The Promise

I overheard a coffee break discussion at work the other day about a TV mini series called "The Promise"(Luvattu maa in Finnish, bad translation). The series had worked as an eye-opener for some of the people discussing it how the Jews in Israel are not as innocent as they appear to be. What was this series all about? Naturally, I had to check it out asap...

Since I had missed the TV airing times for the series, I was lucky to catch all the four episodes online at Yle Areena service (getting my tax money's worth). Warning for those who do not want spoilers, I advise you to stop reading now.

The plot seemed interesting at first... A young English girl named Erin travels to Israel to keep company for a friend who flies back to do her military service. Before this trip, Erin had found his grandfather's old diary from the days when he was stationed in Palestine during the British Mandate. Erin's visit to Israel starts all ooh-la-la-you've-got-villas-with-pools, shopping in swanky boutiques and dancing the night away in a huge, pulsating nightclub. As the story bounces back and forth between modern day (Erin) and the 1940s (the grandfather), shots from liberated concentration camps are shown and those who survived, how happily they arrived in Palestine - liberated, alive, in search for hope after the horrendousgenocide. You might think the series is a ploy from the Israeli government for good word-of-mouth. But then the story changes. The brother of Erin's friend shows up and he is pro-Palestine and starts showing her the other side of the coin.

What started as a seemingly positive story about Israel, quickly turns sour for the Jewish folks. The only "negative" thing about the Arabs/Palestinians portrayed is a suicide bomber attack in a cafe but the rest concentrates on how seemingly the majority of the Jews were members of Irgun (and therefore murderous, deceiving and just terrible people hungry for blood) and how the settlers spit and trash the Arab citizens of the country. While these might not be far-fetched, I'm sure all of Israel is not like this and most of them would be embarrassed of such things to begin with.

Erin's visit to Gaza was the anti-climax of the show, the character's unreal attempts to sympathize with the locals and chaining herself to a building to stop the destruction of it. Please, how naive. The conflict lies way deeper and the fact that Erin tried to solve it by clinging on to a young Palestinian girl (who was to be used as a human shield by the IDF) was just irritating.

The series, I'm guessing, is trying to be impartial and demonstrate the story through the Brits, Jews, Arabs, 1940s and modern time. Quoting the grandfather character from the end, at first he would have let the Jews have anything (after seeing the concentration camps) but now... he wasn't so sure anymore. A country born out of violence will live with the same violence until the (bitter?) end.

The whole conflict is sad, and probably most of the people in the area are not war-maniacs wishing for the blockages, bombings and rockets to continue. When things are prolonged and go on for a long time, societies and nations evolve and change, and the root of it all starts to get blurred. When you kill, it's terrorism? When we will, it is self-protection? Difficult questions that "The Promise" wasn't able to answer and probably didn't intend to do so, after all.

Picture borrowed from Wikipedia.

Go far and take a right

Antisemitism has been around in our world for hundreds of years. It was is a fixed phenomenon in European politics and culture as well - some say it even belongs to the European DNA. At first, antisemitism based mainly on religious reasons. Christian Europe blamed the Jews for killing Jesus, the Messiah, and considered that one of the biggest reasons why Jews deserved to get it. Later on, antisemitism developed into a faux-science about human races and took other political aspects. Putting the religious quarrel aside, it was believed that Jews were secretly working together to take over the world. Much of nazism and partly facism, too, was based on this belief.

In the past couple of years, there's been a lot of discussion about the far-right activity increasing in politics again. It happened in Finland too, when all of a sudden a party called "True Finns" won a lot of votes in our parliamentary elections. It was a big shock, widely debated and discussed on domestic level, and even the foreign media paid attention to what was happening in our little country.

