| |
An occasional column by Nigel Parry for Middle East International magazine.
One has to admire the industriousness of Israelis for the sheer amount of material they have put on the Internet in such a short period of time. A recent estimate, released at the Israeli Business Management Center convention in Tel Aviv on Thursday 26 February 1998 suggested that some 10,000 Israeli websites exist on the World Wide Web, ten times more than the number two years ago. In addition, it was estimated that some 170,000 Israeli subscribers are connected to the Internet. In contrast, around 140 Palestinian websites exist and perhaps 2,000 Palestinians are connected to the Internet. Both estimates represent just over 1 percent of the Israeli figures.
A good place to start is probably the government's on-line offering. An index of government websites is available at http://www.index.gov.il/. Here you will find a list of the websites of ministries, municipalities and the media. With respect to the latter, Web-surfers seeking a saner English language newspaper than the Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.co.il/, inexplicably declared "the sixth most popular on-line newspaper in the world", will be relieved to find the more independently-minded Ha'aretz http://www.haaretz.co.il/eng/.
Perhaps one of the biggest hyped government sites at the moment is the Israel at Fifty site http://www.israel.org/mfa/israel50/index.html. Amongst photo exhibitions, statistics, and events, you will find the 16 May 1948 edition of the (then) Palestine Post, now the Jerusalem Post. The editorial, "A nation that has freed itself", found at http://www.jpost.co.il/com/1948/editorial.html, makes an interesting observation, "And as it can be said that the subject Jew was an assurance of subjection for the Arab, it is right - it must be right - to say that the free Jew is a promise of freedom for the Arab. In that will lie a righteousness of the new State of Israel." One is forced to ask the question, where does that leave the State of Israel today?
Settlers' homepages these days are a high tech affair, replete with video and other trappings of multimedia. However, the ideology behind the technology remains the same. The Hebron Settlers' Website http://www.virtual.co.il/communities/israel/hebron/ is perhaps the best example of mutton dressed up as lamb. Permanently heading its features column is a piece on the 1929 massacre.
The Purim Torah commentary on the book of Esther asks why the people of Amalek - men, women, children and even the animals - needed to be wiped out? "The answer is not exceedingly difficult," comes the answer, "What is Israel's job in this world? The prophet Yeshayahu (43:21) says: 'This people I created, they shall tell of my splendor'. In other words, [Israel's] task is to reveal the glory of the L-rd. Amalek is the exact opposite of Israel." No prizes for guessing who Amalek is in the current Hebron settler worldview. Coexistence is not a concept that is given any consideration.
Indeed the cult-like nature of the settler community seems to produce material that defies rational explanation. In much of the material on the website of the Yesha Council http://www.yesha.virtual.co.il/ we read assertions such as, "While the Arabs are free to build at will and chose the locations that will best advance their position, Jewish building is verboten," a statement that has no basis in any statistical reality. Having said that, useful details such as the number of Jews present in each settlement and the religious/non-religious ratio (65 percent non-observant Jews, 35 percent observant Jews) make it worthwhile stop for the researcher.
A general Israel starting point would be Virtual Jerusalem http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/ with information covering everything from tourism, to business and technology information, the Torah and tradition, arts and leisure, media, shopping and a devilishly tempting "Ask the Rabbi". For those interested in the development of Israel's booming high tech and business sector, visit Link Magazine, http://www.link.co.il/ where you will find articles galore and the LINK 100, a list of Israel's top 100 publicly traded companies.
Surfers depressed with Israeli intransigence in the peace process can always see a lighter side to Israel at Ohr Somayach's Top 10 Jewish humour page at http://www.ohr.org.il/judaism/humor/top10/topten.htm. In his "Top 10 Reasons for not attending Synagogue on Shabbat", you will find, "My stock broker is now attending services in a Federal Penitentiary".
For another positive, although serious side to Israelis on-line, the definitive smiley, happy people Israeli website must be Ariga http://www.ariga.com/ run by Israeli writer Robert Rosenberg. 'Ariga' is the parallel Hebrew word to Arabic's "Yansuj", meaning "weave". Its ever-renewing magazine format is an excellent first stop for those wanting to see what the peace camp is up to. Features include articles from activists, a more sane Torah portion than you will find on the Hebron settlers' website, Israeli poetry and short stories, food writing, and scores of the latest links to the newest Israeli and Palestinian resources.
Offering any overview of the 10,000 Israeli websites of all shapes and colours is an impossible task in such a limited space and one best left to the experts. Nadav Har'El, a mathematician working for the Israeli government, is perhaps the best person to take on this mantle. Since 1994, he has been editing "The (almost) Complete Guide to WWW in Israel" [now known as the iGuide], found at www.iGuide.co.il. With over 1,600 links, sorted in a fashion similar to Yahoo!, it is the best option from those who wish to explore further by topic. A more corporate offering, the Israeli Internet Guide at [formerly at http://www.neystadt.org/israel/], offers a text-based search, for those that prefer that AltaVista or Excite type approach to the Web.*
by Nigel Parry
March 1998
MEI
* This site has now merged with the iGuide, which offers both index and keyword-based searches.