bloggie

The claim goes that, by referring to the '67 lines as a boundary for their state, they recognise that Israel is on the other side of that line. As if this shitty document will undo the apparent tradition of self-delusion ("Israel? No such thing.").

By the by...

'Alecha'? I'm not sure what it means, but if it is a noun, you want 'alecha gadol'. 'Alecha' sounds feminine, too, soo probably 'alecha gadola'.

/anal

Yell at the Jewish person who wrote the graffiti, I just copied it :-)

"alecha" means "on you" (although in a phrase it can't be translated literally) and is masculine singular. The feminine equivalent is "alayich."

The plural is "aleichem" and I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "shalom aleichem" ("peace be upon you")

When I wrote the post, I had access to the whole article. Now I click on the link and it asks me for registration. The bugmenot login is not working for this site and I can't find where I got the whole article.

No, I hadn't heard of it. That said, I'm still learning past tense, so...

Is it a prefix, or is it just anglified from this:

על לך

Yell at the Jewish person who wrote the graffiti, I just copied it :-)

When I know what I'm talking about, I'll yell at them...

log in using

clarkgb
gable

IIRC, the Wiggles do that song sometimes on their TV show.

That's kinda the source of the word. "Al" is "on" (El Al kinda means "to [towards] up there").

For example, the expression "me-al u-mi-ever" means "over and above" [as in over and above the line of duty, doing more than is expected].

Reminds me of the time, about a year after I'd arrived in Israel, when I took a phone message for a co-worker. I noticed him (and other colleagues) laughing at my note. Turn out that although I'd intended to write "Sarah called and wants you to call her back [le-hitkasher eleyha]" but I'd written it with an ayin [le-hitkasher aleyha], whch could be understood to mean "to make contact on top of her."

I never made that mistake again.

That lapse in media judgment is worth recalling in the coming days

I don't think it's a lapse in judgement. The media is simply on Hamas's side.

We've already seen the headlines, "Hamas implicitly recognizes Israel", but the media conveniently omits the rest of the details.

Have you seen Camera's article on this: Prisoners' Document: Peace Plan or “Phased Plan”?

Boker Tov, Boulder had a furious piece about this yesterday, too.

joem, I hadn't read the Camera article, I see they're saying pretty much what I'm thinking.

I don't think it's a lapse in media judgment, either. I think everyone's going to push this document as "see, Hamas wants peace and accepts Israel".

If it doesn't work, shall I post the whole thing here?

Matt, CBA, As to the grammar lesson going on here, "gadol alecha" is colloquial (but grammatically correct) Hebrew for "the job is too big for you".

The words literally mean "big on you", e.g. that coat is big on you = hame'il hazeh gadol alecha.

(CBA, LOL at your faux pas!) :-D

annie, that didn't work for me.

gadol alecha? I think it should be gadol mimcha ("bigger than you").

Thanks annie, but that didn't work for me either :-) Sure, if you want. I just wanted to show Matt the gadol alecha so he could read the meaning.

Efraim Halevy:

“The real question is whether the Palestine national movement has the power to create a structure of command, control and viable governance,” Halevy states. “Are they capable of setting up a system of governance?” While Halevy won’t predict the outcome, his analysis is that Hamas is now on the horns of a dilemma about the direction they will take. “All timetables have changed,” Halevy asserts, noting that the ruling party would now be pushed to go one way or the other because a faction had chosen to instigate the well-planned tunnel incursion into Israeli territory. “We’ll see all this unfold in the next 24-48 hours,” he predicts.

Halevy paints a scenario where Khalad Mashal, the Damascus based head of Hamas’ military wing could triumph over the so-called civil wing. There’s a “real possibility Mashal will succeed in leading Hamas into a spiral of destruction over this issue,” he asserts. If that should occur, the future will be an even greater question mark than ever, Halevy says.

But the former intelligence head posits that should the Gaza and Ramallah Hamasniks “get it together and overcome the threat from Damascus, Hamas could become a viable partner for negotiations with Israel.” If they resolve the kidnapping, “we’ll be in a new ball game,” Halevy asserts. At that point, Hamas will have some degree of credibility and if they show that they will adhere to some basic norms of how a responsible government acts, it will be possible to deal with them, Halevy maintains.

(heh - I wrote that before I saw #15. You and your colloquialisms :)

I once went to sheva brachot where the chatan's brother dressed up as a camel - that was hilarious in itself - and sang a song "ki gamal alai".*

We were in stitches. :-D

*to ruin the joke by explaining: that is from a verse in Psalms meaning "for He has saved me". But a gamal is a camel, so it can also mean "for there is a camel on me". Geddit? Oh, never mind...

