Oy, kinderlach*, what to tell you? I’m not feeling so well, and I’m on a deadline, but since I already blew that (thanks, summer vacation!) and need an extension, so I might as well do a little update, so as not to let a second week go by without a dispatch.

So…buckle your seat belts as we cruise over the inflamed subconscious of a trauma stricken nation, and then observe some more mundane mental and behavioral disturbances. This is the Weekend Holyland Update, flight 083109

Y’all heard about the Sweden kerfuffle? True story: This rag in Sweden, the country’s most read daily but an obvious supermarket rag, ran a story about irregularities that happened back in the 90’s at Israel’s state pathological laboratory. One of the paragraphs detailed the 17 year old story of a Palestinian whose son was shot by the IDF and returned with stitches he didn’t have when shot, indicating surgery. The claim is he’s also light a couple of internal organs. So far nothing new, but the idiot Swede editor decided to spice up the story and run it with a section header saying something about organ trading for implants. Now, the part about irregularities at Abu Kabir pathological institute is absolutely true. The pathology center’s director, on Dr. Yehudah Hiss, did get in a trouble for using stiffs for research and practice for pathology trainees without getting permission from the families. He did it with corpses of IDF soldiers, and my man Willie of Occam says that if so, he wouldn’t have had a problem with a Palestinian corpse.

So I totally believe the Palestinian in question was violated post-mortem and his organs used for training and/or research. But for implants? Um, somebody should tell an ignorant Swede “editor” and his reporter that a bullet to the torso is not an effective method of killing people in order to harvest their organs. In fact, it kinda renders the organs useless. So no. Perhaps Aftunbladet (that’s the name of the rag) should look into organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners by Chinese authorities, which is a crime that there’s actually evidence for. Of course, that may not please Sweden’s large Muslim community quite to the same degree.

But such calm, fact-based reactions are not sufficient for the knights of national pride. Israel’s government, behaving like some stupid third-world banana republic, snarled at Sweden, demanding that it officially denounce the publication and the story and calling out the leaders of the country for a “lack of spirit” when they demurred. A denunciation issued by Sweden’s ambassador was not sufficient, nor was Sweden’s reminder that it, like Israel, is a democracy with freedom of the press. I personally can’t remember the last time Israel’s government denounced a media organ for something it wrote about a foreign country. And if it did we’d tell it to mind it’s fuckin’ business.

Was that the end? Oh no… Can you spell Godwin, boys and girls? That’s right. Utterly and conveniently forgetting the officially sanctioned heroics of Raoul Wallenberg _{(not to mention the joys brought by thousands of Swedish female volunteers in Kibbutzim all over Israel, gracing lawns and pools with their blessed toplessness)}, top Israeli ministers, led by Foreign Minister Yvette Lieberman (yeah, no irony there), began screeching that “Just like in WW2, Sweden is standing by in the face of Anti-Semitism.” The papers played along with the hysteria campaign and both high-selling rags, Yediot and Ma’ariv, ran it on the front page in 10 foot block letters. A few idiots even tried to get a boycott on IKEA going… that’ll learn them Swedeish icebergs! Yeah!!! (I mean, if you wanna boycott IKEA, their founder was an actual Nazi sympathizer. The fact was mentioned back when they opened here, and did nothing in the face of Israelis’ shoplust).

^{Even this guy makes more sense than Lieberman}

Lieberman, whose entire career was built on the exploitation and fanning of racist sentiments, soon got bored with Sweden and decided to complete his tour of Scandinavia, castigating Norway for… celebrating the birth of Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun, who was born 150 years ago. Now it’s true that Hamson, in his 80’s, was a Nazi sympathizer and a supporter of the Collaborationist regime of Vidkun Quisling, but his great literature was composed long before that and in any case, attacking a country for honoring the birth of its arguably greatest writer is rather inane, and for Lieberman – a man whose very official position constitutes a far graver condoning of racism – to be the one to raise the issue… A homie of mine used to have this nifty line about shit like that. Something about a mote and a beam, I’m sure you’ve heard it somewhere…

Fortunately, this idiocy eventually died down, and I personally suspect there’s something behind the scenes going on between us and Sweden that made throwing a hissy fit and causing a diplomatic crisis seem like a good idea. Myself, I try not to flaunt my most egregious hangups at every occasion, but that’s just me.

