The signs giving information about the animals are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. In some cases they even have information in Yiddish. ( Yiddish is a spoken Jewish language “made up from” Hebrew, Polish and German.) Some religious Jews use Hebrew only for prayer and studying the Bible and use Yiddish as their daily language. As many of the visitors to the zoo are religious there are cases when information has to be given in Yiddish as well;
The most unpopular animal in the Bible is the pig….One of the species at the zoo is called “ Collared peccary”. This animal looks like a pig. In order not to offend the religious visitors this particular sign has an addition in Yiddish reading; “ Dos iz nisht a chazir.” which means : “ This is not a pig”.
The next time you are asked which animal has a curly tail, loves to dig in the dirt and sais “oink, oink” , the answer may not be as obvious as you think.

Churchill once said ; " I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

Bibi Netanyahu’s government.

On September 17’th 2008 Tzipi Livni won the Kadima leadership election. Ehud Olmert resigned as Prime Minister and Livni got six weeks to form a coalition. The election of February 10’th 2009 was the result of her not succeeding in doing so.
The election gave Kadima 28 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Likud got 27, Yisrael Beiteinu got 15, the Labor Party got 13, Shas got 11 and the rest went to smaller parties.
As Livni could not form a government the “ball” was thrown to Bibi Netanyahu who started working on various options. He has had talks with both Livni, Lieberman and Barak and the journalists have not had much more than confusion to share with the public….. It has been a “stormy kind of quiet”.
From the “outside” it looks as if Netanyahu is trying to get the best qualified person in the various minister positions without considering the parties they represent. This has caused fear within the parties as they are afraid of loosing power as “units”.
Kadima was established by people who left both the Likud and the Labor Parties. For them to join forces with Likud seems threatening. It is as if they are going through an identity crisis….
The Labor Party has had an internal storm since Netanyahu announced that he would like to see Ehud Barak as Minister of Defense. The internal election on March 26’th resulted in 680 votes for joining Netanyahu’s coalition and 507 against. Barak is now striving to keep the Labor Party united and asks his Party-fellows to respect the result of the vote.

It is not hard to understand why Bibi consider Barak to be the best man for the job;
Ehud Barak is one of these people who just “ has it all”. He was born and raised in a kibbutz and enlisted in the army at age 17. He led a commander unit in the 1967 war and a tank battalion in the Sinai in 1973 and was soon noted for his exceptional bravery and coolness under fire by his superiors.
Barak led Israel’s anti-terrorist unit for many years and was involved in the planning of the Entebbe raid and hostage rescue mission which has entered history as the “most audacious and perfectly executed special force operation ever”. ( Bibi Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan Netanyahu, ended his life leading this operation. )
Barak holds an under graduate degree in Physics and Mathematics and a masters degree in Economic Engineering Systems besides being a gifted pianist and linguist.
He has served as head of Israel’s Intelligence and Central Command, was appointed army Chief of Staff and stepped down to serve various governments as Interior Minister, Foreign Minister and Prime Minister.
Barak is Israel’s most decorated soldier. He has seen Israel’s security situation from every possible angle. It is therefore interesting to note that he was striving to engage the Palestinian leaders in a productive dialogue in the mid 1990’s, that he ended 17 years of Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon and that he offered Palestinian prime minister Yassir Arafat to divide Jerusalem and to withdraw from various areas in Judea and Samaria. ( The Palestinians refused and “answered” with the Second Intifada in 2000)

For the Labor Party to join the coalition is seen by many as a “healthy” move as the government otherwise would be represented by too many right wing politicians.
Netanyahu will present his coalition to the President of Israel by the end of the month.

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

Gilead Shalit; “When the Shark and the Fish first met.”

Today it is exactly 1000 days since Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit was on army duty together with two other soldiers in their tank on the Israeli side of the border to Gaza. Their tank was attacked by Arabs who managed to open the door of the tank and to put it on fire. Two soldiers were shot on the spot while Gilead was taken captive and brought to Gaza. This happened on June 25’th 2006.

A few day later, on Juli 12’th, Hizbollah terrorists crossed the border over to Israel in the north. They killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two others while the Hizbullah fired rockets from Lebanon at Israeli border town to cover the attack. This was the beginning of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
The two soldiers captured were Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
On July 15’th 2008, coffins containing the remains of Eldad and Goldwasser were returned to Israel as part of a prisoner exchange.

The dead have all been buried but Gilead Shalit is still alive.

When Gilead was 11 years old he wrote the following story:
"When the Shark and the Fish First Met"

A small and gentle fish was swimming in the middle of a peaceful ocean. All of a sudden, the fish saw a shark that wanted to devour him. He then began to swim very quickly, but so did the shark.
Suddenly the fish stopped and called to the shark: "Why do you want to devour me? We can play together!"
The shark thought and thought and said: "Okay- fine: Let’s play hide and seek."
The shark and fish played all day long, until the sun went down. In the evening, the shark returned to his home.

His mother asked: “How was your day, my dear shark? How many animals did you devour today?”
The shark answered: “Today I didn’t devour any animals, but I played with an animal called FISH”.
“That fish is an animal we eat. Don’t play with it!” said the shark’s mother.

At the home of the fish, the same thing happened. “How are you, little fish? How was it today in the sea?” asked the fish’s mother.
The fish answered: "Today I played with an animal called SHARK."
"That shark is the animal that devoured your father and your brother. Don’t play with that animal," answered the mother.

The next day in the middle of the ocean, neither the shark nor the fish were there.
They didn’t meet for many days, weeks and even months.
Then, one day they met. Each one immediately ran back to his mother and once again they didn’t meet for days, weeks and months.

After a whole year passed, the shark went out for a nice swim and so did the fish. For a third time, they met and then the shark said: "You are my enemy, but maybe we can make peace?"The little fish said: "Okay."

They played secretly for days, weeks and months, until one day the shark and fish went to the fish’s mother and spoke together with her. Then they did the same thing with the shark’s mother; and from that same day the sharks and the fish live in peace.
THE END

Numerous attempts have been made to cause the release of Shalit. It is clear to everyone that the price will be heavy as an agreement will only be reached which has the exchange of prisoners as part of the deal. So far Hamas has presented a list of 450 Arab terrorists to be released from Israeli prisons. These are all men with “a lot of blood” on their hands and who are aimed at continuing their “contributions to Holy war on Israel”.

Gilead Shalit has become part of every family in Israel. To wake up to a new day knowing that he is in the hands of Hamas is tormenting. To see the light of hope being lit and later put out, in the eyes of his closest family is heart breaking. There is no way to describe it…….

On the other side of the border to Gaza there are mothers, wives and children who are longing for their dear ones to return home. The same people that we know only as cold blooded murderers and terrorists have family who’s hearts are crying out to be united with them.

We are just like Fish and Sharks in the sea. Our problem is that both sides see themselves as being the Fish ……..

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

How to make God laugh.

An old woman once told her grandchild that “if you want God to laugh you should tell Him your plans for the future.”

If someone had told me this when I was young I would probably have been very disappointed. I had lots of plans and I took myself very seriously. I did not like to be laughed at.
Looking back on my life today, however, I must admit that I have been on “roads” that I had never planned for. I have enjoyed most of my “adventures” through life and there are very few experiences that I would have liked to “erase”.

One of the tourists participating on the last group I guided asked me ; “So what will you be when you grow up? ” He was himself a retired pilot who had not retired from life and who knew that God never retires anyone……
I am getting close to 50 and still feel that I have great appetite for wherever this “walk” will lead me next.
The first followers of Jesus were Jews. The name they choose for their fellowship was “The Way”. I can easily identify with such an aspect on life as a believer. The only focus should not be “Heaven”, but to see the opportunities that are placed right in front of our nose. We need to now where our goal is in order not to loose direction, but at the same time we should not be afraid to live while we do.
We go through “seasons” in life and we meet challenges that are not always easy or pleasant. Some have more difficult choices to make than others and life is definitely not “fear”. In the middle of this the “book that I never finish reading” promises that “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.” (1.Chor;10,13)

I do not consider myself more clever than the One who created me. Still there are times when I shout to Him in despair and when I cry out in frustration and even in anger. –Some will say that it is not a very “Christian” thing to do to shout at God, but I am only a human being and never really tried to be a good “Christian”. –
One of the Ten Commandments sais ; “ You shall not lie.”, and I have always been very honest about being frustrated….If my own children are shouting at me I try to keep my mouth shut until “all the air is out” . Sometimes that is all that is needed for them to see the situation in a different light and to open their ears and willingness to listen. Sometimes after such a “storm” a hug is more appropriate than words as the quiet message of love can strengthen their inner cord more than a thousand lessons could ever do. Other times there is a need to use words in order to help sorting out the mess and to do teaching on standards in life. As a parent I will always prefer to be in a place where my children seek my company when they are confused.
I am confident that God is not less understanding towards me when I act out as a frustrated teenager in His presence.

But life is not just about sorting out hard feelings. I am very childish in my relationship with God and I let Him know that I see all “the flowers, the trees, the butterflies and everything else that adds color, taste, beauty and fun” to life as I walk along. I am constantly reminding myself not to take any of the good things for granted.

The Bible recalls Enoch “walking with the Lord” (Gen;5,19-24). His walk lasted for 365 years. A little girl was once asked by her Bible teacher to retell the story of this man using her own words.
Her version was this: “God and Enoch used to go for long walks together. One day God said “ We have come to a place where there is a shorter walk to my home than to yours.” Enoch enjoyed so much to be in God’s home that he never left .”

Elin Elkouby.

2009-03-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Pope and Israel.

A delegation from Israel’s Chief Rabbinate were in Rome to meet with the Pope last Thursday. The reason for the visit was that the excommunication of Holocaust denying Bishop Richard Williamson was lifted last December.
The Vatican has made efforts to be reconciled with the Jews since Israel and the Vatican established diplomatic relations in 1993 and periodic meetings between Rome and the Chief Rabbinate were initiated by Pope John Paul II in 2004.

This is in line with the “new” trend within the Catholic Church from the Council of Vatican II initiated by Pope Paul XXIII in the beginning of 1959. As soon as he became Pope he announced that “it is time to drag the church out of the Dark Ages and into the modern world. It is time to open the stained-glass windows and let in some fresh air.”
Pope Paul died in 1963 but Vatican II continued in four sessions through his successor, Pope Paul VI. One of the changes has been that the Catholic Church wants to have dialogue with other faith communities such as Jews, Moslems and others.

The present Pope Benedict XVI gave the visitors a warm reception and said “The Jewish people, who were chosen as the elected people, communicate to the whole human family knowledge of and fidelity to the one, unique and true God.” He also thanked the delegation “who quickly helped to clear up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust.”
The Pope has accepted an invitation from Israeli President Shimon Peres to visit the Land, and will “ make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to ask the Lord- visiting places sanctified by His passage on the earth- for His precious blessing of unity and peace for the Middle East and for all of mankind.” The visit will take place from May 11-15 2009.

Shimon Peres’ response when he received the news that the Pope had accepted his invitation was; “I am delighted that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has responded positively and accepted my invitation to visit the Holy Land. The Pope will be a most honored guest, welcomed and respected by people from all walks of life. His visit will be a moving and important event bringing the spirit of peace and hope. Welcome to Israel.”

Pope John Paul II visited the Holy Land in March 2000. The first visit ever of a Pope to this land was in January 1964 when Pope Paul VI came and stayed for 11 hours.

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-13T03:27:00.000-07:00

A “word” for the week end.

Being a tourist guide gives me the privilege to meet wonderful people from many different places and to be part of something that can be life changing to some of them.
The spring season has just started. The fields are green and full of flowers. The desert hills are covered with tiny green plants which make them look like green domes. The birds are singing, the sun is pleasant and the weather is …………. not as good for the land as it is for the body, soul and spirit of those who are touring.
This cartoon sais it all. It is a “Calvin and Hobbes” by Bill Watterson.

Let the day fall all around you

And let the breath of life surround you

What a day it should be a holiday

And those lazy days are hard to come by

Here for our pleasure, a moment to treasure

Stay with me and lend me your company

For You, You show to me

All the world gives for free

And there's no more that a man can ever ask for

And if we, we could see half He gave us to see

Then we'd be half way to finding the answer

So where will all the seasons go

It's for us to ask, it's for Him to know

It's too much for me, for such is the mystery

And all these things we take for granted

But how did they get here, when were they planted?

If we could see, then what would the answer be?

Today we'll see the butterfly
And we'll smell the grass and we'll feel the sky
Oh what a day, let no one take this away
But I will live my life forever, asking the questions
But answers will never come to me
For such is the mystery

For You, You show to me
All the world gives for free
And there's no more that a man can ever ask for
And if we, we could be half He wants us to be
Then we'd all be half way to finding the answer

This song was written by John Dawson Read and it has become my favorite of all times. It can be found on Cliff Richard’s album “Walking in the light”.

I thought this could be a good start on the week end.

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

The feast of Purim.

This feast is not mentioned in Leviticus 23, and therefore is not considered a "holy" feast.
Purim is the plural of the Hebrew word "pur", which means lot- the object used to determine something by chance- and it refers to Haman's use of lots to choose the date for his intended destruction of the Jews. The feast of Purim is all about the Book of Ester in the Bible.

There are no historical documents to verify the story of Purim. There are different openions among scolars of whom there are those who believe that it really happened some time between 486 and 465 BC when Xerxes was Persian king and that Xerxes and Ahasuerus is identical. If it is a true story it must have happened when the Jews were in Babylonian Exile.

Purim is fun time for Israeli children. They have dress up parties in kindergardens and at schools followed by a short holiday.
One of the nice things about Purim is that people give baskets with sweets to family and friends.
I remember this to be one of the highlights during the year when my girls were small. They would come with me to the shop and choose sweets for the baskets and later help me fill them up and wrap them with a transparent colored plastic wrap. The baskets had both ribbons and a blessing on it for the family we wanted to pass it on to. My girls loved to take these baskets and deliver them to our neighbors. ----Of course we got some baskets too.........the girls were thrilled to have all those sweets in the house and I enjoyed this "giving and sharing with our neighbors"
holiday.

Last year, however, something happened which put an end to this fun. A family of Messianic believers received a Purim basket which exploded when their their teenage son picked it up. Jewish terrorists used this sweet holiday tradition to cover explosives. The bomb was powerful enough to kill him but as by a miracle he did not die. His body, however, got filled with shrapnel and he was in critical condition as they brought him to hospital. This young boy has spent most of his time at the hospital undergoing numerous operations since this happened last year.

Purim used to be a feast to celebrate that the Jews overcame an enemy determined to destroy them. Last years event turned this to be a day when Jewish terrorists turn against other Jews in an attempt to destroy them. What a sick thing to do....!!!

So, it was a little different to receive a Purim basket this year. I would never have picked it up if it had not been delivered by my neighbors in person.

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

The mulberry tree.

I remember my first encounter with a mulberry tree. I was told that this was the tree in which a little fellow called Zacchaeus once climbed in order to get a glimpse of Jesus. That was the translation in the Norwegian Bible. Most English speakers know this tree to be a Sycamore tree. The Experts are still arguing…..and Zacchaeus would have climbed any tree that would have served his purpose.
What fascinated me was that it was full of sweet “raspberries” and that it had no thorns.

