Back in the news: two-three lines about the "spring"

I am trying to avoid as much as possible to address here too many political issues. Purposively avoiding the news, I am tying to focus rather on literature, history, books, daily practice, cooking. Anything but news.

But when a couple of minutes after the entering the new week I started reading the news, I couldn't believe it's true: the embassy of the state of Israel was attacked and its personnel humiliated by a herd of aggressive protesters - they weren't protesting for more education or democracy or the end of corruption practices, but against a democratic and independent state. It is not the first incident since the events leading to the fall of Mubarak's regime. During and after the events the local media and the social networks of various Egyptian activists incited for a "stronger" position against the state of Israel, accused of being interested in maintaining Mubarak's power.

This is not the first time in history when incompetent regimes are finding very fast an imaginary scapegoat whose transferred the incapacity of change or general failures. What happened in the last days represents a serious warning and doesn't concern only the state of Israel, but any country who claims belonging to the family of democracies. Most probably, the provocations of any kinds will continue this week, as Turkey's Erdogan is incoherently making various waves in his sink.

Selfishly thinking, maybe my quiet time dedicated to books and learning will significantly diminish. Still, dreaming of a "shavua tov".

40 Israelis detained, questioned ... JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

Turkey's new style diplomacy: 40 Israelis detained, questioned ... JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

I was surprised to see this summer adds on buses in Tel Aviv and elsewhere offering holidays trips - at very low prices - in Turkey. The Turkish Airlines office in Tel Aviv was deserted but many Israelis continued to find Antalya and Istanbul. A very small groups of Jews are living nowadays in Turkey where the Jewish tradition is longer than the reign of Erdogans and his fellows.

Gideon Rafael, a personal Memoir about the first generation of Israeli diplomats

Image via Wikipedia//Kibbutz guard, 1936

"In our conversation in 1961 Pandit Nehru had asked me how Israel, with a population two hundred times smaller than that of India, managed to find so many suitable heads of mission to man such a variety of posts. (...)

He was astonished to learn that quite a few of Israel's ambassadors had graduated from kibbutzim rather than from professional schools for diplomats. The man from behind the plough who was familiar with the intricacies of modern rural economy, who understood how to get along with his Arab neighbours and to negotiate with hard-headed bankers and thick-skinned bureaucrats, who had innate intelligence and human culture, was at least as good ambassadorial timber as the professional diplomat reared in the precincts of academic exclusivity. Some of our best people had a background of both. They were deeply immersed in the life of the country, had toiled and fought for it, grown up and gained experience in its struggle for independence, were educated in the ways of other nations and imbued with the knowledge and sense of the history of their own people. Most of them had swiftly acquired their professional polish, others had remained rough diamonds, attractive and valuable in their own way".

Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace. Three Decades of Israeli Foreign Policy. A Personal Memoir, p. 376

Related articles

• Child of the collective (guardian.co.uk)

Norm Eisen, the new Washington's man in Prague

A family story.

Holbrooke's Jewish past

An example of tikkun olam.

Kissinger bringing more matzah into the Soviet Union

A recently published document from 1976 is revealing a small part of the intense diplomatic activity during the Cold War for rescueing the Jews from the other part of the Iron Curtain. When disclosed, in the coming decades, it will offer, I am sure, an impressive amount of information about successes and changing shifts, about the diplomacy of the times and its changing benchmarks as well as about betrayals and failures.

Talk

Ari Folman, in an older interview for the New York Times, was asked:

"Do you find that talk is...effective in war and diplomacy?". His answer: "Talk don't shoot. Talk".

Coffee diplomacy

In the Middle East, coffee is part of the tradition. Various methods and bones and tastes. Another issue is the humus, but we will not write now about this. So, back to the coffee issue. One of the common places related to the area is concerning the tradition of the coffee houses, as social places, and matters of concern for the political power. But, here, again, we hope to have the occasion to focus more in another post.

And now, time to start my small story.

I was in Tel Aviv, chit-chating with a friend of mine about weather, sun and...suddenly, coffee. I was explaining my addicted love to coffee.

"How do you drink the coffee?", he asked me. And explained: two full spoons of coffee, and then I am pouring the boiled water. And? he continued. And, I am waiting a bit and I am ready to enjoy my huge mug for hours. And then, to make another one. "Do you put milk?", another question sprung. "No, I do not, never", I answered, "because I like to feel the real taste and to enjoy it. The milk could diminish it", I continued, very proud of my strong character. "So, no milk?", he answered again, as upon this answer it was relying the whole idea about me. "No, no milk", replied, a bit bored about this apparently going-nowhere q and a session.

"Hmm, you know, here, only the Arabs are drinking the coffee without milk", he added, ending the topic in a bit of surprise from my side.

In fact, as the story is pretty fresh, haven't time enough to test the truth of my friends remark. True or not, it is could offer a hint, about how coffee could became an identity marker.