Speaking of the Libermouse, he also has a new way to fuck with the Israeli Arab population – he’s trying to pass a rule saying that if you didn’t serve in the army (or national service), you can’t represent Israel as a diplomat. Now, this sounds kinda sorta fair, until you recall that Israel rejects about half of the Arab applicants for national service, whereas Arabs in the army do exist, but in very small numbers for obvious reasons. So Libermutt thinks he came up with a bright idea of how to screw the Arabs, not realizing that the very best thing that can happen to Israel internationally is an eloquent Arab representing it abroad. Liebermunchkin, btw,completed the trifecta by stating in a speech that “even 16 years from now there won’t be peace.” Not with the likes of you in charge, no. Our PM, the Baron von Bibhausen, has done a pretty good job of neutralizing the racist, turning him into foreign minister in name only, but he still does too much damage.

Not a good couple of weeks for Israeli Arabs in general. First, a bunch of young thugs from the Arab town of Jaljulya beat a middle-aged man to death at the beach, where he was relaxing with his wife and daughter. And while violent thuggery is plentiful in the Jewish sector as well (There have been something like 15 bloody murders in August alone), this weekend things got worse for the already-beleaguered minority when a man from the Arab town of Tira was arrested for allegedly spying on the Chief of Staff of the IDF, Maj. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazee, with whom he used to work out at the same gym in Kfar Saba. According to the story, the man was contacted by Hizballah operatives and gave them Ashkenazee’s workout schedule and the layout of the facility. Somehow I don’t think this was done with the intent of delivering flowers. This is the second security embarrassment for Ashkenazee, after some grunt with financial problems stole his credit card info and an antique revolver from his office a couple weeks ago. Makes you sleep better at night, this crap does.

Oh yeah, while we’re on things that help you sleep – the southern border is heating up again, with Hamas firing a few Qassam rockets over the weekend. Nobody hurt this time, but there go the few months of quiet the last bloodbath bought us.

Ehud Olmert became the first Israeli PM to be indicted, when charges were filed in conjunction with three separate cases – receiving multiple reimbursements for plane tickets, undue influence in appointments at a government program to aid small businesses, and last but not least, for receiving cash-stuffed envelopes. A light to the Nations, baby!

Israel marked Gilad Shalit’s 23^rd birthday – the fourth he has had in Hamas captivity. Lotsa talk, demonstrations, a birthday vigil and a cool new slogan was unveiled – “Where’s the Shalit (ruler, in Hebrew) who will bring Gilad back?” Pretty nifty. The new sponsor for soccer team Beitar Jerusalem, Miami based millionaire Guma Aguilar, wore the T Shirt for his team’s first home game, where he also shook his booty and hammed it up for the crowd. He’s gonna be a riot, I can tell…As for Shalit – some signs of progress, with German negotiators making some undetermined headway, but an actual deal still seems months away.

Speaking of sports, the football (soccer) season started surprisingly well here. Maccabi Haifa failed to choke and took full advantage of a very easy draw to make the UEFA Champion’s League group phase (three guaranteed home games, two against historical powerhouses Juventus of Italy and Bayern Munich of Germany, and another against French champs Bordeaux), whereas Hapoel Tel Aviv was equally impressive in qualifying for the group stage of the secondary European competition, the “European League”. They get to make money with home games against Hamburg, Celtic of Glasgow, and Rapid Vienna. Couple that with the impending opening of the NFL season (Go J-E-T-S!), and what do you get? A very good fall.

Another thing that makes fall good is the advent of the school year, which means that yours truly will have an actual work day and be able to get some work done and meet his deadlines. So on that optimistic note we’ll bring her in for landing. Please rate and comment, otherwise I’ma send your luggage halfway around the globe and have the nice gentlemen in the Brooks Brothers suits take you to a small side room for some questions, so do the right thing.

* Kinderlach – children, in Yiddish