Later I was to learn that a mulberry tree is to the silkworms what the eucalyptus tree is to the Koala. It is not about some more “tiny fellows being fond of climbing”, but about food. The silk worm eats the leaves of the mulberry tree.
Today, unfortunately, there are almost no wild silkworms left and the mulberry tree leaves has been changed with an artificial kind of diet.

In the old days the people of the far East developed trade routes for them to earn money on silk production. There was a network of roads going across the Asian continent connecting the silk producers with the Mediterranean world, including North Africa and Europe. One of these roads went through the Negev desert.

The town of Safed, up in the Galilean mountains, was once a center for silk production. When the Jews of Spain and Portugal were expelled during the inquisition the Turks actually invited Jews to come and settle in Safed. In order to survive they started lots of businesses and the production of fabrics was one of them. The main production was from sheep wool but also silk production has been connected to this town.

There are no silk factories in Israel anymore so the mulberry trees are left for the ones who enjoy them for their berries.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-03-03T22:48:00.000-08:00

Who said boycott ????

A Norwegian politician proudly announced on TV that he had never eaten an Israeli orange. I was thinking ; “No wonder you look pale…”
Often the question of boycotting Israeli produce pops up on various countries political agenda. They all seem to have the agricultural produce in mind, but Israel contributes with a lot more… I have been wondering if someone would have liked to be without this:

Israel the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the worlds population, can lay claim to the following:

Most of the windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel by Intel.

Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor are produced in Israel

The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.
________

According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security.
________

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world.
________

Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with more trees than in the 20th century. More than 60% of Israel is desert.
________

Israel: Bio-Tec and Medicine:

Israeli researchers have created a “biological pacemaker’ which corrects faulty heart rhythm.

Israeli scientists are developing a nose drop that will provide a 5-year flu vaccine.

A revolutionary new drug developed by the Hebrew University prevents re-clogging of coronary arteries after undergoing “balloon therapy’.

Israeli scientists have created a DNA nano-computer that not only detects cancer, but also releases drugs that specifically target and treat cancerous cells.

Israeli stem-cell technology is being used in the US to regenerate heart tissue.

Thanks to Israel’s Given Imaging Ltd, doctors have the PillCam. Israel’s Given Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill.

Two of the most revolutionary drugs on the market:
Capaxone, which treats Multiple Sclerosis, and
Rasagaline, which treats Parkinson’s, were developed and produced by Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment.

Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential of saving lives among those with heart failure.
The new device synchronized with the camera helps doctors diagnose heart’s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

_________

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
_________

Israel has the world’s second highest per capita of new books.
_________

Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
_________

25% of Israel’s work force holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrial world, after the United States and Holland. 12% hold advanced degrees.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees reported to thee population, in the world.
_________

Israel’s Nobel Prize winners:

Chemistry: 30 prize winners (20% of world total)
Physics: 47 prize winners (26% of world total)
Economy: 26 prize winners (42% of world total)
Physiology or Medicine: 53 prize winners (28% of world total)
Literature: 13 prize winners (12% of world total)

Peace: Menachem Begin , Henry Kissinger, Elie Wiesel, Shimon Perez and Itzchak Rabin
Israel spends more money per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth.

Elin Elkouby

2009-03-02T08:32:00.000-08:00

….that they may be one.

I was on a women’s conference last week end. It’s called “ The Third Side”, aimed at women married to Jews, Christian Arabs or Armenians, themselves not belonging to either one of these groups. “Musalaha”, which means reconciliation, is the organization behind these conferences.

When I was invited to the first one a few years ago I didn’t really feel like “wasting” a week end away from my family. I was amazed, however, to discover the other women who were to join.
We spent most of the first week end listening to each other’s stories; What brought them to Israel and how they met their husbands. Each one of these women had a story which could have been a “best seller” if told though a book. What was interesting was that each one didn’t see anything extraordinary about their own story while all the others did.

We come from many different backgrounds and from lots of countries. The one thing we have in common is the fact that we have left what we grew up with and have started over again in a place very unlike where we came from. For many it caused a serious problem with language and culture and resulted in some seeing themselves almost as a “displaced” person.
The amazing thing has been that others clearly see the potential in a woman who hardly sees it herself. For some of the ladies this has been a great help and also a push to get out of self pity and confusion and to look up and onwards.
We have a lot to add to the Israeli society. We are more curious about different groups of people and have attitudes less colored by prejudice. We are not as easily seen as a threat as we approach someone “from the other side’. We do not teach our children to be afraid of neither Jews nor Arabs. There is no : “If you do not behave, the Jewish soldiers ( or the Arabs) will come and get you”….. in our way of bringing up our children.

Still we live being part of one or the other side of the conflict. In order to “survive” this it is important to have certain things explained.
This last conference dealt with “Operation Cast Lead”.
People belonging to a Messianic Jewish fellowship are used to be praying for the Israeli Army, asking God’s protection over the soldiers and being proud that some of the soldiers serving in elite units actually are Messianic Jews.
People belonging to an Arab Christian congregation are taught that participating in war is unbiblical. The Christian Arabs have an all pacifistic attitude based on their faith.
For these two “faith communities” to respect one another and to even love one another is nothing less than a miracle. We believe in such miracles and we need them desperately.

The most important thing to learn in life is probably that the base for love is not that we agree, but rather that we respect one another. ---I remember a friend of mine sharing an experience he had in Gaza. This happened before the second Intifada and when the Israeli Army were still in control of the entire Strip. He was on reserve duty for a month and had been sent to serve in Gaza. One day as he was patrolling with his unit he saw an Arab whom he recognized from a believers conference. The two men shouted from joy and gave one another a great hug while his army comrades and the other Arabs surrounding them were left watching with unbelief shining in their eyes.

The difference between the possible and the impossible is that the impossible may take longer.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-26T03:16:00.000-08:00

The meaning of a flag.

The Israeli flag has two blue stripes on white background and a blue “star of David” in the middle. It has been inspired by the prayer shawl worn while praying during certain services and by the “Zionist’ symbol and therefore can easily be identified with both by religious and secular Jews.
It was first displayed in Rishon le Zion ( an Israeli town) in 1885 and was used in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. The flag was adopted officially on October 28, 1948.
It is very much a “flag of a people” and Jews all over the world can feel comfortable with it.
In my home we always have an Israeli flag on display.
It is not a neutral flag, however. As the “national banner’ of the state of Israel it represents an “identity problem” for whoever is not Jewish but still “Israeli”.

The Palestinian flag was originally designed for the Arab riot against the Ottoman Empire in 1916. It started as an “all Arabs riot” flag, but was later adopted and recognized as the Palestinian flag. This happened first in 1948 in Gaza and later officially by Yasser Arafat and the PLO at the Palestinian Conference in Jerusalem in 1964.
Many of the Arab countries have similar flags with the same colors used in a different order.
The flag has four colors. From top to bottom it has equal stripes with the colors black, white and green and with a red triangle pointing to the middle of the white band. (Similar to the Jordanian flag only without the seven pointed star in the middle of the red triangle)
The colors represents “bloody chapters” of Arab history.
The red originates from the first Islamic group to emerge after the assassination of Caliph Uthman III in the early days of Islam. Their symbol was the red flag.
The black originated from pre-Islamic times when the black flag was a sign for revenge. It was the color of the headdress worn when leading troops into battle.
The white originated as the color used by the Ummayad Dynasty in the early days of Islam. It was their symbolic color as a reminder of Muhammad’s first battle of Badr.
The green originates from the Fatimid Dynasty ( 909-1171) who took the color green to symbolize their allegiance to Muhammad’s cousin Ali who was once covered in green in order to thwart an assassination attempt against him.
The Palestinian flag does not necessarily awake positive feelings in Jews when seen on street corners or houses.

The Druze people do not have a state of their own but they do have a flag. It has five colors ; green, red, yellow, blue and white. Sometimes the flag shows these colors in equal horizontal stripes and sometimes the green is shaped like a triangle cutting the stripes with the point being on the dividing line between the yellow and the blue.
The flag of the Druze unit in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has a white “star of David” added to the green triangle.
There are various explanations to the colors used in the flag. Some say that each one represents five prophets in the Druze religion and others say that they symbolize different aspects of the Druze faith with green for “mind”, red for “soul”, yellow for “word”, blue for “potential” and white for “the actualization of the potential”. Again there are some who say that green is for “nature”, red is for “heart”, yellow for “wheat”, blue for “sky and water” and white for “purity”. I would add that it makes sense that the flag have five colors as the founder of the Druze faith was called “Hamsa” which means “five” in Arabic.
What is interesting is that the Druze flag does not represent any “threat” . The flag can be seen in many places upon entering a Druze village but there are no bad feelings connected with it.

The Circassian flag shows a cluster of three arrows pointing north, northeast and northwest, three five pointed stars are just above each arrow point and another nine similar stars are above them. The arrows and stars are yellow while the background is green. The flag was designed in 1836.
The arrows symbolize the traditional directions of migration from the Caucasus in ancient times and the stars are symbolizing their tribes. The background color symbolizes the verdant landscape of Circassia. All Circassians have the same flag. They originates from the mountains of Caucasus but was “uprooted” and spread around by the Turkish Ottomans.
Their flag does not represent a threat to anyone.

The Samaritans do not have any flag. They are the smallest ethnic group on earth numbering close to 1000 people. They claim the seven branched candelabra to be their symbol.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

Waltz with Bashir.

The film is an animated documentary describing the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war.
It is about real people sharing their story, telling what they experienced in the past and the nightmares they go through at the present because of a war they took part in. It includes interviews with psychologists and other experts. The movie has an important message to bring about the long term consequences war.

If it had remained a regular documentary I do not believe that many people would have bothered to see it. The genius thing about this movie is that they turned it into an animation. That opens for the possibility to present reality and fiction in an equal way as it appears in the minds of the ones who participated, and it gives the freedom to underline features in peoples faces which otherwise would not have been recognized easily.

The movie has received great critics from many different directions. It was premiered at the 2008 Cannes film Festival. It won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, an IDA Award for Feature Documentary and was one of five movies nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Movie (didn’t win).

This is not a movie to be happy from as it shows the ugliness of war without using any cosmetics. One of the important messages is the impact this war had on the future of the young soldiers who participated.

It is as the wisdom from the story about the ancient Jewish king David who ruled 3000 years ago comes to life again. This king had one big dream for his life and that was to build a Temple for the God of Israel in Jerusalem. He never managed to fulfill that dream and the reason was ; “ …you have been a man of war and have shed blood” ( 1 Chron: 28,3)

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-22T04:26:00.000-08:00

A tour into Druzeland.

I was invited to join a trip to the Galilee last week. This region makes up one third of the country and is an area with mountains getting higher and higher towards the north. The Galilee runs from the Jordan Valley across the Yizreel plain towards Acco by the Mediterranean. It continues north along the coast to the Lebanese border and follows it towards the east until it reaches the foot of Mt Hermon. From there it continues south down the Hule Valley, the Sea of Galilee and into the Jordan Valley towards Beit Shean.
No other part of Israel has such a variety of people, religions and traditions. Here we find Jews, Moslem Arabs, Christian Arabs, Druze, Circassian Moslems and people belonging to the Bahai religion.
Our trip was about the Druze. They are 1 million people all together living in Lebanon, Syria and Israel. The two Druze villages on Mt Carmel are the most southern ones while all the others are situated on mountains in the Galilee. There are 100.000 Israeli Druze.

Their religion started about 1000 years ago from a Moslem Shi’ite background in Egypt.
Since the death of Muhammed all the different groups within Islam are based on who is considered the divine leader of the faith. From the beginning it resulted in the split into two main branches of Shi’ah Moslems and Sunni Moslems and continued to split within these two main fractions. The Isma’ilism is the second largest within the Shi’ah community.
Al Darazi was an Isma’ili missionary who claimed the divinity of Fatimid Caliph al Hakim. He was supported in his beliefs by Hamzah ibn Ali who also proclaimed himself to be the cosmic intellect. The Druze faith grew out from the religious philosophical teachings of Hamsah ibn Ali. They probably got their name from Al Darazi. Following the death of Caliph al Hakim the sect was subject to persecution and disappeared from Egypt. They settled in the mountain regions of what is today Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

It is not easy to get a clear overview of what they really believe as the community is closed for newcomers and as their religion is secret and revealed only to the religious among them, but still there are a few things that explains the basic of it.--- They are not Arabs and not Moslems. From 1050 on the community has been closed to outsiders. They believe that people living today are reincarnations of those who lived back then. If they didn’t join in the first place there is no reason to try now. They are not allowed to marry non Druze.

They recognize all three monotheistic religions, but claim that ceremonies and rituals have caused people to turn from pure faith. Therefore there are no rituals in the Druze religion. They have no fixed daily liturgy, no defined holy days and no pilgrimage obligations. The religious among them do not eat pork, smoke nor drink alcohol.
Their community is divided into the religious and the ones that are not, but there are no missionaries among them. Women can achieve high rank as they are considered better “spiritually prepared”.
As the Druze are always a minority in the countries in which they live they join forces with the strongest group surrounding them
.
I have always enjoyed the company of Druze people. They are very friendly and hospitable. They do not complain but see it as their responsibility to take care of themselves, therefore they always come up with new ideas concerning how to make a living. The Druze in Israel have started the production of furniture, carpets and fabrics that are unique to their villages.

One of the families we visited told us that there are nobody in their village that are unemployed. The head of the family said that in order to make enough money to survive they have to change “strategy” all the time. His family decided to work with tourism. In the beginning he rented out some rooms for over night visitors and prepared traditional Druze breakfast for the guests. Now he has rooms for rent, Jeep tours in the surrounding mountains, he gives lectures about Druze and their religion, he has opened a restaurant with homemade, traditional food and he receive groups for cooking lessons. He said that to be flexible is a must, and that if we wish to have Druze food but don’t want to come to his restaurant he will come to us and cook the meal out in the open together with us. I thought he was joking, but he said that to cook out in the open was a new “hit”. “We, teach people which herbs to pick and how to mix them with the food that we make. There are lots of wild spices growing in our surroundings.”
This man had invited 45 tourist guides to eat a full meal for free in his restaurant. He served at least ten different vegetable dishes together with grilled chicken and some kind of cooked minced meat. It was all delicious.

We left his house hoping that the future would bring a possibility for us to be a blessing to him by filling up his restaurant with paying guests.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-19T08:18:00.000-08:00

Que sera, sera……

For the last few days Israeli President, Shimon Peres, have had visitors. They are all trying to convince him that they are the ones he should ask to form the next Israeli government with their leader being the prime minister.
Politics is like a game of poker. It is all about “how to play the cards”.
People were speculating about the possibility for the two biggest parties, Kadima and Likud, to join forces in a “rotation” government. This would make Tsipi Livni the prime minister for the first two years while Bibi Netanyahu would take over for the two last years of the period.
Suggesting that Bibi Netanyahu would sit “waiting on the bench” for his time to come was more than optimistic…..As Kadima won with only one more seat in the Israeli parlament, Netanyahu knew that from that point everything depended on how he deals with the bunch of “cards” given to him.
Avigdor Lieberman is in many ways a winner. He will not be the prime minister, but he has the power to decide which of the two others he will join forces with. That again, of course, depends on who will give him the best bargain.

Israel still have rockets coming from Gaza. We have had four of them in Gan Yavne the last two days…….The Palestinians do not know how to “play their cards” to the best for their people. None of Israel's candidates for forming a new government are into playing “any kind of game” neither with Hamas nor with the Palestinians.

