Pray for peace. This needs to happen by completely paralyzing Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza.
Tag Archives: Israel
Israel now threatened by 75km missiles
This blog has been quiet for a while, but life for me has been anything but.
Just reading today about new Iranian Fajr missiles which hit south part of Tel Aviv today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5
These things have upto 75km radius, most of Israel is now under threat. Already we had GRAD missiles which can hit Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon, and a new threat with attacks from Syria, which may have been a mistake from their own in fighting.
This country needs your prayers more than ever, but also the civilian population of Gaza which will inevitably get caught in the middle.
I will report soon on the measures my work and the government have recommended us to take.
Ships on the Galilee coast
I am on the edge of the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) in the city of Tiberias, on the coast of the lake its easy to see how fishing his been part of the economy for years.
Sadly this fish processing plant looks kind of derelict, although when I walked back to the hostel when it was darker, the lights were on.
A lot of the fish I see in Jerusalem supermarkets comes from Norway. There is however plenty of small restaurants serving fish caught in the lake to Christians who want an authentic biblical meal.
This boat looks like a lot of the vessels for taking Christian pilgrims around the lake, but its up on blocks for service. I remember my grandad telling me its important to paint the bottom of your boat each year (or at least for a small sailing dingy with a wooden hull)
Wonder what conversations went on during Jesus’s time during the times when boats were being repaired and maintained around here.
This is an odd looking machine, some kind of drill or milling machine I guess.
One of the unique things about the middle east with scarce rain, is most of the year your yard can easily become an outdoor lounge, workshop or kitchen, with appliances and furniture (that aren’t worth stealing) not in danger of getting wet, only by sand from the dusty atmosphere.
I did spot some people fishing after all, in a more casual non business fashion, an Arab father and son here.
Its kind of funny that these cats sit her awaiting, it seems they are used to getting the fisherman throw them the small ones not worth taking home, but there was some discarded pizza, so I think they get fed quite well!! 🙂
Mount Tabor quick glance
Took a picture of this on the way on a bus road to my next destination;
This hill is Mount Tabor, also written as Mount Tavor, as the letters B and V are similar and both written as ב in Hebrew. The glimpse I got was just limited to passing in a bus.
I’m in a road just coming out of the northern city of Afula, and the quite exciting thing about this place, is it considered to be the most likely place where Jesus went to the Mount of Transfiguration.
There is an Arab town at the foot of the hill, but from this road, I can’t see an obvious way up. I definitely need to come here and see this properly next time I am working up this way.
Could Eilat be an online shopping capital of the middle east?
I was in Eilat a few weeks ago, Israel’s most southern corner and at the top of the Red Sea.
Having a teeny little airport which I think only offers flights from Tel Aviv, or drive or get a bus from the rest of country via a 300km road from Jerusalem, it is quite remote, with only Beer Sheva and a few other places in between.
Being far away and with not much employment outside of tourism, Eilat is a bit like the Isle of Wight of Israel.
I thought of an interesting idea, Israel maybe a hi-tech development nation, but its very lacking in online retailing. As an IT person, its not so easy to go online and buy something and have it in a couple of days like you would have in the UK or US, ok part of this is due to fact this is a small country, but it is a bit inconvenient to purchase a urgently needed specialised computer part, or even a DVD easily online in Israel.
In the UK, if you buy something from Amazon.co.uk, if bought from Amazon’s own stock and not one of their third party sellers, usually your stuff gets shipped from the Channel Islands (to my non-UK friends that’s Jersey or Guernsey, part of the UK but close to France) due to the fact that goods there are VAT free, Play.com, CDwow and even Tesco’s online retailing do this too.
I am not sure how Amazon’s US operations are, but think some of the states offer no sales tax. One of my friends from Switzerland buys his DVDs from Amazon.de much cheaper than the Swiss high street.
Eilat is also a bit unique as the retail outlets, mostly clothing are all VAT-free to encourage tourism and provide jobs there.
Something else I have noticed, and not seen this mentioned anywhere online, is that the post Office in Israel is very cheap. I think the British Royal Mail have put the prices up by a record 25%, I estimate sending mail (packages of less than 2 kilos) is about a third of the cost of it is domestically and overseas than it is of the UK.
I salvaged the parts of a broken laptop and it cost 28 Shekels (less than £5) to mail the LCD screen (box weighed about 1.3 Kilos) I sold on eBay a couple of weeks ago from Jerusalem to Italy.
Tourist shops selling shells from the Red Sea
Israel could do well and provide jobs to people in Eilat, by making it a central distribution hub to ship items locally and worldwide on the internet, and give people super value for money shopping.
Someone needs to put together a online shop template that works in Hebrew, English, Arabic and Russian and maybe more languages, so the business owner can set up and sell his stuff with minimal technical know-how and maintenance of the site apart from his stock.
Today’s online retailing in the western world means a lot of dropshipping is done, as the person selling the goods and providing customer service doesn’t have to be the same place as where the stuff is dispatched from. I have bought a few things of small value from UK, Germany, US and China, needed for my job in Israel online, and only need to pay import duty on one item which was 100 Euros (£80)
Israel needs to continue to grow to support its expanding population (5-10 children is common) so by building economy at the bottom corner of the country makes a lot of sense, especially as David Ben Gurion was a firm believer in building in the desert.