Is far-right ideology and propaganda the same today? We have seen the phenomenon resurfacing not only in Finland but in Greece (a whole political party), France (le Pen) or even in Norway to some extent (the Breivik case - although this was the act of one single individual). Instead of the far-right movement being 100% antisemitic, it is more turning into racism against everything foreign. Not only may it be targeted against the increasing Muslim population in Europe, it is also possible that Europeans start turning against other Europeans. The European Union - as beautiful it is as an idea - is causing problems with e.g. the common currency in crisis. The South sucking money from the North keeps tensions building and the far-right parties use these tensions as fuel to create the vision of everything national, domestic and whatever is considered "familiar" being good. Everything else foreign is a threat, "bad for us" and must be eliminated. Hence, Jews might fall in to this category, again.

Antisemitism is on the rise, probably due to some of the old factors (15% of Swedes and 35% of French consider Jews having too much power in the world) but it is also the prolonged Israel-Palestine conflict that fuels Muslim immigrants in Europe to assault Jews. This is a "new" factor causing increase in antisemitic crimes after the WWII incidents. Whereas most antisemitic crimes in Poland, Germany and Austria are (still) done by indigenous people, in Sweden it is the Muslim minority picking up the fight. Even the ever-so-liberal Holland is showing increasing abuse and violence against Jews, mainly done by inhabitants of the country with North African roots. The conflict surpassed a long time ago from being a quarrel about two nations and borders. It is a conflict between ideology and religion. A Muslim (from e.g. Sweden) attacks a Jew (in Sweden). Basically these two individuals might not be a Palestinian and an Israeli but they fight the same fight in a foreign territory.

And all of this, what does it boil down to? Is it political? Is it racial? Is it religious? Is it cultural? Is it all of these factors together? Personally, I'm not a big fan of Karl Marx but he did have a point when saying that religion is opium of the people. Many bloody wars have been fought throughout the history of mankind in the name of religion (let's not get even started with the Crusaders) and this seems to persist today, tomorrow and forever. We just can't get along, can we?

Casting votes, light, shadows?

Finland has carefully tuned into the election day of Israel this Tuesday. I only had to open the TV in the morning when preparing to go to work, and Hebrew letters and Israeli flags were all over the screen. Speculations about the results were exchanged: if Netanyahu wins is peace in the region more unlikely? And what about other topics, such as cost of living expenses in Israel which cause debates among the citizens of the country?

Following the day and news, Israelis seem to have been very active in voting this time and while this might be of benefit for the opposition, Netanyahu is still expected to take home the prize. Final results of the elections will be released tomorrow. Let's hope that casting all the votes will create a government that will cast light on a stable, peaceful Israel.

Simon says: fire him

It comes as no surprise to anyone who might read this blog that I tend to keep an eye on everything written about Finland + Israel/Jews in the local media here. More often than I would like to admit, the news are not good from my point of view.

The latest outburst is a Finnish politician Pertti Salolainen, whose comments on a morning TV show are the #1 most read headline on JPost right now. Referring to the recent UN vote on PLO's status, Salolainen was criticizing the United States not being able to take a neutral stand to the conflict because of the powerful, influential Jewish community in the USA that controls the country's money and media.

The Simon Wiesenthal center condemns this kind of comments, and has asked the State of Finland officially to declare that this is not an official stand to the matter, especially from a country that joined the International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance. The comments are regarded as classic antisemitic ideas, whereas some hope the politician was more trying to criticize the US politics and not the Jewish people.

Whatever the case, the issue here is that these were words coming from a public figure with a recognized status in the Finnish political system. It also totally stirs up things again with Finland and its loss of direction in foreign policy. If things continue like this, Finland will be like the kid at the international sandbox that no one wants to play with. Reading the comments of the readers at JPost, seems we are not very popular indeed. And why would we be, this remote, cold & dark racist country with the lowest self-esteem ever?

With his comments, Salolainen joins a very nice league of past political figures I am sure anyone would be proud to be compared to. For example, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu stopped the killings of Jews in Romania towards the end of the war, as Germany was losing. He thought saving the Jews that still were left, would make a wonderful bargaining chip with the West as, in a similar manner like Salolainen implied, he believed Jews control the world.