I was in the Galilee yesterday on a trip with colleagues. We visited several Druze villages and met with leaders for their community. Being neither Jewish, Arab or Christian they pointed out the importance of Israel being strong. We were told that these villages actually support either Lieberman or the Jewish religious parties. The word strong was used over and over.
They know what it is like to be a minority and understand the importance of being strong and united. They are very nice and soft spoken to whoever is considered a friend, but if people do not belong to that category they do well in not getting too close. Their understanding of being strong is nothing else that to be able to fight an enemy. Whenever they feel threatened they go by the toughest rules of all.
There are 100.000 Israeli Druze. They do not have any dream or wish for a Druze home land, but would like for Israel, Lebanon and Syria to reach an agreement to make it easier for them to visit and to be united with other Druze communities in the neighboring countries.
We started our tour yesterday by visiting the grave of Sheich Abu Youssef Amin who was one of the greatest leaders of the community until he passed away in 1993 ( at the age of 105) We were received by his grandson.
Around the walls there were photographs of the Sheich with leaders from Israel as well as from abroad. We were told why and how the Druze community has supported Israel from the very beginning and that they will continue to do so.

We had a couple of Arab tour guides on this trip. On our way back to the bus they looked at one another as one of them said: “ This sounded like an election campaign for the Likud Party”

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-16T01:11:00.000-08:00

What was it like?

Being a tour guide in this land I am constantly looking for sources that can reveal something about the past to me. One of my favorites is Mark Twain.
He embarked on a journey which would last for five months from June 1867 onwards. The purpose of the trip was to see Europe and the East in his own time and to describe to the readers what he saw. Mark Twain did it in a delightful way.
To read his book, “The Innocents Abroad” , is great fun. He writes so well that I almost get the feeling of walking right beside him. I know what these places look like “in my time”. When I “go for a walk” with him I get some insight in the past.

His description of Jerusalem is almost heartbreaking. He describes the group of travelers as they ride towards the city from the north :

--we longed to see Jerusalem. We spurred up hill after hill, and usually began to stretch our necks minutes before we got to the top--but disappointment always followed:--more stupid hills beyond--more unsightly landscape--no Holy City. At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient bite of wall and crumbling arches began to line the way--we toiled up one more hill, and every pilgrim and every sinner swung his hat on high! Jerusalem!
Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and solid, massed together and hooped with high gray walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun. So small! Why, it was no larger than an American village of four thousand inhabitants, and no larger than an ordinary Syrian city of thirty thousand. Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people.

Jerusalem in those days consisted mainly of what we know today as the Old City. It was considered unsafe to live outside the protection of the city walls. The first Jewish neighborhood to be built was Yemin Moshe which was established in 1861 right outside the city to the west. It could no be seen from where Twain and his fellow travelers were standing. Most of the other neighborhoods were established later.

I record it here as a notable but not discreditable fact that not even our pilgrims wept. I think there was no individual in the party whose brain was not teeming with thoughts and images and memories invoked by the grand history of the venerable city that lay before us, but still among them all was no "voice of them that wept."There was no call for tears. Tears would have been out of place. The thoughts Jerusalem suggests are full of poetry, sublimity, and more than all, dignity. Such thoughts do not find their appropriate expression in the emotions of the nursery.

Jerusalem had been under the Ottoman Empire since 1517. The Turks made sure that any group of believers other than the Moslems kept their heads down. No church or synagogue were allowed to dominate the landscape. Church bells were kept silent and monks would beat a wooden plank to call for prayers.

A fast walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make one understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is peculiar. It is as knobby with countless little domes as a prison door is with bolt-heads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of these white plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a cluster upon, the flat roof. Wherefore, when one looks down from an eminence, upon the compact mass of houses (so closely crowded together, in fact, that there is no appearance of streets at all, and so the city looks solid,) he sees the knobbiest town in the world, except Constantinople. It looks as if it might be roofed, from centre to circumference, with inverted saucers. The monotony of the view is interrupted only by the great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and one or two other buildings that rise into commanding prominence.

The situation of the inhabitants was not good.

It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they know but one word of but one language apparently--the eternal "bucksheesh."

The only thing familiar with today’s Jerusalem has to do with the rich history of the city.

The sights are too many. They swarm about you at every step; no single foot of ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood seems to be without a stirring and important history of its own. It is a very relief to steal a walk of a hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceasingly about every stone you step upon and drag you back ages and ages to the day when it achieved celebrity.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

Israel’s election.

Many things can be said about Israeli elections but this last one was more than ever an election where “two Jews with three opinions went to vote for the right to live”
The election day was cold and rainy. Many political activists were concerned that the weather would cause people to stay home. According to statistics, however, there were a 3% rise in votes.
We ended up with 28 candidates for Kadima with Tzipi Livni, 27 for Likud with Bibi Netanyahu, 15 for Israel Beiteinu with Avigdor Lieberman, 13 for Avoda with Ehud Barak and the rest spread out to smaller parties. The tree first parties belong to the right in politics.
The total number of members to the Knesset is 120.
All Israeli governments have been coalitions, but most of the time there has been a clear majority of votes for one of the parties. What makes trouble this time is that they are too close. It is not clear who will be the Prime Minister as that will depend on who is capable of putting a government together. That will take quite some bargaining. We will probably not know until mid March and if no solution is found there will have to be a new election.

What these results show more than anything is that people want politicians who are willing to fight to secure their lives. As rockets continued to fall down on Israeli territory many people thought that the war was ended too early. We know that Hamas is far from being defeated and that they actually are gaining support from even more Palestinians both in Gaza and in the West Bank. When these facts are seen on the background of Iranian support for Hamas the picture becomes more threatening.

This is not about “feeling afraid” but about having a very realistic reason to be scared. In times like these people do not want to see politicians “sitting and talking” but rather “on their feet actually doing something”.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

A hike in the wilderness of Judah.

I was on an educational trip for tour guides yesterday in the Judean Desert. ( I am a licensed tour guide: see www.elinelkouby.com ) We can choose between several educational trips and this one was for “people who enjoy hiking”.

The Judean Desert has its own reasons from being counted as one. It is a special and isolated small local desert bordering to the highlands of Judah to the east, Wadi Kelt to the north, the Dead Sea to the west and to the south by the Zin river. It is 100 km long and 20 km wide and the reason why it has become a desert has to do with topography. It is located “in the shadow of the rains” as it starts from a height of 800m. above sea level and descends to 400m below.
Many wadis (dry riverbeds during the summer ) cut deep into the landscape from east to west. When it is raining in the highlands of Judah water rushes through them and creates numerous waterfalls as it flows towards the Dead Sea. Some wadis have many small waterfalls while others have a few tall. The tallest one is 350m high.
There are plenty natural caves which have been used for different purposes by man throughout history. Sometimes they have been dwelling places by choice while other times they have served as hideouts.

Wherever we travel in this country the Bible is an obvious source for knowledge and understanding. I enjoy very much the fact that this book is a key not only to the insight of spiritual matters but just as much to the comprehension of a country and its peoples. Therefore it does not belong only to church and synagogue services but has a natural place in any hikers backpack sharing room with maps, sunscreen crème, water bottles and sandwiches.
Having a greater understanding of the land and its peoples will again add life to the spiritual “secrets”. It is as if this knowledge covers the “spiritual skeleton” with "flesh".

Hiking in the Judean Desert is a test to ones physical abilities. My muscles keep reminding me of just that today.
We were a group of about forty hikers and we were sweating our way climbing down and up the steep sides of a wadi. Our guide told us numerous, tragic stories about people who had ended their lives by falling off cliffs or by being washed away by sudden floods. He reminded us that most of them had been trained hikers and that all it takes is one moment of not being concentrated. It seems like the desert demands a certain number of sacrifices every year.

No wonder we had an extra portion of gratitude as we finished the last descent and were standing by the bus as the sun was about to go down. One of the participants was a religious Jew. He asked if there were volunteers in the group to form a “minyan”. (the minimum number of a Jewish prayer group). Soon after there was a group of men with covered heads facing Jerusalem as they prayed the evening prayer.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-02-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

The priority list.

Thousands of bombed homes and no cement….Old, young, men, women and children living outside with nothing to cover them….No electricity and lack of water…The kitchen being an open fire fed by everything that may burn long enough for simple bread to be baked…

This is the reality and the background picture for the simple people in Gaza right now, but it is still not enough for Hamas and Fatah to bring the concern for the people to the top of their priority list. They are doing everything in their power to get others to make that move. They want the Palestinian people to be on top of other nations’ list. They want other countries to take that responsibility…..
In the mean time they are busy strengthening their own positions and they do it by weakening the other.
This is like a super slippery soap opera. The tragic thing about it is that it is not fiction.
It is like a broken home where the children are left completely to themselves suffering while the parents are quarreling about who is the best parent as they are shouting and blaming their children’s misery as being the neighbors fault?????????

All it takes for life to get back on track is to leave Israel in peace.
How come that is such a hard decision to make?

“We desire death as you desire life” was the words to Israel by Hamas in the beginning of the war. If that is really what they want, then what are they complaining about? That is what they got….
Death is not only about “bodies without life” but about no hope for the future. It is impossible to reach to the top of the stairs if every stepping up is continued by stepping two down.

The ones that are killing the Palestinians are their own leaders; They preach lies into their ears from the day that they are born. They keep them down in self pity instead of encouraging them to look up and to see the possibilities. They want to keep them in a miserable situation for the world to feel sorry for them while the leaders have nice houses, big cars and live their lives in luxury. They want them to sacrifice their lives as suicide bombers but make sure that their own children are not volunteering.

If this had been the situation in a fiction soap opera it would have been taken off the screen. People would have complained that it was too sick and too stupid.
But this , unfortunately, is the reality in Pallywood.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

Words don’t come easy to me today…

Sometimes it’s good not to say too much and rather try to listen. This has been such a day for me.
I have been watching all the different people working just outside my house. There are about 20 of them being busy on the road and at what will soon be a play ground. Half of them are Arabs and the other half is a strange mixture of Jews from many different parts of the world. I can see that they are from Ethiopia, Russia, Yemen and Iraq and that some of them are newcomers while others were born here.
The reason why there is such a mix has to do with the fact that there is no need for an academic education to do the kind of work that they do. What’s needed are muscles.
Many newcomers have problems learning the language and so the easiest jobs for them are the ones that do no require much talking.
I thank God for them. They are doing such a great job and it’s a pleasure watching them working side by side in peace.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-04T09:48:00.001-08:00

What is real?

It seems like life is full of different kinds of “stages” and we take part in or watch several “shows” every day. Sometimes what I see makes me wonder how real “reality” is?
The Greek philosopher Plato claimed that “you cannot step into the same river twice”. We live in a world with constant changes. What was true yesterday is not necessarily true today.

2000 years ago Pontius Pilate asked “What is truth?” He was about to make the most important decision of his life without realizing the depth of it. He had been warned by his wife and he had tried to avoid being the one to close the case. Living in times, not much different from ours, when personal interests usually came before others he tried to say “no” by saying “yes” and he spent the rest of his life washing his hands claiming that he was not guilty of “the blood of this innocent man.”
He realized that Jesus did not deserve crucifixion and he insisted on writing a title and putting it on the cross saying; “Jesus of Nazareth. The king of the Jews”.

I always thought the question was strange when I was younger. How come a person cannot distinguish between truth and what isn’t?
As I get more experienced with life and with the performances of people who claim to represent the truth, I understand better the complexity of it.

We tend to believe in people with some kind of authority. If it “was in the paper” it must be right. If the pastor said so, it must be right.
Some people are taught from a young age to “do as they are told” while others have been taught to “ask questions”. People who ask questions are often being accused of rebellion.

Life is about learning to trust the inner voice trying to guide us through life. There are so many confusing “facts” to relate to, therefore we help from the One who sees the situation from a much higher place, with a much better view and who cared so much about the whole world that He gave, and gave, and continues to give…

So friends, what I’m trying to say is this “It is not as easy to be a human being as people think.”

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

No cease but fire.

Two rockets were sent from Gaza towards Israel yesterday. One of them landed close to a kinder garden.
Today a Grad rocket was fired into the center of Ashkelon. As by a miracle nobody were wounded, but 3 people suffer from shock.

People seem to believe that shock is less serious than physical wounds. This is not right as a wound may heal rather quickly while psychological shock can stay with a person for years.
Shock occurs after a physically or emotionally harrowing experience. It can cause a person to go through the event over and over without being able to stop doing it. If the situation does not improve it can turn into post traumatic stress disorders which prevents the person from living a normal life; not being capable of continuing working and often causing the person to be angry or generally ill tempered.
Many people living in the southern parts of Israel suffer from this kind of psychological chock, some of them being children. In their case the reason for shock does not only belong to the past but is a daily threat. The fear is real and not just something imaginable and as it is constantly present, because the danger is constantly present, it is also much more difficult to deal with.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

Jaffa oranges.

I went for a walk with one of my daughters on Saturday. It was a beautiful day so we decided to “check out” some orange groves between where we live and Ashdod.
It was sad to see trees with lots of fruits just laying on the ground rotting.
It is easy to tell the difference between a neglected orchard and one that is “still in business”. Besides, the latter ones have signs informing people that picking is prohibited.
The trees that are not in production anymore have smaller fruits, there are weeds growing everywhere and nobody does pruning on them. That, however, does not mean that they are less tasty.
There are no proper roads leading to the orchards so people have to walk and to carry home the fruits. Therefore it is limited how much people actually pick.
We brought home some clementines and some red and yellow grape fruits.

I remember when I first arrived in the country in 1976 that there were orange and other citrus groves absolutely everywhere. Israel was famous for the smell of blooming oranges and the orchards kept thousands of people busy. Everyone knew that “Jaffa” was just another name for Israel…
Honey producers put up their bee hives close to the orange trees in order to get a special citrus brand of honey.
The oranges does not belong to this country naturally, but was introduced to the land by some Christian newcomers who were living on an agricultural farm a few kilometers north of Jaffa. The first orange trees were imported to this land from Portugal and it was Vasco da Gama who some centuries earlier had brought a root of an orange tree to there from China. Actually, all the orange trees in Israel, Portugal, Spain and France descended from this single root. Hard to believe, but that is what the experts say.
The Arabs started growing oranges and the Jewish newcomers added agricultural knowledge and turned it into a flourishing business. For many decades oranges were Israel’s top export and became a trademark to the country.
It is not like that anymore. Spain, Morocco and other countries have taken over the marked for oranges. What is still produced in Israel is mainly for the local customers.

A friend of mine started a charity work from such neglected orange trees. It was hard for her to see all the fruit that would just drop to the ground and rot, so one day she asked her sons to help her pick and to carry them home for her. Once in the house she started producing English style marmalade. As she cannot eat it all herself she offered people to buy from her and decided to give the money to an organization in Bethlehem called “The Shepherd Society”. This organization helps people with economic needs due to unemployment.
What started with a neglected orange tree has grown to be a charity work that includes selling handmade articles of various kinds. So the blessings from the oranges have expanded.

Elin Elkouby

2009-02-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

It’s been raining.

The Bible always connected rain with blessing as described in Deuteronomy, chapter 11 verses 13 and 14: “And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine and your oil.”

