#27.8.2022

hangman_sets Keeping an eye on everyone over the weekend was this hangman built, giant inflatable eye for Louis Tomlinsons 'Away from home' Festival in Malaga. #festival #festivalstage #setconstruction #inflatable #custom #setdesign

Just kinda feel a bit meh now. (Stop whining.)

I wonder how many South Africans reading the above and remembering what they felt at the time about administrative detention feel about the above PF. I don't know how many there were in South Africa but I feel here that it has gone beyond the pale and shows how indiscriminate it is and how often just used to punish people and to try to deter others. And here too the principle, as it was in South Africa, is often imposed ….and I remember reading about the same thing in South Africa, that as the person steps out of the prison or his home and are free, another term of imprisonment is slapped on them.

 There have also been cases of bus drivers refusing to let women on to buses because they are not "properly" dressed. I can only hope that they take the full details of the driver and that they sue the company. Some time ago, when I was at the checkpoint, I saw a Palestinian with a shirt on and with a logo of a rifle on it and thought to myself that he would have a problem going through and, sure enough, a few days later a little boy was divested of his shirt because of that. This week we had an example of what I always say. What happens in the occupied territories will spill over into Israel. A woman wearing a shirt on which was written, "Looking the occupation in the face" was stopped by a security guard and told that she could not go into the station or board the train as her shirt was provocative and would cause a disturbance. I think she was very brave to wear it as I am always careful when I go to a demonstration what shirt I am wearing. But it is her right to do so and he has not right to stop her. The power goes to the heads of all these guards who I don't think are chosen because of their IQS. 

  I have been rereading…or rather listening …to the "Old curiosity shop" by Dickens……I have often wondered why I did not go back to it as I have to most of his books….something in me stopped me. Listening to it now, I think that the characters in it are the most unpleasant than in any other of his books. And a strong invective of gambling. And I think I always remembered poor Nell and therefore as a child never wanted to read it again.

 I went with a friend to a town near Jerusalem for coffee. There was  a post in facebook about a Druze girl from Beit Jan who had opened a café in Mevaseret and had been attacked by hooligans on the right and people were asked to go and support her. It was a very pleasant little place. She has a lot of courage but must also be a most complicated girl. She said she has no connection with her family in the north and also that she has been in a depression for nearly 10 years and has regular sessions with a psychiatrist and came to Mevaseret because she knows people there. That the place of the café was a scrap heap and she rebuilt it. I wondered where on earth she had got the money for this but of course did not ask. While there a woman came in with the cutest dog and, as she was alone, and we were the only two people in the café, I asked if she would like to join us and she said yes but a friend would be joining her soon. Two very interesting women. I, of course, forget their names but the first one had a long career and she did mention that she worked on Wall Street. She must have made a packet there as she said she had a pool in her apartment!!  I think she must have brought the whole of Wall Street with her

  Every year in Jerusalem, Theatre in the  Rough puts on  a play in the park of Shakespeare. They move from place to place and you have to run after them. Not always the easiest for me as it is on grass but it is great fun and I think that whole of the English speaking population or at least a large proportion and it is over a good few days and, whenever I have been there, well attended. This year it was "The Merchant of Venice" which is a plat I always hated. I don't know if my memory plays me false, but I seem to remember being one of the few Jewish kids in the l class when we had to read the play at school. Not pleasant.  My friend, Ellen, who is a guide, told me that she had a group  which I think was from Algeria and was talking to their guide. She asked if they had many Jews there and he said, "Thankfully not." She asked if he knew any Jews personally and he again said no. But when she asked him why he disliked them, his reply was , "The Merchant of Venice." I told this to the group even though the discussion had been most about the text. I did not know if it was pertinent but it made a real stir in the room.

 Video shows pair of assaults on Arabs by Jews in Jerusalem

Several suspects attack man in Mahane Yehuda market, as footage emerges of large Jewish group chasing after Arab supermarket worker, beating him

https://www.timesofisrael.com/video-shows-pair-of-assaults-on-arabs-by-jews-in-jerusalem/

Everything here is becoming more intense and more and more people are taking power into their hands, especially the security guards and bus drivers.  Some bus drivers did not let women on to a bus as they felt that they were not dressed appropriately. I only hope that they had the presence of mind to take the details of the drivers and sue them and the company. Also 50 Palestinians were ordered off a bus because two religious passengers did not want to travel with them. Nazism is in full force here. But then there is also this…It also shows the level of intelligence of the security guard and also of the first policeman. Yesterday at Sheikh Jarrah I asked one of those wearing the shirt to bring one back for me even though personally, especially here in Jerusalem, I am a bit scared of wearing it. But one must not allow fear to stop one. There is too much escalation of the fascist element today. By the way, the  other picture shows one of these young fascists wearing a  shirt….and he will not be stopped anywhere…which says " A terrorist in the eye, a bullet in the head."   You agree? But who knows when he will decide who a terrorist is. Maybe at some demonstration where to him even someone on the left is a terrorist.

 A short story about your life that you won't hear in the media:

Yesterday around 9:00 a.m., at the Shalom train station,

Activists on their way back from the encampment of "Looking at the occupation with their eyes" were stopped at the entrance to the peace train station by a vigorous security guard at the Israel Railways service, who demanded that the activist not enter the train wearing the shirt of "Looking at the occupation with their eyes". on the pretext that the shirt could cause a provocation. The activist asked to see the procedures from here the situation quickly escalated and the security guard moved to physically attack the activist and immediately after that he moved even more aggressively to attack and choke the activist. Activists arrived quickly from the encampment to the station, some demonstrated outside the station and some demonstrated inside. The first police officer who arrived at the event and took testimony from the activists dispersed the demonstration inside the station and claimed that one should listen to the security guards and not enter the train with the shirt on. The activists insisted on not leaving the place and 2 police officers were invited who very quickly understood the situation and immediately gave an explicit order to let the activist get on the train. It turns out that the repressive regime that spilled into the borders of the Green Line needs lonely but sane officers who will understand that Israel is breathing its last breaths of democracy.

In the photos: dangerous shirts, against the background of the twilight of democracy at the peace station, in the next step it was promised that it would be arranged for a train to Europe by the state..

  And just to show that I am not completely tied up in politics. Supper in East Jerusalem after the demonstration in Sheihk Jarrah when I met some friends afterwards to try out a restaurant which I had heard of

   Signing off