My blog was originally supposed to be with a positive tone and bring another, brighter viewpoint to Israel and Judaism alongside the common negative stuff you most of the time see written. But with the news articles being like this, I'm struggling to find the positive...

Read more in English: The JPost article
Read more in Finnish: Ilta-Sanomat

Stand by you

Last week's events in Israel and Gaza have not only stirred up things in the Middle East, but also awoken different people and parties in Finland too. It is amazing how that tiny little piece of land thousands of kilometers away from here manages to heat up discussion, emotions and demonstrations. Even my father sighed to me on the phone... ”I wrote a paper about this conflict 50 years ago at school – and things have not improved at all. How saddening.” And he is right. UN should have cleaned up after its decision a long time ago. Now over time with circumstances changing, the conflict becoming "a way of life", it is even harder to solve.

I try to take pride in my country's liberty and freedom of speech. In the end, whatever someone preaches or boasts in public is left to the listener's judgement to believe it or not. There was a pro-Palestine demonstration in Helsinki, and today it was Israel's friends (over 300 people) who gathered together at Narinkka Square in Helsinki to show support, with following slogans for example:

Israel, you are not alone.                    Media - why do you defend terrorists?  

                                                                      

           EU - time to condemn rockets to Israel.        Let go of antisemitism.                 I <3 Israel.

                                                          Free Gaza from Hamas.

Some had showed up from other cities to give support.

The Israeli Embassador came to greet the people, and thanked them for showing support despite the "temperature just dropping cold".

These demonstrations were rather different. I have to admit, I didn't go see the pro-Palestine one live, but seeing the clips on TV, people showed their support differently for the two sides in this conflicts. ”The Palestinians” took the streets blocking traffic, had a megaphone, said accusations against Israel. ”The Israelis” stood in one place not bothering anyone, sang songs and hoped for peace in the region.

Same thing you could say about the debate televised here in Finland last week. Four young men, one Jew, one Arab (both living in Finland), one pro-Israel Finn and one pro-Palestine Finn were put in a live show to debate the conflict. It was evident, who in the group had negotiation skills, justified facts and rational view to the matter. And who in the group was making accusations of the other being ”murderers of our children”.

An opinion, found on the streets of Helsinki

Another interesting aspect of this conflict is how the presence of online media is more and more used as a means of propaganda. Twitter, Facebook and other forums are used by both parties to make their voice heard and to do good PR - and in this aspect I must say Israel is failing. It is incomprehensible, how a commoner now gets the idea that a terrorist organisation (yes, Hamas is classified as such by e.g. the EU, Canada, Japan and USA) has a silent blessing for its actions, usually randomly targeted to kill innocent civilians. An organisation, who states in its fundamental declaration that Jews have no right to live. How, in any sense of humanity, can someone defend this kind of objectives and think it is OK and allowed?

The other side of the coin is Israel, and what kind of picture is painted of them in the media. The country's name so is tainted, smeared with blood, performing nothing but unjustified acts against the innocent regime in Gaza. Murderous Jews who want to kill Arab babies. How is this possible, when Israel currently remains the only democratic country with some stability in the Middle East? How is this reputation possible, when Arabic is an official language in Israel, Israeli-Arabs hold public positions in the government, are excused to serve in the IDF, are a recognized minority in the country?

I think the Finnish media is also falling for this false picture. The reporting is biased, and I don't know why. Civilians are suffering on both sides. A country should have its right to defend its self when under attack. It is the regime that is failing to find a solution for the conflict, and this is not surprising when the other side doesn't want to negotiate, find a common compromise and thinks you have no right to exist. How do you build peace with someone who has an attitude like that?

A sinking feeling

If history tends to repeat itself at all, a ship called Estelle is on its way to some not-so-smooth sailing. Operated from our Western neighbor Sweden by an organization called ”Ship to Gaza”, the ship sailing under Finnish flag has left Italy and is now heading to its final destination - hoping it to be Gaza but the destination might as well be the bottom of the sea.