So, today we were blessed.
It was pouring down both last night and during the day.
I love the sound of rain and also the smell that comes with it. In a country like this with so much desert surrounding us and sand constantly being transported with the wind, it is a pure delight when that is being brought down and the air is left clean.
I also love the drama that very often comes with the rain. No performance is more beautiful to watch than a “wide screen sea show” of thunder and lightening. I always try to get to one of those restaurants by the sea when it is dark and I hear the thunder. To watch the "show" sitting inside drinking hot coffee or chocolate with a panoramic view of the sea is something that it is hard to compete with.

But this was the only day of raining in a long time. The rainy season is supposed to be from mid October till around April. We have hardly had any rain so far.
Israel is facing the worst water crises in the country’s history. There is a gap of 100 million cubic meters between water supply and demand for 2009. That is the equal of the amount of water in 40.000 Olympic size swimming pools.

The water crises has occurred due to lack of rain which has dropped over the last 16 years. Israel now receives 1.2 bill. cu.m./yr. or less.
The three main natural water sources are the Sea of Galilee, the mountain aquifer and the coastal aquifer. They are all far below the red lines. If too much water are to be pumped from these sources it will cause irreparable damage by salt water and contamination seeping in.
Israel uses 1.4 billion cu.m./yr. divided into household (700 mill. cu.m./yr), agriculture (500 mill.cu.m./yr) and industry (150 mill.cu.m./yr)

It is strange for Israel to enter a situation like this. The country has the best reputation in the world for water management technology and irrigation technology.
Israel leads the world in recycling sewage water. As much as 75 % of sewage water is being recycled and this water is used for agriculture and for the watering of public gardens and parks. Spain, the next country in line, recycles 12% of their sewage.
The country also has a number of desalination plants on the coast. This is a very expensive way to produce water. It requires a lot of electricity and there is a problem with the return of the highly salinated water to the sea.

So let’s pray for rain folks.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Who’s talking???

Turkish MP Erdogan left the stage at the World Economic forum yesterday night after shouting at Israeli President Shimon Peres. Peres had been defending Operation Cast Lead when Erdogan shouted “You are killing people” and pointed his finger at him.
Shimon Peres pointed his finger back at Erdogan and said that he would have done the same if rockets had been hitting Istanbul. Peres continued saying “ Do you understand the meaning of a situation where hundreds of rockets are falling a day on women and children who cannot sleep quietly, who need to sleep in shelters? What is the matter with you? You don’t understand, and I am not prepared for lies.”

Who is talking?????”
I know people who do not want to go on holidays in Turkey because of the countries bad reputation when it comes to human rights.
One of the first widely acknowledged modern, systematic genocides was the Armenian genocide.
Towards the end of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire the Armenians experienced a systematic, organized plan to eliminate them. They were forced to leave their homes and were driven to march thousands of kilometers without food and water. Rape and other kinds of sexual abuse were common and the ones who didn’t die during the march were massacred. The Armenians claim 1.5 million Armenians to have perished as a result of the genocide.
The Armenian communities in various places today are results of this genocide. There are still people living in Jerusalem who are survivors from this period. That happened a long time ago and most people have forgotten or have never even known. But in the Armenian soul it is still hurting. The Armenian genocide was an “example” to Hitler because the world so quikly forgot.
The Turks today live in a land earlier dominated by Armenians, Greek, Kurds and Arabs.
The Armenians are still struggling for the Turkish government’s recognition of these historic facts.
The Armenians were the first nation to accept Christianity. Together with them the Ottomans also persecuted the Greek and the Assyrian Christian communities.

The Kurds represents the biggest group of non Turks living in today’s Turkey. There are some 12 mill. of them in the southeastern region and they have had a centuries long struggle for a land to call their own. The Turkish army is responsible for burning almost 3000 Kurdish settlements and displacing two million people. More than 35.000 people have died in the Kurdish conflict with Turkey.

So, again……who was it that was speaking against Israel yesterday in Davos????

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

This “peace” is fragile.

When Israel decided on a one sided cease fire and withdrew all the troops from Gaza, Ehud Barak, the security minister, said he believed that Israel would have calm for a long time. He did not explain exactly what he meant by a “long time”, but most people thought it reasonable to believe that it would be quiet for at least a year.

The situation, however, is far from peaceful.
Two days ago a soldier was killed and two other wounded, one of them being in critical condition. A bomb had been placed just next to the dividing fence between Gaza and Israel. Four Israeli army trucks were patrolling on the dirt road running alongside the fence when the bomb went of. One of the trucks were hit.
The army immediately checked the area for more bombs and found another three close to the one that exploded.
Hamas has fired rockets into the Mediterranean lately obviously in order to get an idea how far they can reach.
Two Kassam rockets were fired towards Israel this morning.
Hamas has taken control of all the smuggling tunnels left and decide what shall be transported through them.
The “war” between Hamas and Fatah is continuing.

Israel has “answered” by bombing a tunnel with a fuel pipe and by bombing on of the people in charge of placing the bombs by the security fence.
All this is happening just half an hour car ride from where I live.
It seems to me that the news reporters are trying to prepare us for the possibility of another major army operation in the near future.

As I am writing this I watch people working just outside my house. I live in a new neighborhood. Most of the houses in our street have been finished so they have started working on paving the street and preparing the playground right next to my house.
There are about 20 people out there and at least half of them are Arabs.
Some of them are religious. It is easy to know as they get down on their knees to pray at least twice during their working hours.
I have no fear of them. They are regular people who are working to feed and house their families just like the rest of us..
It shouldn’t have to be much more complicated than this.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

Two Druze soldiers were killed in the war.

One of the soldiers died from a rocket fired into Israel.
The other one was killed by “friendly fire” inside Gaza. He was serving in an elite unit called “Golani”. His father told reporters at the funeral that his son wanted to make a contribution to the country. There were no other option but the “Golani” for him and he did not give up until he was accepted into the unit. The platoon leader, being badly wounded, called the soldiers father from the hospital and told him that his son had saved his life by falling and covering him when the shell was fired.
His father said to the reporters that his son died as a hero and that their home is “the most Zionist home in the country.”

The Druze are known to be loyal citizens. They are neither Arabs nor Moslems and always represent a minority in the countries in which they live. They have always lived in areas with an Arab majority and therefore all their wars have been against Arabs.
The Druze community in Israel counts 100.000. They live throughout the Galilee usually in mixed villages and can be found as far south as to Mount Carmel.
The Druze signed an agreement with the Jews as early as in 1929. They felt threatened by the Arabs surrounding them and decided to team up with the Jews.

After World War I the British had changed the Ottoman Turks as rulers of the area. It was 1917 and ended a period of 400 years of Moslem, Turkish rule in this land. Freedom of religion was one of the first changes brought to the region by the British. This was welcomed by everyone except from the Moslems.
Towards the end of the 1920’s and the early 1930’s there were Arab riots in many towns. The Arabs felt threatened by all the non Moslem newcomers. Some of these were Christian but the far majority were Jews.

After the State of Israel was proclaimed the Druze entered into what is called the “blood covenant”. It was signed in 1956 and ever since the Druze have taken their part in defending the land as soldiers in the Israeli Army.
Today 83 percent of Druze boys do army service.
Somewhere between 33 and 40 percent of the Druze work as professional soldiers, police or other kinds of security officials.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

Israel’s “big mistake”, according to Fatah.

A Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah said that Israel made a “big mistake” by ending Operation Cast Lead without overthrowing the Hamas regime in Gaza. He continued by saying that it is bad for all that Hamas is still in power.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in early summer 2007 there has been a constant fight between the two groups for sovereignty in the Palestinian areas. Both groups have used the Israeli military operation as a shield for their own activities.
Fatah has arrested and tortured hundreds of Hamas followers in the West Bank. Palestinians from the Fatah controlled areas said that they were not allowed to demonstrate against the war in Gaza unless they would carry Fatah flags and sing Fatah slogans.
Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Fatah will not allow Islamists to destroy their national project. He accused Hamas of trying to establish an “emirate of darkness” in the Gaza Strip. He also said that Hamas is using the sufferings of the civilians in Gaza to cover up for their plan to split the Palestinian territories. He claims Hamas has turned hospitals, schools and universities in the Gaza Strip into temporary centers for holding and torturing Fatah members on suspicion of collaboration with Israel.

Hamas has been busy declaring their “victory” since Israel decided on a one sided Cease Fire. The one to withdraw is always considered weak and to be the looser in this part of the world.
Both local and the Damascus based Hamas leadership have turned down all reconciliation talks with Fatah and are urging world leaders to give their donations to “the legitimate authority in Gaza” and not to the hands of “the corrupt”.

Some say the future will be exactly like the past only more expensive.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-01-26T06:49:00.000-08:00

Smuggling tunnels.

The Philadelphi Corridor is a 14 kilometers strip of land along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The Corridor was under Israeli control until the evacuation of the Jews from Gaza.
I could not believe my eyes when I watched the IDF withdrawing from this piece of land in 2005. It was more than obvious to me that this would be a security threat to Israel.

Just a few months earlier I had been driving through this area on my way to the Egyptian border at Rafiah in order to cross over into Egypt. I was on my way to Cairo with my eldest daughter. It was her Bat Mitzva trip and I had decided for us to go to the Egyptian capital by bus. In those days busses were connecting Tel Aviv and Cairo three times a week.
We went during the Jewish Passover holiday. Half of the travelers were Arab men from Israel. As I spoke to some of them I understood that they were going to visit their wife and children in Egypt. They had another “set” of wife and children in Israel. (Moslems are allowed to marry more than one wife) The other half were either Israeli Jews or foreigners.
We had joined a bus which brought us to the entrance gate to the Philadelphi Corridor. As the army had to clear the way for us to reach the Border Station we had to wait.
Driving through the Corridor took about 10 minutes. It was a “no-mans-land” with border on both sides.

During the time when Israel controlled this strip of land they destroyed 90 tunnels made for smuggling between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Most of the entrances to these tunnels were from houses alongside the border. During an army operation in 2004 these houses were destroyed.

When Israel withdrew from the Sinai in the late seventies and the beginning of the eighties lots of Bedouin tribes were left in a vacuum. They were no longer under the protection of the Israeli society and the Egyptians didn’t consider their needs when they started introducing new people to the area. Many Bedouins had lost their source of income and were desperately looking for ways to survive. Some had already been involved with the smuggling of drugs and prostitutes into Israel so the idea of doing the same into Gaza was not a “far thought”.
During the last war in Gaza the IDF claims to have destroyed 240 of 300 smuggling tunnels. Smugglers from the area say that 9 out of 10 tunnels have been destroyed but claim that there were as many as 1000 tunnels before the operation.
A smuggling tunnel starts with a shaft opening going 15 meters down and continues running several hundred meters underneath the border. The tunnel itself is 1,5meters high. Some of the stuff being smuggled are innocent and even necessary supplies for the people such as food and medicine, but as the business is risky the smugglers like to earn as much as possible. This causes the prices for regular goods to go up. On the other hand, however, it makes it more attractive to smuggle weapons and ammunition.
Egypt is supposed to control this industry from their side, but as it keeps whole tribes in business they most likely won’t. It would cause “humanitarian” problems on their side of the border if they do.

Smugglers claim that they are back in business and that they are repairing the ones which were damaged. Some say Hamas used to have their own tunnels, but as they have been destroyed they have now taken over all the others and have made arms import a priority.

So where exactly are we at considering a peaceful near future?

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-25T04:49:00.000-08:00

We are rich.

Every Sabbath during the service, money is collected to cover the expenses of the congregation. We receive no governmental support so everything has to be paid by the members. Most of the people in our congregation are either students or young families with small children. The rest are pensioners .The majority belongs to the category of “low income citizens” . There were probably 100 people present (not counting the children) yesterday at the meeting.
The money for our congregation is being collected in the beginning of the service and yesterday was no exception. Dr. Naim Khoury did not ask for money but rather shared his testimony and explained about the situation of Arab believers in Bethlehem.
I think we were all moved by what we heard and so our pastor suggested that we should do a second collection of money to bless our “brothers and sisters” in Bethlehem.
7000 shekel was the result. ( equal to US$ 1800,- )
I watched my daughter emptying her pockets to give.

“Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Jesus sais that.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

Dr. Naim Khoury.

As usual on a Saturday morning we left to Tel Aviv for our Sabbath service. We had a guest coming to speak to us from Beit Lehem ( Bethlehem ) Was he Jewish ? No….
He is as Arabic as a man can possibly be and came to share with us his testimony.

Dr. Naim Khoury was born into a family of Greek Orthodox in the old City of Jerusalem. His father was a priest and so were 11 other members of the family.
41 years ago (1968), he was in a meeting in Jerusalem. He walked out from there a new man because “ the holy Spirit spoke and I gave my life to Jesus”. This was the beginning of a long walk on a narrow path…
It was not well received in his family that he had become a believer. The Greek Orthodox Church is very traditional. It’s a “suit” but not a “heart”. Being the youngest of 10 children it was not easy to convince the rest of the family that he had “something” that was worth seeking. They rejected him, but he continued to pray for them in spite of all the harsh conditions.
After 7 years his mother became a believer. From this point on they were two praying for the others in the family.
The last one to join them was his oldest brother. It took 27 years from the meeting in Jerusalem in 1968 until the entire family of Greek Orthodox had been “born again.”
His oldest brother had lived with his family on the Mount of Olives in a Moslem neighborhood for 7 years. When the neighbors got news about his faith they asked him to move, but he refused. One day when he returned home after dark he was met by three Moslems from his own neighborhood equipped with axes. He had entered the gate to his house when they jumped on him and killed him.
Dr. Naim Khoury started his work in Beit Lehem 31 years ago. He was well aware of the words to Abraham from Genesis 12.3 “ I will bless those who bless you” , and therefore decided to include the blessing of the Jews as Gods chosen people in his ministry.
He was very much criticized from other Arab Christians because of this. Many Arab Christians do not at all read the Old Testament and relate to it as a Jewish book with no relevance to Christians. They seem to have missed the point that this was Jesus’ Bible and that all His teachings was based on it.
Dr. Khoury's congregation was hit by bombs 14 times. Four years ago a Moslem shot in order to kill him and he lives with constant persecution and threats to his life.
In spite of all the difficulties his congregation is growing and so do other ministries connected to it. One of his sons is pasturing a congregation in Jerusalem.
For more information check http://www.theanchorchurch.org/

This is what I call Good News.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-23T03:30:00.000-08:00

What is a democracy?

In a democracy the power is supposedly in the hands of “the people’ as they are part of a free electoral system. There are many definitions to what a democracy is as the nature of a democracy may differ from country to country. There are two principles, however, that all claim to stick to and those are that “all members of society have equal access to power “ and secondly that “all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties.”

We have inherited the democracy from the ancient Greek.
Reading the story of how Cleisthenes changed and reformed the government of Athens some 2500 years ago is more than interesting. Up to then Athens had been ruled by what we would classify as being a dictatorship.
He knew that in order to bring a real change there were certain patterns in the society which had to be broken. It had to do with strong tribal and family traditions. As long as the dividing lines in the society continued along side these old patterns the changes would be merely theoretical. That’s why he destroyed what used to be the base for former group identity and created smaller entities based on completely different criteria. He changes the focus of the people from being tribe orientated to be area of residence orientated.
Along with other reforms the democracy was being introduced but I believe this to be the most important one.