LOL!

OK, I won't post the whole article because it's quite long, but here are the relevant bits about the graffiti in zorkie's title:

Our obsession with hostages is a tactical weakness but a strategic strength. It allows terrorists a stunning psychological advantage: With a single random kidnapping, they hold an entire society emotionally hostage. Strategically, though, hostage-taking only strengthens Israeli resolve.

And resolve is precisely what the public now expects of its government. So far, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has responded well. He began by issuing two policy guidelines in dealing with the hostage crisis. The first is that Israel won't negotiate over Gilad's release and won't exchange prisoners. The second is that Hamas leaders--"political" as well as "military"--will be held personally accountable for the fate of Gilad.

If Olmert's government hopes to retain its credibility among Israelis, it needs to maintain those two principles.

snip

After the withdrawal, Israelis expected the government to enforce a policy of zero-tolerance for Palestinian attacks emanating from Gaza, even for attacks that didn't cause fatalities. Instead, the government responded unevenly, often ignoring rocket attacks that caused no damage.

Many Israelis see Hamas's raid on an Israeli military post within the 1967 borders as a result of the weakness Israel has projected. In yesterday's letters column in the daily Maariv, for example, the hardline consensus was almost unanimous. "We told you so," wrote one reader who identified himself as "right wing." "Why doesn't Israel shut off electricity and water to Gaza?" demanded another reader. "Enough words, it's time to act," insisted a third.

snip

Driving on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, I saw this graffiti: "Olmert, gadol alecha"--which roughly translates as, "Olmert, the job is bigger than you are." For Olmert to disprove that growing suspicion among Israelis, he must commit himself to the destruction of the Hamas regime. Sooner or later, Israel will have no choice but to adopt that policy. The only question is whether Olmert will still be prime minister when that happens.

Thanks, annie! "Olmert, the job is bigger than you are"-I hope the graffiti artist is proven wrong, but I suspect that truer words have never been spray-painted on the side of a highway.

Ahh, cool. Okay.

Turn out that although I'd intended to write "Sarah called and wants you to call her back [le-hitkasher eleyha]" but I'd written it with an ayin [le-hitkasher aleyha], whch could be understood to mean "to make contact on top of her."

LOL!

As for my faux pas... yes, it was pretty funny. Almost as funny as the time my husband (then my fiance) thought he'd told the security guard he was coming to visit his fiancee (erusa) but in fact he'd said asura [forbidden].

And the funniest part? "Wow, and he still let me in!" exclaimed my beloved.

LOL!!

I fed the hippo, but you must read today's Dry Bones.

Excellent.

I once went to sheva brachot where the chatan's brother dressed up as a camel - that was hilarious in itself - and sang a song "ki gamal alai".*

annie, that's too funny!

One of the funniest things I saw on TV in Israel occurred on a very lame game show (I don't remember what it was called, and I think it didn't last very long). The panel consisted of various well-known people (I only remember Ofra Haza, z"l) and they were given the start of a sentence to complete.

This was around Chanukah the year Israel captured Mordechai Va'anunu, and one of the sentences began, "The USA knows we have nuclear weapons, but they don't know that we don't have... [<HebrewHebrew> sheh ayn lanu...]"

Most of the responses were very lame (the main reason the show ended), but one guy said, "sheh ayn lanu rishut lehishtamesh bahem, eylah lirot'am bilvad" which is part of one of the prayers over the Chanukah candles and means, "we are not allowed to use them, but only to look at them."

It brought the house down.

CBA - that's hilarious! :-D Both your hubby's remark (LMAO!) and that game show (I don't remember that but Israeli TV is usually not very memorable...)

Earl, have a look at the photo in this article.

#30 Matt

Well, better equipped, certainly. Although those skinny little legs aren't those of the big lads that the Canucks, Brits and Yanks send in to clean up a problem ;) (of course, these Israeli troops may well be accountants, orthodontists and code-writers called up from the reserves- all the more remarkable).

Hunter-killer teams are well and good as a micro-exercise. But, to paraphrase Rummie, "can we kill the jihadis faster than the madrassahs can produce them?" Here, the Hamas hydra will merely grow new heads and Israel has then created a slew of new pali martyr/prisoners, with their attendant hostage-swap value and incarceration costs.

Let me give you a farm analogy from my experience. Coyote(s) appear and kill sheep- sometimes sport kills where the lamb is not actually eaten. Dogs are run after the coyotes and the coyotes are shot. But to kill off the coyotes in a given area, one kills the bitch in the den... and I reckon the bitch that spawns this evil, existential threat to Israel resides in Iran and Syria.