Red Sea dwelling Jellyfish in Eilat
Jellyfish I think are the weirdest of God’s creatures ever.
They aren’t fish, they some completely different genus from shellfish, their transparent gloop-like elasticy of their bodies make them completely unique.
There is no skeleton or rigid structural parts to their bodies, nor do they have any obvious things like eyes and mouth. The four ‘gland’ type things I can see I wonder is their brain, breathing, reproductive and digestion components?
These ones are everywhere in Eilat, in the top of Red Sea, and they are purply colour. This adult one is about ten inches across, like a typical sized dinner plate.
Apparently they do sting, but very mildly like a slightly unpleasant rash. These ones are more like inverted flowers rather than the long decorative tentacle draped lampshade-like ones people think of has been exotic and deadly.
Anyone who knows me well, knows I can’t swim. This is always and awkward subject, as people look in astonishment and tell me its “easy” and ‘I came 1st in XYZ swimming competitions… blah blah…..” Geez thanks people. Shall I go up to a disabled person and laugh and say “haha!! you can’t walk!!”
I had a fear of drowning as a child, combined with the evil swimming teacher woman from hell circa 1985 when I was about 9, in addition to not seeing now how my average 5’10” frame can propel in the surface of the sea without me getting into a panic of inhaling water. Yes – I have tried. But prefer to admire the sea no deeper than my knees which suits me fine.
Before I got to see the incredible exotic fish here which rival the sort you would expect from being in the Caribbean or a Pacific Island, I didn’t get to visit the Marine aquarium this time, but the Jellyfish and serene stripey and mauve fish that are a complete world away from fish you see in Southern England are a real treat to see.
Olympics and Palestinians
Various news sites I sometimes read came up with this:
Apparently the Olympics web site admitted an ‘error’ on their web site, and changed it later. They also ought to realise that official languages in Israel are Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian too.
Also Israel is considered part of ‘Europe’ here: http://www.london2012.com/countries/area=europe/ the rest of the Middle East is under Asia: http://www.london2012.com/countries/area=asia/
Looking at the official web site via the search engine, there is no mention of the 40 years anniversary of the tragedy that killed 11 Israelis in 1972 Olympics in Munich. There really ought to be a special moment to remember that sometime in the schedule this year.
I wasn’t aware that the Palestinians have a representation this year even though they are not a sovereign nation as of yet, I don’t even know that they have a national anthem if they were to get a medal, after quickly checking out Wikipedia there is one disturbingly, the lyrics shown translated into English have some worrying theme, read this Wiki article on it here. Here is another article from Arabic Wikipedia also in case perhaps I am being unfair.
Is there any calls from any moderate Arabic speaking country to challenge them into having a song with less violent sounding words I wonder? Rather than a “volcano of my vendetta” or “And my intention a bullet and a volcano retaliation” or whatever it is.
The Olympics shouldn’t be a political event. But it should recognise people lost from terrorism in 1972, just as it should kick out cheats and dopers, and so far the authority are making a very poor effort.
Interesting related article:- Nazi Germany involved with the 1936 games in Berlin
Using Google Streetmap view in your blog, possible security concerns to be aware of
As Google recently release Streetmap view in Israel and Ukraine recently, I’m betting that lots of bloggers interested in the middle east will want to make use of this in their writings.
I wrote a few days ago, with some screen shots of my browser, I have noticed a few things that you might want to be aware of:
Firstly, if you make screen shots of your computer’s browser, be sure to obliterate any occurrences of your name or email address you see, this is quite important when using Google’s services which are all tied to a Gmail address.
Where I have written an “X” – don’t use this URL as a link to your site at the top of your browser, it won’t work, it will just take a click directly to the regular maps.google.com address.
Instead click on the little chain icon here as shown by arrow, this will give you a usable URL your visitors can click on to get to a certain angle of street you want to look at.
Now this bit is important:
If lets says, you enter your home or workplace address, then jump to a different place, the URL you plan to make public will show the original place I did a search for. Zoom on this pic and look at the underlined bits I have highlighted in orange.
Hence, be careful! you might give private details of where you live or work to the whole world!
Instead, clear any search inquiry, and just zoom straight in on the place you want to take a shot off, copy and paste the URL you plan to make public on your blog or social media, and look carefully at the (very long) URL to make sure there is nothing personal that indicate a previous search you did.
Here is an example of this done without care:
This web address actually is close to Embankment in London, but I actually changed the location of the place I was searching from 10 Downing Street to another location, but the search terms are still embedded in the URL.
I tend to paste this into a different web browser, in this case Internet Explorer 9 which I don’t use very often, clearly shows where I searched for.
So there you have it, just be careful if you want to show Streetmap view snapshots of places, and have fun!
Palestinian Christians and Israel
Really good article that explains about Palestinian Christians and Israel
Small earthquake felt in Jerusalem
During friday whilst in bed before getting up, as my alarm is set to go off at 6.15am I felt something I thought might of been a small earthquake, in fact I think I heard some creaks from furniture in my house that moved slightly.
Just seen this today, from a volcanoes group page on Facebook I get alerts from as I got a little bit interested in Geology as a child and in 2005 I went to Iceland and saw the volcanoes there.
Turns it was an earthquake that happened after all, actually in the Dead Sea area, but could be felt here in Jerusalem. Doesn’t seem to be any damage anywhere but we are on a fault here.
Brit In Jerusalem 