We like to believe that we have rights and that we can make free choices.
In order to choose we need to know what the choices are. We make up our minds according to the information we are given. There has to be a certain base of knowledge for us to ask questions and the questions we ask will change as we learn more.

Sometimes democracies are full of people who wants to be heard but who do not want to listen.

In 1990 , during the first Intifada ( which started in 1987) the Palestinians killed more Palestinians than Jews. It was before the Palestinian Authority and Area A,B and C. I had still not moved to Israel but had taken some time off from work and was travelling in the Land interviewing lots of people about the situation.
What bothered me had to do with the fact that so many Arabs had to die because they were considered collaborators by “somebody” which nobody seemed to know who was. There were “invisible” people who gave orders concerning when to close the shops, when and where to throw stones and whom to kill.
All the Arabs that I spoke to had the same answers to all my questions. They all said that the reason for Arabs killing Arabs had to do with the fact that “you have to remove the rotten tomato from the bag in order to prevent the others from rotting.” Not even one could answer how they knew who was “the rotten tomato” .
When I asked what exactly a Palestinian State would be like, they all said that it would be run like a democracy. When I continued asking whether it would be like the Syrian, the Iranian or the Egyptian “democracies”, I got no answer.

Does the fact that there are elections make the state a democracy? What about if there is no freedom of speech and expression, the mass medias are controlled and people who do not agree with the leadership are “taken care of” and never returns?

“There’s a long way to Tipperary”, but if it is worth getting there then “Yallah……at least try to make a move in the right direction.”

Elin Elkouby.

2009-01-22T02:34:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the peacemakers.

There were many violent demonstrations just a week ago in many different cities in Europe. They were demonstrating against Israel and for peace. At least that’s what they think they were doing.
We get the same kind of idea from Hamas. They kill so that the Palestinian people can get a better future.
They teach their people systematically to hate the Jews. The Palestinian mass media is very much controlled by their leaders and journalists do well in reporting what these men like to see. The schoolbooks are full of propaganda. There is no way to escape being under this negative influence unless they learn to ask questions and not to accept everything they read and hear.

I remember a movie I saw some years ago. It was actually a psychological experiment put on screen:
A woman woke up in the morning and got ready for work. She felt just like any other day by the time she left the house.
At work her colleges had been instructed by a psychologist what to say to her as she arrived. He had “distributed” sentences like : “ Wow, didn’t you sleep last night? “, “Are you OK? “, “Are you sure everything is all right with you? “, “You don’t look good”,
“ Oh, you look terrible today” ……. and so on.
In the beginning she smiled back and said that she felt great. It didn’t take long, however, till she actually felt bad and told her boss that she needed to see a doctor.

It will take more than food distributions and the rebuilding of houses to change the lives of the people in Gaza. Even to move them out and back to where their grandparents (or grand grandparents ) fled from , if that had been possible, is not the answer to their problems.
They call Gaza a prison. The fact is that their imprisonment is more a ”state of mind” than a physical condition. Their problem is that they are stuck in a certain way of thinking and that there will be no freedom or peace until that condition is being dealt with.
One definition of a fanatic is “one who cannot change his mind and who won’t change the subject.”

We know no freedom if our minds are not free and we cannot be peacemakers unless we have peace.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-01-21T00:10:00.000-08:00

I thought I was doing OK.

Life is getting back to normal. My children went to school this morning.
All of a sudden I found myself in a position of asking myself: “So what do I do now?”

We have spent more than three weeks inside house. TV has been on all the time and there has been no good news. We have not listened to music out of fear that we would not hear the rocket alarm if we did. We have spent every night in the basement where the bomb shelter is.
To watch the sufferings of the civilians in Gaza has been heartbreaking.
We feel pain about all the killed and wounded Israeli soldiers and their families.
Words cannot describe the “heaviness” surrounding the fact that Gilad Shalit is still in the hands of Hamas.
We suffer with the Israelis who lost family members and with those who still do not know if they will get their dear ones back from the hospitals. We watch mothers on TV begging us to pray for their children to come back to life.
Many Israelis are traumatized and it will take them months and years to recover.
The towns and villages of the south are still not safe.

We have been informed that Operation Cast Lead is considered to have been successful, but I know for sure that to solve the problems with our neighbors requires much more than this. It’s like pulling weeds out of a garden. If you don’t manage to pull the entire root out the plant will grow again and appear much stronger than it was in the first place.

The future has changed again.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

The good guys and the bad guys.

The human brain has a tendency to make adjustments to what we see and hear around us so that it can easier fit with what we already think we know. We like to organize information in “black” and “white” categories and we often relate to groups of people as either “good” or “bad”.
We educate our children from an early age to understand the world around us in a certain manner. It may differ from group to group what goes into which category but the principal of it is the same.
Lots of children’s programs are made around the idea of “the good” fighting “the bad”. I have been amazed to see how evil “the good” are allowed to be in their efforts to do so.
The reason for this introduction has to do with what’s going on right now. The world has decided that Hamas represents “the bad guys” and Fatah “the good guys”. I can easily agree to the first one, because they have a religious aspect to their fighting which makes them shun nothing that stands in their way. On the other hand, however, Hamas has offered practical help to many families.
Fatah, on the other hand, has “dirty wings” as well.
The reasons why the Palestinians voted for Hamas and caused them to win the election in 2006 have to do with the fact that Hamas helped people get food on the table and that Fatah was known for being corrupt. The best there is to say about Fatah is that the organization is run by secular Moslems and that they have nationalistic motives for their actions and are not driven by fundamental Islamic ideas.
But it should be known to everyone that also Fatah consists of militant groups, some of which support terror and suicide attacks. “Force 17”, “Tanzim” and “the El Aqsa Martyrs Brigade” all exist under the umbrella of Fatah.
When Israel started Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Fatah members were celebrating. One of the ways they did so was by arresting hundreds of Hamas activists and sympathizers. One can just imagine how they were being treated once they were brought in …
They threatened journalists or prevented them from reporting if they had reason to believe that what they wrote would be in favor of Hamas. They made sure to enforce full control of the media.
Fatah has lots of reasons not to deal with Hamas in a soft way. They claim Hamas to have killed at least 700 of their people since the beginning of the Second Intifada (Arab uprising) in 2000. (The foreign media simply decides to skip these “details’ as they report from this part of the world.)
So what do we have here ?
We have two organizations claiming that they represent the Palestinian people. Hamas was chosen by the people through a democratic, legal election to be their voice to the world. The world decided to neglect their choice.
Fatah lost to Hamas but was put in position to govern by state leaders who claim to represent the world’s democracies.
Not too simple, is it ???

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-19T06:53:00.000-08:00

Hypocrites on the world’s stage.

It is amazing to follow the news these days. Politicians come in “busloads” to stand up for the good cause. They are all so concerned about the Palestinian people and the situation in the area.
I am moved to tears….
Europe’s leaders are getting together to form a solid unit in worlds policy. They want to be the future’s strong fist in the Middle East talks. It is obvious that as one U.S. president is busy packing his bags to leave and the next is on the train with his suitcases heading for the White House, this is the perfect time to ensure strategic positions for the future.
Every Prime Minister knows that to be taken seriously he must make sure to be standing in the front line and next to either Olmert or Mubarak on the group pictures. All of them know that the one who speaks on behalf of the others is secured even more time in the focus of the worlds attention.
Israel has decided on a one sided cease fire . The Minister of Defense said that the army has reached its goals and that if there is a possibility for an agreement to ensure the country’s security the IDF will withdraw completely.
Hamas claims that the victory belongs to them. One day after, and independently of Israel, they have announced cease fire. Hamas leader, Ishmail Haniyeh gave a speech in which he said that “the enemy did not achieve what they aimed at.” “ He praised the heroic fighting of Hamas and added that “in spite of the wounds, the people did not put their heads down (give in ) but rather kept an upright position which will be remembered for generations to come.”
Fatah is celebrating Hamas defeat and have arrested hundreds (at least 600 )of Hamas activists on the West Bank. They consider this a new opportunity to get up from the bench and take part in the game.
The Palestinian civilians are still suffering as they are being pushed around by both their own leaders as well as foreign politicians.
The show must go on…

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-18T02:21:00.000-08:00

Life.

I always pay attention to what choices people make when it comes to clothes and jewelry.
( I don`t look very fancy myself…)
On my first trip to Israel in 1976 most people were wearing silver or gold chains around their necks with pendants on them. I was familiar with the star of David but the other most frequent pattern was completely unknown to me. The shape was not beautiful in particular and some would wear a thick chain with a BIG pendant. It was made of two Hebrew letters, חי , which means life. When I got someone to explain the meaning to me it still didn’t make sense why people would walk around demonstrating the importance of life.
I grew up in beautiful Norway and the only experience I had with war was “snow ball war” during the winter and “water war” in the summer. My life was OK and I took it for granted.

I stayed in Israel for six weeks spending four of them working on a kibutz and the rest of the time travelling. At work I met with holocaust survivors who looked more dead than alive. They were stuck in the horrors of the past. It looked as if the past was more real to them than the present.
I also met with people who had lost husbands, fathers and brothers in the Israeli wars.
Something that was new to me was to see how much time families would spend together. They would make sure to have hours of quality time with one another every day.

I returned to Norway a different person. I had seen and experienced things that gave me a lot to think about for years to come.

To have an eternity aspect on life does not mean that life on earth is unimportant. As least to me it doesn’t. When I read the first chapters of the Bible it makes me understand that this world with everything that it represents is of great importance to God. He knows and cares about details that scientists have yet to discover. My Bible tells me not only that God started it all, but also that He will see through that His intensions for this world once will be fulfilled. There will come a day when people will use their time building each other up instead of tearing each other apart. Very often, unfortunately, it takes reaching “ground zero” for people to realize that a change of direction is necessary for life to grow forth.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-17T08:08:00.000-08:00

Said Siam is dead and so what ?

Said Siam was my age. It is always special to hear about people who were born the same year as oneself but into a completely different reality. There are lots of circumstances in life that we do not control and it begins with what place on earth and to which family we are born into. We make lots of choices along the way as we are growing, but the options differ from person to person. What we are taught as children both from our parents and the surroundings color the paths of our lives.
My path has been mainly “green” while Said’s path got stronger and darker “red” as he went along.
To Hamas in Gaza he was number three in the leadership and in charge of more than 12.000 Hamas gun men. He was the one who pushed for the bloody Hamas coup in Gaza the summer of 2007. He was feared by many as a merciless killer.
Said was born in a refugee camp in Gaza. He was close to Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin (who was assassinated by Israel in 2004) .He was imprisoned both by the Israelis and by Fatah for illegal activities and he was considered an enemy both of the State of Israel and of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah is celebrating his death while Hamas has promised revenge, and the one who informed the Israelis on Said’s where about was one of his own body guards. With other words; his life was about killing until he himself got killed.

By many young men supporting Hamas he is considered a martyr and as such a hero and an ideal. There is no lack of new potential “Saids”.

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? “
And the answer is that it is still “blowing in the wind” and that this wind is constantly gaining speed and is turning into a hurricane….

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

3 weeks without school.

My children have lost 3 weeks of teaching. The reason for them not returning to school is that there are not enough bomb shelters. The schools in the south have had to cope with this problem for many years and so their schools have been secured, but for us the situation is new.
The fact that our children are at home has saved lots of lives. Rockets have hit schools in Beer Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon as well as kinder gardens.
We have had less rockets the last week. This is creating a dangerous situation as people feel more safe and leave their houses more frequently. The chance to get hit grows when the distance to safe havens is longer. Two incidents yesterday show this. In Sderot a house was hit directly. The people were at home but entered the security room when the alarm was heard. That not only saved their lives but also protected them from injury.
Some people in Beer Sheva were not so fortunate later in the afternoon as they were out of the house when the alarm was heard. Two people, among them a 7 year old boy , were seriously wounded and were brought to the hospital. 5 others got lighter wounds. The bombs are filled with all kinds of bullets and other metal pieces which are scattered as the rocket hits the ground. Despite his mother’s attempt to shield him shrapnel penetrated the boy’s head.

The Israeli Army succeeded in killing Said Siam, a Hamas key person in Gaza. He was killed together with other Hamas top activists by an IDF strike on his brother’s house yesterday. The IDF hit as soon as Siam entered…which shows that they are being informed from sources within Gaza.
The UNWRA head quarters was hit yesterday as Israelis fired back at gunmen taking shelter in the UN facilities. The foreign reporters do not understand (or refuses to understand) that it is part of Hamas’ strategy to create situations which will cause the Israelis to fire at places like this.
In the middle of all the things that are happening there are cease fire talks. Some Israeli army experts say that it is OK to stop the operation now while others disagree.
I am not an expert on army matters but just a simple mother who would like things to be quiet. I do realize though that there is a need to secure the border between Egypt and Gaza so that the transportation of weapons and ammunition will stop. That alone is not enough to stop violence. We have a serious problem here with hate based on lies. It will take more than cease fire talks to get to the bottom of that problem…

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-15T04:16:00.000-08:00

Gaza ist Judenrein (or Gaza is clean from Jews)

I remember all the positive voices three years ago when the Jews of Gaza were being evacuated and their housed were destroyed. Representatives from the Palestinian Authorities explained about plans to build a University with student accommodations where the Jewish villages had been. Although the houses were demolished all the water pipes and sewage systems were still there to be taken advantage of. The Jewish villages in Gaza had been governmental projects and the Palestinian Authority got the maps showing all the details.
Many of the Jews in Gaza were growing vegetables and fruits in hothouses. Tons were being transported into the Israeli marked every day and the produce of Gaza was known for its high quality. 3000 Palestinian worked side by side with Jews making a living from this business.
When the order to evacuate was being forced on the Jews a rich American bought the hothouses so that the Palestinians could continue working .
As I was watching these news reports three years ago I thought to myself that at least some Palestinians would be blessed by the fact that Jews had been living there.
However…..
As soon as the Jews were out Palestinians in hundreds came to the hothouses tearing them apart. It seemed like nobody trusted that any of it would be kept for the better of the Palestinian people and therefore whoever could carry would load as much as possible on cars and drive away with it. It all happened quickly as if they were afraid that someone would try to stop them . Within hours these hothouses were ripped of everything that had value to it.
I have seen no University coming forth from the ruins of the Jewish community…..What I have seen was one of the Hamas leaders having lunch on top of the rubble one year after the evacuation. He was interviewed on Israeli TV and he said that he used to drive out to one of the demolished former Jewish villages and sit on top of what once had been a Jewish home. He expressed great comfort in doing so and said that this was just the first step. “Sooner or later the Jews would all leave Palestine. It is just a matter of time.” He considered it a great victory for Hamas and said that their methods had produced fruits.

We heard the same kind of message from Hizbulla as the Israeli forces left Lebanon. They consider withdrawal to be a sign of weakness and it gives them the push to continue terrorizing.

So leaving Gaza was not a step closer to peace with our neighbors.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

The world is against Israel.

