small talk 2.0

“It’s hard to understand, but Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is heading full force into his own collapse, and that of his Authority, in September”, wrote a n Israeli commentator Guy Bechor a few days ago. It’s one thing to make declarations; it’s another thing to bring to their implementation. It’s one thing to use strong expressions like “Israel will face diplomatic tsunami in September”. However in reality, the vote in the UN, if it will happen (with strong emphasis on “if”), could hardly be described even as an “aftershock”. Rather it will prove to be void of any significance, like most of the communication spins promoted by Palestinian Authority and their supporters in the media. We don’t have to be prophets in order to understand why this outcome of the UN bid is almost inevitable. We just have to be good listeners. Let’s first listen to somebody who probably has better understanding than the average person, why the unilateral declaration in the UN is useless and...

In 1988 I was 15 year-old student in high-school in the small city of Zhitomir, Western Ukraine. It was time when the citizens of the Soviet Union started to wake up from the complete passivity imposed on them by 70 year rule of the Communist Party. I will never forget these days, because there was something new in the air, something new and unfamiliar for all of us. It was not the feeling of freedom, no - it was the feeling of the promise of freedom. I remember how I walked to spontaneous meetings and gatherings, hold at the parks, in  squares, on the streets, where people were listening to some courageous journalists and intellectuals who were talking about democracy. I remember the first semi-democratic elections for the Soviet parliament in 1988, when suddenly people get mobilized for the "anti-nomenclature" - non-communist - candidates. I remember how my mom, always afraid of KGB, went to spread the flyers for the only democratic candidate running in our city. I will nev...