Due to the fact that the ship sails under our blue-white colors, the Foreign Ministry wants to make it clear that the Republic of Finland is in no way involved in this mission. It also warned the two Finns (among Israelis, Swedes, Canadians, Americans and Norwegians) on board that if a military conflict persists, there's little hope for them to get any consulate help from Finland.

Everyone has their own way of pushing through an agenda, but is this kind of operation truly peace – or actually a form of provocation? It is a well known fact that the waters around Gaza are blocked, and any foreign ships without permission trying to enter may not be greeted in a friendly way.

Quoting the mayor of the Italian city of Naples visited the ship on Friday: “This is not an initiative in favor of Hamas but in favor of Palestine, of the Palestinians who live in Gaza, and in favor of two states living as neighbors in peace and security”. This is understandable, but isn't there any other way of doing it than sailing in such dangerous waters?

Targeting Zionism

It is very rarely that you read about the Finnish Jewish community in Finland - they are pretty invisible to the common man. Today, however, they made their way to the headlines of some Finnish newspapers, for standing up for their own values.

The Jewish community of Finland had made a complaint about a anti-Zionism writing in a department store owned "newspaper" that is distributed for free. I'm using quotation marks for the word newspaper here, as a quick visit to the publication's website shows the level of reliability, trustworthiness and quality of the writings there. Read and believe only at your own responsibility, could be said.

The text is written by an Argentinian man, titled how USA is a puppet for the Zionist movement. According to him, Zionism is to blame for the events in Hiroshima, Somalia and well, basically any conflict ever happened on any continent of the world. All the powerful countries of this planet (USA, France, Italy, UK...) as well as NATO and the UN are run by the ideology of Zionism: pick a target, create terrorism, write about it in global media to create a fuss, march in as liberators, force own ideology and finally steal natural resources and exit.

There are comments for and against the text. Some label it as pure racism, some say Zionism is politics and Judaism religion - so therefore criticizing Zionism not anti-Semitism. Some of the comments I don't dare even translate but you can imagine what kind of text can be found in over a 100 comments. Bible, Talmud and basically everything between heaven and earth (literally) is brought in - again.

In addition to the Jewish community, a private person has also made a complaint to the Finnish police regarding the this text. Over the past 10 years, the community has made six similar complaints and all of them lead to fines being issued or other measures. Let's see and find out what happens with this case.

Politically correct cosmetics

Recently, there has been a lot of talk online about importing Israeli products, such as fruits and cosmetics, to Finland. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received feedback from concerned consumers who want to know from which part of Israel the products are coming from. Probably, so they could boycott products coming from the areas that raise a lot of political debates around the world for other reasons, too.

A couple of days ago Finland's biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat published an article on the matter. The newspaper didn't clearly take a stand to one direction or another (hmm, ok, maybe slightly favoring these concerned consumers just like the European Union thinks), but bluntly reported what's going on and why.

886 Finns recommended the article on Facebook and 111 comments were written on the newspaper's website. It is really interesting how the topic makes so many people here to pick a side. A lot of discussion is heated up over not much since the Israeli products – after a quick look in the supermarket or department store – clearly are a tiny minority in the total product offering here.

There are comments for and against. Some say it is waste of time and that our ministry should concentrate on more critical things (ahem, like what's going on in Israel's neighboring countries). Other comments bring up China and Russia; same should be done to them as well then – it is unfair to ”punish” just one country. Someone said a list and markings like this would help them to recognize Israeli products better and therefore buy them more.

The other side condemns Israel's military actions and settlements. If Israel is the only democratic country in the region, it should have no problem revealing the origins of its products. History, everything from Biblical times and Ottoman Empire to British Mandate is brought in to justify an opinion.

Summa summarum? It is no surprise that all these 111 comments and opinions can't come to an agreement and conclusion on what is right. If it did and things were so simple and black & white, the centuries old conflict would have been solved a long time ago. And it would have been done somewhere else than on a Finnish newspaper forum.

These are "Just minerals". No pun intended.