We have had a quiet day with only one alarm. The number of rockets from Gaza has been less since the soldiers went in. Tanks have blocked and separated the southern Gaza Strip from the northern part and as a result we get less rockets fired at us .
There were 16 of them yesterday and there has been 18 of them today, but most of them have been fired at areas closer to the border . In addition to that we have had some “air mail” from Lebanon but again they didn't fill in the “sender” part…

It is not quiet inside Gaza.
Israel is being criticized from the Western World, but it has been amazing to learn that Egypt does not easily join in….
The Western mind does not grasp what is happening. People simply do not comprehend what is really going on…They see civilian casualties and sufferings and take to the streets as they shout and demonstrate against Israel. I do not understand why they do not shout at Hamas….???
Hamas is aiming at destroying Israel but Israel is not interested in conquering Gaza in order to widen the countries borders.
Israeli soldiers are trained from age 18 while children in the Palestinian territories are taught to hate and kill from the moment they are born.
Hamas is supported from Iran and I doubt that other countries would have enjoyed living with a “branch of Iran” as their closest neighbor.
Israel wanted cease fire and Hamas refused. It is important to remember that during the 6 months of cease fire Israel still had rockets being fired from time to time.

Once a war is started there is a need to continue until certain goals are reached. Israel has not asked for this….

I just had a letter sent to me from the Bible Societies ( the Israeli, the Israeli Arab and the Palestinian Bible Societies ) They are joining forces to help some of the families hit by the war. I believe that this is a good way to give practical help. The letter is in Norwegian For those living in other parts of the world please contact the Palestinian Bible Society at
http://www.pbs-web.com/ for information.

Midt i mellom

Et felles initiativ fra Det Palestinske Bibelselskapet, Bibelselskapet i Israel og Det Arabisk Israelske Bibelselskap

Mens krigen og drepingen fortsetter og politikere sitter fast i sine posisjoner, eller føler seg maktesløse, føler vi en sterk forpliktelse til å være til velsignelse for våre folk i Jesu Kristi navn. For å nå dette målet har vi samlet oss om et felles initiativ som også er et uttrykk for at vi er ett i Kristus. Vi ønsker å bidra til å lindre både den fysiske og åndelige nøden i Gaza og Israel gjennom humanitært hjelpearbeid og bibelprosjekter. Den humanitære hjelpen består av både kortsiktig nødhjelp og mer langsiktig gjenoppbygging. Her følger en oversikt over prosjektene:

Prosjekt 1. Elsk din neste
(Samarbeid mellom Bibelselskapets folk og kirker og lokale grupper i Gaza/Vestbredden og Israel.)
1. Nødhjelp til familier i Gaza. Matkuponger og økonomisk hjelp til innkjøp av nødvendige varer.
2. Nødhjelp i fire måneder til familier som har flyktet fra Gaza og nå bor på Vestbredden.
3. Støtte til gjenoppbygging for 100 familier i Gaza. Økonomisk støtte i seks måneder, mat, klær og medisiner for 300 andre familier. Midlertidige hjem for familier som har mistet alt. Støtteprogram for barn og familier med psykiske skader (post traumatic stress disorder program - PTSD).
4. Støtte til kristne og muslimske familier som har mistet sine kjære under krigen.
5. Støtte til barn i israelske barnehager og barneskoler, til handikappede og eldre som bor i sør- Israel og som har tilbrakt dager og netter i tilfluktsrom i frykt for raketter fra Gaza.
6. Medisinsk hjelp til sykehus i Gaza. Samarbeid med Røde Kors, FN og Israelske myndigheter.

Prosjekt 2. Trøst mitt folk
(Samarbeid mellom Bibelselskapet og kirkene i Gaza/Vestbredden og Israel.)
1. Messias og Miskunn. Utgi og dele ut 100.000 hefter med utdrag fra Salmenes bok der løftene om Messias trykkes med rødt. Deles ut i Sør-Israel og blant soldater.
2. Gud er vår tilflukt. Utgi og dele ut 100.000 bibelhefter på hebraisk og arabisk til palestinere og israelere.
3. Kristus for Alle. Plakater på busser og oppslagstavler samt i palestinske aviser og på lokale nyhetssider på internett, med budskapet: Stol på Herren og søk Ham for trøst og frelse.
4. Rop det ut til Jerusalem. Bibelvers på multimedia skjerm utenfor bibelbutikkene i Jerusalem, en på Jaffa gaten og en i det gamle Jerusalem: Gud har omsorg for sitt folk.
5. Elsk dine barn. Utgi bøker på hebraisk og arabisk om fred og krig, vold, smerte og forsoning som foreldre kan lese for barna sine.
6. Ny internettside på arabisk og hebraisk der vi deler våre fortellinger om felles lidelse, håp og gjenoppbygging i Kristus.
7. Lage en DVD på hebraisk og arabisk om tilgivelse, forsoning og det å akseptere hverandre. Beregnet til bruk også på TV stasjoner.

Du kan sette inn penger til Det Norske Bibelselskapets konto: 3000.16.16869. Merk gaven med
"Gasa/Israel"

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-13T09:22:00.000-08:00

The 18’th day.

This is the first day I have been outside my home all day. I cannot tell you how good that was….
Since the war started we have spent most of our time inside house for security reasons. TV has been on non stop in order to get the latest updates. We have seen so much misery…..
I don’t think any other country has covered what’s going on in any way similar to the Israeli news. We see all the terrible pictures of civilians suffering, bombed houses, funerals , children crying.... We hear conversations with Arab doctors from hospitals inside the Gaza Strip and from reporters living there explaining about lack of electricity and water and a whole lot of other things that we just take for granted.
On the other hand we see Mosques full of weapons, schools with bomb traps and store rooms with weapons and subterranean tunnel systems.
We have lots of soldiers fighting with Hamas activists face to face. These young men are somewhere between 18 and 21 years old (… that’s as long as their army service lasts for: 3 years. ) I don’t have any sons , but I can tell you that I cannot afford losing even one of them…. We want the parents to pass away before their children are being buried.
There are no celebrations in Israel when Arabs are killed. It does not make us happy to see Arab funerals on TV. Israel is not “thirsty for Arab blood”.
Unfortunately we know that when Jews are killed in suicide attacks, blown up, stabbed to death, run over by vehicles of various kinds or as a result of rockets our neighbors are celebrating.
There are some extreme right wing Jewish groups, but they do not have any support from the rest of the Jewish society.

I remember watching a Palestinian peace activist some months ago. She was a religious Moslem with husband and children. Some years ago she “signed up” to become a “shaheed” (a Moslem martyr by wearing explosives on her body in order to blow herself and others up ) The morning she left for her mission she told her 7 year old daughter that she did it “for her future”.
Luckily this woman did not succeed and was sentenced to some years in prison. While in jail she got to know a female Jewish prison officer. By the time she was released her view on “how to solve problems between people” had changed a little…
In the TV program both the woman and her daughter were interviewed. The daughter, now a teenager, said that her reaction to her mother wanting to blow herself up was anger. It had been very hard for her to be without her mother while she was imprisoned but she said that she preferred a mother in prison to a tomb.
The Moslem woman still disagrees with a lot of things in the Israeli society and she is busy working for her children to have a better future. ( I wouldn’t mind to team up with her !!!)
I believe in women like her and I do believe that there is more energy in dedicated women than in a belt with explosives…..

We are not that much different when it comes to the bottom of it !!!

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

What is a refugee ?

The most common definition of a refugee is “a person who fled to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution”
Crisis in various parts of the world are “producing” people who fit into this category non stop and has been doing so constantly throughout the last century.

UNRWA’s, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, has a very different definition when it comes to Palestinian refugees as it also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948 regardless of whether they live in areas designated as refugee camps or in established, permanent communities. This is what we call a major exception to the normal definition.
We know that approximately 800.000 Arabs fled or were driven out from this area during the war in 1948. Non of them would have had to leave, but the leaders of the Arabs in the region decided not to accept the new born State of Israel and decided to go to war against it. They also encouraged people to leave their homes for as long as the war would last for and then to return when the Jews had been driven out.
The ones who decided to listen to these Arab leaders lost their homes while the ones who decided to stay are still living here. 60 years and some generations later the descendants of those who fled are still considered refugees……????? The reasons for that can best be described with Abba Eban’s words which stated that the Arabs of this region “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

As Israel was proclaimed a Jewish state persecution of Jews living in Arab countries was intensifying. Eventually it caused more than 850.000 Jews to flee. They had only one place to flee to and they arrived empty handed as they had to leave both property and belongings behind. Israel’s population is mainly made up from people who were forced to leave the countries in which they had lived for generations. This country can easily be considered as “one big refugee camp”. The number of Jews arriving Israel as refugees is much bigger than the ones who arrived for Zionistic reasons.
Once in Israel what was waiting for them was wars and hard work for them to have a place on earth to call home.

The greatest “blessing” on the Jewish refugees since arrival has been that nobody felt sorry for them. They knew that if they did not do anything to change their situation for the better there would be nobody there to do it for them……

Unfortunately the Arab refugees were not as “fortunate”. Arab hospitality was not practiced on them. They were not received as brothers by any of the surrounding Arab nations but were rather considered a threat. The Arab community consists of tribes and family clans which are not easy to break in to.
The reasons why there still is “a Palestinian refugee problem” has to do with the fact that they have been forced into self pity by the International community as well as by their religious leaders and are being educated to look back and not forward. They are used by Moslem leaders who are bothered by the fact that Muhammad has lost a stronghold in the Middle East.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-01-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

Children on their way back to school.

Children living in the southern parts of the country have lost two weeks of learning because of the war so far. The Israeli Government informed us that it will take time before the situation gets back to normal but as there are less rockets being fired at us some schools started teaching again today.
Children in 11’th and 12’th grade have exams to pass this spring. Therefore the schools are going to be opened for them first. All teaching will be done in the schools’ bomb shelters and they will be transported both ways in small groups lead by soldiers.
A school in Beer Sheva and a kinder garden in Ashdod were hit today by rockets. The kinder garden was empty but it did great damage to the building . The children at the school did not get hurt as they were inside the bomb shelters. We feel the ground shaking when bombs fall in Ashdod. You can only imagine what it feels like to be in the very same building when it happens…….
So far six schools and kinder gardens have been hit directly. The only reason why Israel has not suffered greater human losses has to do with people following the instructions for safety.

Our news reporters inform us about what the Israeli soldiers are facing as they are entering refugee camps and Gaza city itself. I have already mentioned that Hamas has developed a tunnel system connecting bunkers, store rooms for weapons and ammunition functioning as a subterranean city. The ones that are being used as “protecting shields” are the civilians living on top of these “safe havens’ for Hamas fighters. Once hit by Israeli fire these store rooms will cause extra damage as they explode.
We have been watching a video filmed by Israeli soldiers today showing a children’s school with explosives being connected with wires “waiting “ to blow up whoever enters. Soldiers were searching a neighborhood and told that 30 out of 50 houses were prepared the same way.
It is obvious that Hamas has been preparing for the Israeli soldiers to enter by foot. They were not prepared for the first stage of this operation when Israel decided to attack by air.

It seems like the Israeli Army learned something from the Jenin operation back in 2002 when 23 soldiers were killed within a little more than a week in the beginning of April.
I remember well how the Palestinians had prepared themselves to “receive” the soldiers back in those days. There were wires everywhere connected to bombs under cars, at entrances to houses and in the streets leading from one house to the other. The whole world was screaming at Israel as rumors had it that thousands were being massacred. In the end the Palestinians killed numbered 53.

War is cruel….. it doesn’t matter from what angel you are watching. One way or another civilians are suffering. It can be directly by being killed or indirectly by their loved ones being killed. The main difference between the two groups in this war can best be described with the words spoken by Hamas MP Hammad :” We seek death like you seek life”

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

The world is furious…

We continue receiving rockets of various kinds in Israel. Yesterday they numbered 30. During the first days of war there were 50 or 80 or 100 rockets every day.
The Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, tells us that the war will continue and that it will take time.
Every Israeli either lost or knows someone who lost, family members in wars or terrorist attacks. Although I did not grow up in this country I know three such families myself. Israelis are familiar with the feeling of pain and do also not have any problem identifying with other peoples pain.
We watch funerals of fallen soldiers these days. There are no cries for revenge or expressions of hatred but rather endless sorrow and grief. It is very different to watch a Palestinian funeral…
Many Israelis spend hours in front of their TV every day and we know about the sufferings of thousands of Palestinians. We do not enjoy watching it…….
There are demonstrations all over the world against Israel. I cannot remember that anyone demonstrated against Hamas for terrorizing both their own and Israel during the previous 7 years.
There is no way to understand what is going on and what Israel is fighting unless one knows what Hamas stands for and what they are aiming at. The only way to find that out is to lend an ear to people from within….. You do well in checking the video clips called “Escaping from Hamas “ with Musab Hassan Yousef. Click in to www.comeandsee.com

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

Entering into the third week of war.

I introduced you yesterday to Mo’een. Today he called my husband. He said that he has hardly been out of the house since the war started. The situation is very difficult with lack of almost everything. He said that to his luck he had bought a sac of flour before all this started and that it keeps them from starving, but he tells his kids to eat slowly…..
He also said that he can see the Israeli soldiers as they walk the streets outside his house, but that he is not afraid of them. What he fears, however, is that Hamas will bring launchers to shoot from into their quarter in order to fire rockets and that Israel will fire back. He asked my husband to help him load his Israeli cell phone with “talk time” which he of course did.

The most difficult thing for us now is that there is no way that we can offer any practical help. We know that lots of civilians are suffering, but we cannot get to them. The only thing we can do is to pray for Mo’een’s sac of flour not to get empty, and that Hamas will stay away from his house.Please join us in that prayer….

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

Katyusha rockets hits northern Israel.

The alarm woke me up this morning. We felt the ground shaking as the rockets landed and turned the TV on to find out where about it was. They call our area “close to Ashdod” and the reporters have stopped giving street names when rockets hit buildings so that this information shall not get to Hamas. We do not want to help them being more clever as they point the launchers at us .
What’s new today is that 4 Katyusha rockets were fired this morning from Lebanon. Israel has a “friend” up there who is the head of one of the other Iran supported terrorist organizations in the area. His name is Hassan Nasrallah and his organization is Hizbullah. He was on TV yesterday threatening Israel saying that if the Israeli Army enters into Lebanese territory they will be met by “Hizbullah surprises” that will make the war in 2007 look like a picnic . Nasrallah does not take responsibility for the rockets fired this morning.
One of the rockets hit a home for elderly people. Severe damage was made to the building but nobody got seriously wounded.

The bombing of Hamas strongholds in Gaza continues. The people in the southern part of Rafiah , the town next to the Egyptian border, were warned yesterday that the area will be attacked by air.
It is important for people to know that the Israeli army gets much of the information of Hamas’ whereabouts from Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. These are people who are sick and tired of the cynical use of civilians by both Fatah and Hamas . Many Palestinians speak Hebrew fluently and have good relations with Israelis. They are well aware of the fact that the border to Israel has been closed for them, and together with it their possibilities for work, because of a few fanatics. These fanatics are terrorizing Israelis as well as their own people.Fundamental Moslem have forced a more religious lifestyle upon lots of secular Moslems who simply wish to live in peace and to take care of their families.
I remember Mo’een, a very nice man from Gaza who did a lot of work on our house. He had been working in Gan Yavne from age 14 and had lots of good friends here. We started building after the outbreak of the second Intifada ( Arab uprising ) in 2000 . As all my tourist groups had been cancelled due to the situation I was out of work and could be with the workers at our house. That made Mo’een my “boss” and me his “assistant” . He enjoyed very much working with me because the whole situation was odd me being a woman doing “mens work”. He used to joke a lot about that.
Our work days were from 08.00 am till 05.00 pm every day for several months (…and afterwards as we had money to continue new projects ) and we had a lot to talk about : We both had small children and were busy trying to help them get a good future. My husband worked long hours away from home just like Mo’een and returned home “more dead than alive” every evening. ( Mo’een had to get up at 4am every morning in order to get through the security check at the border . To get back into Gaza was less time consuming. )
I had a break around lunch time in order to receive my children as they finished kinder garden and school and to prepare food for all of us. I remember the first time I asked Mo’een what he would like to drink with his lunch. He suggested a bottle of cold beer, while laughing. ( Moslems do not use drinks containing alcohol ) I told him that beer definitely was an option and he grabbed the opportunity to order one. I will never forget the expression on his face when he sat down to eat his lunch holding the bottle of beer. It was to him like a demonstration for freedom. When he was together with other Arabs he would ask for Coke.
Mo’een told me that he was not religious in particular, but that his wife had to dress like a religious women to protect her from having acid sprinkled on her face and legs from Islamists within Gaza.
During the years we were busy building our house I got to know many workers from Gaza. My “ boss” Mo’een was the one that I got to know the best. During these days they, and him in particular, are heavy upon our hearts and minds….

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

More rockets, more weapons, more ammunition, more hatred…more dead…..

We were shocked to hear about the bombing of an UNRWA ( United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.) school in Gaza yesterday. We had been informed earlier this week that lots of Palestinians were taking refuge in schools and institutions run by the UNRWA . In the beginning we thought that the Israeli army had made a target mistake, but later we learned that Hamas activists were hiding there as well. This was not much of a surprise as we, unfortunately, know from previous incidents that this is part of Hamas’ strategy. It is a rule and not an exception to use civilians as shield for their activities. –The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) claim that they fired in order to kill two named Hamas activists, but that the explosion was so powerful once the bomb hit that it most probably also hit explosives stored in the building.
Nevertheless we feel pain. We may know some of the people who took refuge there… Many people from Gaza used to work in Gan Yavne until 2004.

Since the Israeli soldiers entered into Gaza we have heard about bomb factories and store rooms for weapons in the basement of regular apartment buildings. Hamas has developed a sophisticated system of subterranean tunnels and bunkers to be used for protection and escape routes for their own throughout the city of Gaza. No wonder they needed a six months cease fire with Israel….
We also know that more than 100 tunnels between Gaza and Egypt have been bombed. These tunnels have been used for the smuggling of weapons, ammunition , drugs and people from Egypt to Gaza. There are lots of Sinai Bedouins that are involved doing business of this kind with Palestinians from Gaza.

And there is still more…We were introduced to another two rockets this morning. The alarm went and we entered the bomb shelter to wait for the boom…We can both hear and feel them, and depending on how “strong” the feeling is we can tell how close it is. So, we knew that two rockets had landed in Gan Yavne. I am still amazed by the fact that these rockets seem to being “avoiding” people.
I got a phone call soon after the "booms" from my youngest daughter. She went on a trip today arranged by the community to visit with school children her age away from “rocket reach”. She wanted to know if everything was OK and told me that all the kids had been inside the bus ready to leave when the alarm went.
Later my husband called to check about the same.

Since the events this morning it has been a “less noisy day”.

Elin Elkouby.

2009-01-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Rockets reaching further.

One of the first news reports for today was that a house was hit in a place called Gedera. People there thought that they were out of reach. Again, as by a miracle, nobody got killed but a one year old baby got minor wounds .
Gedera is a little north- east from us.
We were actually expecting this to happen as a representative from Hamas was on TV yesterday saying that Hamas have rockets that can reach much further and that they will be “introduced to us shortly”.

The reactions from the world to what is going on remind me of a Dry Bones comic strip. It shows two people sitting in a boat with sharks all around them:
A:"Yikes. We're surrounded by sharks in a feeding frenzy. "
B:"So let's give them a leg to eat that might satisfy them."
A:"Where did you get a whacko idea like that ?"
B:"The Bill Clinton Manual for Jewish survival."
( You can look it up at http://www.drybones.org.il/ go to ...Cartoon Gallery and look up Dec.28.2000)

During the years 1978 and 1979 the Camp David agreement was worked out and signed. It resulted in all the Jewish settlements in the Sinai to be evacuated and destroyed.
It was in this period that the Israeli government encouraged Jews to move and settle in the Gaza Strip. It has been Israeli politics to settle Jews in areas with many Arabs in order to “soften up” the relationship between the two groups. Many of the Jews which were evacuated from the Sinai resettled in the Gaza Strip back then.
I know some of these people and know that it was not hatred towards Arabs that brought them to Gaza. Jews back in those days would do their shopping in Arab towns, would receive dental treatment at clinics run by Arabs and would often work side by side with Arabs.
In 2005 the Israeli government decided to evacuate all the Jews from Gaza in order to achieve peace. The situation had been growing “sour” since the Intifadas from 1987 and 2000 and moving the Jews out was seen as a solution to the problem in this area. 21 legal settlements and something like 2000 houses were destroyed as 8000 Jews lost their homes. 3000 Arabs who had been working in Jewish owned hothouses lost their jobs and income.
I heard no people having a problem with this out there……People didn’t even see anything extraordinary about it.(…. although no other government have ever done anything similar to what the Israeli government did….)
Since 2005 the rockets fired from Gaza at Israel became more frequent and also more sophisticated.
We cannot say that Israel’s efforts have been “blessed with peace”.

I am not smart enough to understand why Israel should have to accept a situation like this as I know for sure that no other country on earth would have reacted differently. The only difference is that they would have started a military operation much earlier.

We hear about the losses and our hearts are crying ….but there is no other alternative.
It is amazing how Hamas manages to do all their dirty works from the very center of civilian population.
So can I see no mistakes done by the Israelis ? Oh yes I do, and they make me cry…, but to start this military operation and to continue it is not to be counted among them.

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Another kinder garden hit.

Words cannot express how grateful I am to the fact that the Ministry of Education in Israel decided that the children in the South shall not attend neither kinder garden nor school as long as rockets are being fired at us from Gaza. Today another rocket hit a kinder garden in Ashdod. It caused great damage to the building, but as it was closed nobody got hurt.
Many parents are under pressure as they have to leave their children at home when they go to work. Many kids are afraid to be at home without their parents and call them several times during the day. Not much fun being a mother under such circumstances….

It is not much fun for kids to be home all day neither. That’s the reason why many communities are arranging trips for children in the South and bring them north of “rocket reach”. My daughter will go on a trip like that tomorrow.

It is nothing but a wonder that the rockets fired at us do not do greater harm. Every day Hamas fire some 30-70 rockets at Israel. They are aimed at civilians…… Since I started my blog at the very end of December, 4 people have been killed and many have been wounded. One of the problems, that people do not pay much attention to, has to do with people suffering from shock. These wounds do not show on the flesh , but they take a long time to cure. It’s like the fear takes a solid grip on the soul and just refuses to leave.
Lot’s of Israelis (many of them being children) suffer from this.

I have a hard time understanding the argumentation when people compare Israel with Hamas, claiming that Hamas is the weaker part as they have less sophisticated weapons …… Hello……where are you?

Is it possible to compare an organization which is aiming at civilians with an army hitting targets to prevent them from doing so ? Can you compare the fact that thousands of Palestinians are willing to blow themselves up as suicide bombers, with bombs that are aiming at the factories that are making those explosives these people are willing to “dress up in”? (...some of these factories being inside mosques ...)
Do you know that some of the bombs which Israel is using cost up to 250.000 dollars a piece? There is no reason for anyone to believe that the Israelis do not consider very carefully when and where to drop them.
Have you ever heard of any country at war calling people by phone to warn them before the house is being targeted or that Israel has bombs that “knock” on peoples roofs in order to warn them before they explode.
Israel has nothing to gain from killing civilians.

I watched TV today as Jordan’s queen Rania appealed to the world for the situation of the people in Gaza. She was herself born to Palestinian parents, but spent her childhood in Kuwait studying at an English school and continued her studies in Cairo at an American university there. She is a beautiful young lady which has contributed a lot by speaking up for Arab women’s rights. It would be great if she could take some time trying to speak to the leaders of the Palestinians about some even more basic human rights.
Jordan has often been criticized in the Arab world for having too much of a Western focus. That was one of the issues in the late 1960’es when the Palestinians living there were trying to take over Jordan and actually made several attempts to assassinate king Hussein ( Rania’s father in law who passed away in 1999) The king decided ,back then ,to go to war against the Palestinians and killed somewhere between 2000-3000 people in an operation later to be remembered as “Black September” ( Arafat, of course, claimed 12.000-13.000 people to be killed) So the king considered it his right to fight the people who threatened the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its leadership….
I wonder if Rania is familiar with this part of “black Palestinian history” and whether she agrees with the way the king dealt with the problem back in those days…!!?

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

Do Arabs love their children ?

Israeli TV channel 2 announced yesterday that they will start broadcasting a series of lectures for the children in the South as they cannot go to school .
First one out was Shimon Peres , Israel’s 85 years old President. He spoke about the real values in life. He encouraged the students not to waste the potential within them and not to waste time. He said that every single one of them has greater abilities than they themselves are even aware of and that they can contribute to the future for a better world. He said that the reason why the Jewish people have made progress in many different fields has to do with always trying to get better and to reach further.
He spoke about the hardships of this nation always having to defend itself, and explained that the reason why Israel had not attacked Gaza earlier has to do with the fact that the government has tried to get to the ears of Hamas using nonviolent methods. The present army operation is a result of not succeeding doing that. It is every country’s responsibility to secure its own citizens.
He ended his lecture saying that he had not taught them theories but that he had spoken to them from his heart.

Lecture number 2 was with Haim Yavin. He ended a 50 years media career in August 2007 and has been busy ever since doing his own recordings using a small private video camera to show less sympathetic angels to the Arab/Israeli coexistence. He is known as “Mr. Television” .
He started saying that no media give objective views. Every journalist and news reporter has his/her own personal opinions and that this will color their presentation of the “truth”.
That is probably the most important thing for everybody to know as we watch TV, listen to radio or read the paper.

Israeli Television always had lots of discussion programs. People with opposing opinions are invited to the studio for a discussion broadcasted straight to the watchers. These days every news report consists of a reporter sharing table with three or four experts on different areas (one of them being Arab). In addition to this we get updates from doctors and journalists from Gaza about the situation almost at every news report.

Israel is a society that consequently teaches its inhabitants to question the situation.
I remember a few years ago when a Chinese restaurant owner was interviewed about how it was for him to live in Israel. While asked about differences in mentality from what he grew up with , he answered as follows; “ When I was a boy and my father told me to do something , I turned around immediately to do what I was told. When I tell my son to do something , he turns around and asks me “Why ?”.
I remember my own confusion back in the early nineties as I was studying to be a tourist guide. The “poor” lecturers had to answer for everything they did, both in the class room and on field trips. They were just constantly being bombarded : Why do you say that? Why did you stop here ? Couldn’t you find a better argument ? Are you sure that what you say is based on facts ? I don’t agree with you. ......
I sometimes thought to myself : “Why can't you just shut up and make notes? “
It seems to me that the number one favorite occupation in this land is to sharpen ones mind.

So what does this have to do with whether Arabs love their children or not? …Well, a lot actually. I have always claimed that the main problem for the West understanding what’s going on here has to do with completely different mentalities. A Western mind cannot understand how mothers can send their sons and daughters to die as suicide bombers. They also have problems understanding how organizations like Hamas actually are using civilians every age as human shields for their operations. ( …as do Al Qaida, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah and any other fundamental Islamic organization. )
Let me tell you that every Arab mother loves her children just like you and I do. Every Arab mother is concerned about her children’s future. By claiming that they do not love their children the Western mind simply reveals lack of understanding for different mentalities.
Are you still with me ? I guess not. Please try for a few minutes to consider the following: Moslems believe that a human being is an eternal being with life on earth being just a small part compared to eternity. ( Up to this point it does not differ much from what the Bible teaches. ) Life on earth is like a “testing period” for how and where eternity is going to be spent. Every good Moslem is “ one who submits to the god of Islam” and as this god is the “boss” in eternity they do well in being at good terms with him. A “short cut” to good conditions in eternity is by “dying for the good sake”. Whoever dies as a suicide bomber has been taught that the best place to spend eternity has been secured by the willingness to sacrifice ones life.
When life is lived under miserable conditions the wish to go for “short cuts” is growing. The only thing that keeps them from doing it has to do with “fear for the unknown”………

The reasons why the Islamic leaders have succeeded in convincing the majority of the people that they are right about the way they think, has to do with controlling education at every level as well as information through the mass media.
(If you wish to get deeper into this I can recommend entering a Google search for video clips with Wafa Sultan)

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Another rocket fell down close to my house.

Many people have left the southern part of Israel for the week end. ( about 1/3 ) We left our home for Tel Aviv about 10.15 this morning. A few hours later my daughter called one of her friends and was told that a rocket had hit Gan Yavne. It landed about two hundred meters from our house…...….
To our great luck no people were hurt as it fell on an area which has not yet been built. Just next to this open space is a childrens play ground, but as no children leave the house to play it was empty.
The rockets fired from Gaza used to be Kassams. Today we were informed about the difference between a Kassam and the new rockets which can reach up to a distance of 40 kilometers. They call them “Grad” and they are “made in China”. These rockets have most likely been entering into Gaza through the many tunnels dug between Gaza and Egypt during the 6 months "cease fire" since last summer . They are factory made while a Kassam is “home made” . So I’m learning…..

Close to 20 rockets of this kind has been fired at Israel today. One of them hit an apartment building in Ashdod and the other a house in a place called Netivot closer to the border. The house was completely destroyed and one person was lightly injured.
To their great luck the family living at the top floor in Ashdod had left town for the week end. They were watching the news on TV when they realized that it actually was their own home that was hit. Two of the inhabitants in the building were wounded, but not seriously.

It has been another tough day on the inhabitants of Gaza as well. We were informed that 150.000 people have left their homes and are seeking refuge in buildings or institutions run by the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees)
People need to stay in line for hours in order to buy bread.
What can I tell you……..

Arabs are demonstrating in many places within the borders of Israel. The leader of Hamas has expressed disappointment about lack of support from Arab countries . He is on TV from Gaza trying to trigger the third “Intifada” ( Arab uprising )
The two previous ones brought no blessings upon the Arabs. I have lots of Arab friends who wish with all their hearts that they could turn the time back to the situation before the first “Intifada” . I miss "the good old days" myself...

Egypt is being criticized for not doing anything. The Egyptian president and the foreign minister have been very clear from the beginning of this military operation that Hamas is to blame for the present situation in Gaza.

We have just now been informed that Israeli ground forces have entered into Gaza….

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

People flee the southern part of Israel.

It is a very strange experience to leave the house. No kids go to school and kinder gardens, but there is no feeling of school holiday . As I left for the super marked this morning to do shopping for the week end, there were no people walking the streets and no children in parks and on play grounds .
At the super marked I saw one child with her father and I met two mothers with children my girls age. I asked them how things were going and they answered that the situation is driving everybody crazy. When I suggested that their girls can come to play with my daughter one of the mothers told me she prefer her children not leaving the house. The distance between our houses is 60 metres.
1/3 of the inhabitants have left the area for the week end .Some people with rooms or cottages for rent up in the north have been offering them for free to people from the south. When I hear such things I fall in love all over again with this country............
We've had a quiet day. There has been no rockets close to where I live, but the people in Ashkelon and Sderot have had them all. The difference between them and us is that we have 45 seconds to get to a bombshelter or security room while they have 15 seconds only.

People in general are tense. We are all aware of the sufferings of Palestinian sivilians, and know that there is no way to prevent them from being hit when attacking by air. Although Israel has let more than 2000 tons of supplies through it is still not enough to meet their needs. On the other hand we also know that many of these sivilians are both willing and prepared to sacrifice themselves and their families as suicide bombers once the Israeli soldiers start the army operations from the ground. I thank God for the fact that I have no husband or son in the army and at the same time I suffer with the ones that do.....

Elin Elkouby

2009-01-01T05:01:00.001-08:00

The true face of Hamas.
I brought my girls to Tel Aviv last night for them to meet with other youth and to celebrate the end of 2008/ beginning of 2009. I hope that in the middle of all the misery and all "the dark clouds" above us in this area, we will have the strength to look forward with appetite for life.

As we got up late today we heard that an apartment building had been hit in Ashdod. With so many people staying home I was sure that this would mean lots of wounded and even dead, but to everyones surprice not even one got hurt. The people living in this building had used the staircase for bombshelter. They didn't realize that their building was hit and that there was a need for them to be evaquated. ...
Later we were informed that the top floor had been completely destroyed. The lady living there was not at home as the rocket hit. She was interviewed by the time she got back and told the reporter that she had left for the bank. She is a physiotherapist and had a clinic at her apartment. Because of the situation she had cancelled all the treatments for today. She was on her way back to her home as the alarm went . After the "bom" she received phone calls telling her that she didn't have a home anymore.Nothing is left from her flat. The top part of the building collapsed completely and all the rubble is now in the 8'th floor. Every inhabitant has been evaquated due to severe damage.
When asked about how she felt about having lost all her belongings, she answered "That belongs to the past, now is the time to think forward."

I would like to draw your attention to a web-site called "Palestinian Media Watch"
http://www.pmw.org.il/ You will find enough there to give you a deeper understanding of what I wrote about yesterday. The following has been copied from there.

A Palestinian girl whose family members were killed yesterday in Gaza:"I say Hamas is the cause of all wars."
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Dec. 29, 2008
A Palestinian girl whose family members was killed yesterday in Gaza after an Israeli air attack was interviewed today on Palestinian TV and placed the blame for the war on Hamas:
[Girl] "We were sleeping 7 girls in the room. We were asleep and didn't know what was happening. In the morning all the bricks were on top of my head, and the heads of all my sisters. My 4 year old sister next to me was dead."
[Interviewer] "How many were you?"
[Girl] "Seven.In the other room were my mother, my father, my yonger brother and another sister, who is 13 days old. I say, Hamas is the cause, in the first place, of all wars."[PATV (Fatah) Dec. 29, 2008]
To view video in English click here.

PMW archives:Hamas explains using civilians as human shields: "We desire death as you desire life." [Feb. 29, 2008]
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Dec. 29, 2008
The UN announcement that 51 civilians have died in the conflict in Gaza must be understood in the context of Hamas's declared ideology to use civilians as human shields for Hamas fighters.Indeed, Hamas continues to emphasize and promote the religious ideology that death for Allah is an ideal to be actively pursued. The goal is to convince Palestinians, including women and children, not to fear death but even to face it at the front to protect Hamas fighters.Hamas's placement of its military installations and fighters among civilians reflects this ideology, and has led to these 51 deaths.A Hamas representative in the PA legislative council this year expressed pride in the fact that women and children are used as human shields in fighting Israel. He described it as part of a "death industry" at which Palestinians excel, and explained that the Palestinians "desire death" with the same intensity that Israelis "desire life."The following is the full text of the comments by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad:"For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life."[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas) Feb. 29, 2008]To view video in English click here.
To download the clip in high quality to your computer contact our office.

Mahmoud Abbas: Hamas responsible for violenceby Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, Dec. 28, 2008
In a news conference today from Cairo, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas placed the blame for the violence in the Gaza Strip squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. He described how he repeatedly made contact with Hamas and implored them not to break the ceasefire. He lamented that the violence in the Gaza Strip could have been avoided had Hamas not broken the ceasefire.The following is Mahmoud Abbas's statement at a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit."I say in all honesty, we made contact with leaders of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. We spoke with them in all honesty and directly, and after that we spoke with them indirectly, through more than one Arab and non-Arab side... We spoke with them on the telephone and we said to them: We ask of you, don't stop the ceasefire, the ceasefire must continue and not stop, in order to avoid what has happened, and if only we had avoided it."PA TV Dec. 28, 2008

Elin Elkouby.

2008-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

Trucks to Gaza.
It is the last day of 2008 and another day without school and kinder garden for the people living within the 40 kilometers limit to Gaza. We understood the positive consequences of that decision this morning as rockets were fired on Beer Sheva and one of them fell into a class room. The only reason why Israel has not suffered greater damage and loss of lives has to do with precautions of this kind.
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People all over the world are concerned about the sufferings caused by Israeli air raid and the desperate lack of food, medicine and medical supplies. We are concerned too and a great deal of the news reports actually is about this. Israel has Arab news reporters and Jewish reporters with Arabic as their mother tongue. We know that the situation is critical at every hospital in Gaza. There are too many wounded and basic lack of everything.
In the middle of such circumstances we were informed by one of the Arab reporters today that Hamas activists are hiding in the hospitals dressed like doctors and that this particular reporter was not allowed into the hospital to take photos of the wounded.

It is not true that there are no trucks entering into Gaza . The Israeli army has a concern for the sufferings of the civilians and do let some trucks pass . The problem is that the needs are enormous and every truck has to go through a security control. Israel reported that it will consider cease fire and to open the crossing points for trucks equipped with supplies from international health organizations to get into Gaza if Hamas will stop the rockets from being sent into Israeli territory. Hamas has refused and is doing exactly the opposite. From their safe bunkers the leaders are ordering more attacks on Israel.

In order for a Western mind to understand this it is important to know what Hamas is. The word in Arabic actually means “zeal” It is an “Islamic Resistance Movement” which does not recognize Israel and has as its goal to eliminate Israel and to replace it with an Islamic state. It is widely known as a terrorist organization supported by Iran.
Hamas won the election in 2006, but was not recognized neither by the States or other countries in the West for the above reasons.
So why did they win the election???? ---- I'll tell you why : Hamas ,just like other similar organizations in the Islamic world, go for the weak, poor, uneducated and miserable people in their society. (I hope you have paid attention to the fact that the majority of the people fall into this category in Moslem countries….) They help them get food on the table , and by doing that the battle is won.

Do you remember Mr. Arafat ? Did he care for these people or was it more important for him to make sure that his foreign bank accounts were “gaining weight”, for him to have nice cars and houses and to make sure that the needs of those few close to him enjoyed similar standards. The UN representative to the Middle East back in those days was Terje Roed Larsen . I remember him making some very interesting statements : “Arafat never did anything to prevent terror !” was one of them.(He said that one year before Arafat passed away) The other one was : “Yassir Arafat never stopped lying” (He said that in an interview after Arafats death.)
The reason for mentioning this has to do with the fact that Fatah ( Arafat`s organization ) has been the strongest Palestinian alternative to Hamas. After Hamas won the election, Fatah , led by Mahmud Abbas was still considered the “Palestinian Authority ”

Going back to June 2007 when Hamas went to war on their “brothers” in Fatah and actually took over the reign in Gaza their brutality went beyond imagination. 161 people were killed within 6 days of fighting( we are talking about Palestinians fighting Palestinians here…) including 7 children and 11 women. People were pushed from roofs of tall buildings. They shot dead at close range already wounded or wounded to ensure permanent disabilities. They attacked people in their homes ,in hospitals and attacked ambulances and medical crew. We saw Palestinians tearing the houses belonging to Fatah members apart and stealing whatever could be useful to themselves.
(You may be interested to know that the son of West Bank leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef has become a Christian . An interview with him can be found in the internet edition of HAARETS.com for Mon.September 15,2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1007462.html )

Do you get the picture ? I have till now never seen any Palestinian leader really caring for the Palestinian people. I have not seen any Arab country really showing interest in their fate. What I have seen is a people being used in the most cruel way in a political “ ping pong game” which is aiming at the destruction of Israel.

Elin Elkouby

2008-12-30T03:17:00.001-08:00

Bomb shelter.
Every private house in Israel has got one, and for those living in apartment buildings there is one in the basement. Last night we had to enter our bomb shelter for the first time for security reasons. The alarm went and our daughters told us to wake up and to get moving...
I went to bed early last night as it was the last day of the school holiday and I knew that I would have to get up early the next morning. Earlier the same evening we had been following the news reports for what was going on. As we were watching we all of a sudden felt the house shaking. We had heard no alarm.... A few minutes later we were informed on TV that Kassams had been fired and that one of them landed in our neighboring town called Ashdod ( number 5 in size in Israel, south of Tel Aviv by the sea ) More than 60 Kassams were fired off yesterday and the one that landed in Ashdod resulted in 1 dead, 1 seriously wounded and another 3 wounded.
Let me tell you this : To live close to where this is happening and to know that we are within the limits for where these Kassams can reach is everything but pleasant. But, (and this is not easy for me to admit) it is somehow good to know that the Israeli army is trying to put an end to this terror.
I know that the information given on news reports all over the world have not bothered telling about the sufferings these Kassams have caused for the last 7 years. Many foreign reporters have dealt with them as if they were fire works. ( the Norwegian Press loves to deal with it this way...) We know that what we had a little "taste" of yesterday is something that our relatives in Nir Am have had to face on a daily basis for the last too many years. They have spent every night sleeping in bomb shelters, their children have not left for school in the mornings (as it is in a neighboring kibutz and because a Kassam actually fell into one of the class rooms )and the alarms have been heard several times during the day. They have been informed that if a Kassam hits a house directly there is no way to prevent them from going through the wall or roof, but it is possible to protect oneselves from the pieces of metal,bullets and nails that are being spread around once the Kassam explodes.The small children in the kibutz` kinder garden have been trained what to do when the alarm goes....get down on the floor, under a table and cover the head.
The kibutz had built a banquet hall for weddings and similar events as an income source .......The thing burned to the ground as it was hit by a Kassam. They invested money in a tourism project including rooms for over night stays, but people have been too afraid to come.... We know that most Kassams have actually landed on open fields and immidiately take it for "no damage made", but kibutz Nir Am has had acres of crops being burt off as the result of this. Who cares out there .......???
So, waking up this morning was a little different......I actually woke up to the sound of a loud speaker informing us at 6.30 in the morning that there would be no school today.---This information does not turn my life around, but there are lots of parents who have smaller kids that cannot be left at home alone as their parents go to work......
We have actually been asked please to stay inside our houses so that in case the alarm goes we will be close to the security room. ( we have 45 seconds to get to a safer place ).
I know that our situation cannot be compared to the situation inside Gaza right now. My heart was crying as we watched the news yesterday and heard of the 5 sisters that were killed as their house came down on them. Also this morning we were informed about the two children that were killed as they tried to get to a "safer haven" .
We saw an old Arab lady from Gaza receiving treatment at an Israeli hospital. She has not been informed about the situation "at home". She does not speak any Hebrew and the doctor treating her is an Israeli Arab. We also know about the sitation in hospitals and the exstreme lack of medication and medical equipment. A doctor from Gaza was interviewed yesterday on the news so I believe that when it comes to information through the Israeli mass media we get more balanced information than you do out there.
The most cruel thing that is happening now is that the Hamas leadership has gone under ground. They have made sure to prepare for themselves safe under ground bunkers. They do not want any cease fire unless Israel accepts their terms (opening up all the crossing points between Gaza and Israel.) In the mean time they are sending messages to encourage more Kassams to be fired. They are well aware of the fact that the more Kassams that are being sent into Israel the more Israeli air attacks there will be on Gaza and , as a result ,the number of casualties will grow. The Hamas does not have any problems with this as they believe that they actually arrange a "free ticket to Moslem heaven" for the ones that die and that is, according to them, not a bad alternative to their present situation. They also know that the international community will put pressure on Israel as the number of dead is growing. This is Hamas "math"....

Elin Elkouby

2008-12-30T03:05:00.000-08:00

Shalom. 28.12.08
The first Kassam missile has landed not far from where we live. We are used to hear about attacks on towns and Kibbutzes near Gaza, but this is the first one to land in our town Gan Yavne.
Israel has suffered from these attacks for the last 7 years, and the towns and Kibutzes close to the Gaza border has been terrorized on a daily basis. Last summer a cease fire was signed by Hamas. It has been more quit for the last half a year than before this agreement, although it was obvious to every Israeli that this calm would be temporary and that what was actually going on was that the Hamas prepared themselves for attacks further into Israeli territory. The Hamas expected the Israelies to answer by bringing soldiers into Gaza and had been preparing for that as well.
Yesterday the Israeli Army decided to attack Hamas “strongholds” from the air. It is clear to everybody that any action aimed at Hamas will cause suffering to innocent sivilians
The Egyptian foreign minister expressed on TV yesterday that Hamas had been warned and that they will have to take responsibility for what happens to them now. Egypt has sent soldiers to the border next to Gaza in order to prevent Palestinians from trying to get into Egypt.
Not only Israelis are suffering from Hamas terror, but also people inside Gaza itself. Whoever does not agree with Hamas is being black listed and will be “wiped out” sooner or later. ( when the Hamas went to war against the Fatah they were not “soft spoken”)
We know that the evangelical Christians inside Gaza are traumatized. Since the attacks on the Bible Society and the brutal killing of Rami (last year), the activities that were run by the Bible Society ( humanitarian aid) have been forced to stop, pastor Hannah has left with his family to the States and at least 9 other families have been moved to safety in Bethlehem.
There are lots of secular Moslems who are sick and tired of hate , bitterness , killing, suffering and who would prefer to work for a better future for their children by other means.
The world press have been very clever informing the world about the Israelies preventing trucks with supplies to enter into Gaza. They have not, however, been as clever informing about the fact that many such trucks have been targeted and shot at by the Hamas upon entering. The Hamas are using methods that western mentality does not understand and therefore do not report. The Hamas will do everything in their power to cause the whole world to criticize Israel and to blame the lack of food and medical supplies on the Israeli closure of the border crossing points.
We have family in a Kibutz close to the Gaza border. Yesterday as we watched the news we were informed that there might be a need to evacuate people living within a 10 km distance from the border. We immediately rang our relatives to inform them that they can come and stay with us. ( Nissim has an uncle , aunt and their daughter with husband and two children living in Kibutz Nir Am close to the border.) The answer that we got back was that they were waiting for busses to pick them up and to bring them to a kibbutz near Beer Sheva. I spoke with them again this morning to check if they are OK.
They do not know for how long they will have to be away from their homes.

Please, ( whatever you do out there…Do not make too quick conclusions. There are people suffering on both sides of the border….. Personally I believe that the biggest curse on the Palestinians is for them to be controlled by fanatic Moslem groups like the Hamas.

Elin Elkouby