{"id":15,"date":"2006-08-01T11:15:19","date_gmt":"2006-08-01T08:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/index.php\/2006\/08\/01\/beirut-tel-aviv-and-culture\/"},"modified":"2006-08-01T11:15:19","modified_gmt":"2006-08-01T08:15:19","slug":"beirut-tel-aviv-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/2006\/08\/01\/beirut-tel-aviv-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Beirut, Tel Aviv and Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depeche Mode cancelled<\/a> their Israeli Concert scheduled for Thursday evening in Tel-Aviv. Whilst it may shock non-israelies, Tel-Aviv is quite active, with all shops open, and business are as usual. Tel-Aviv now is crowded with refugees from the north and many businesses are offering discount prices for residents of northern towns hosting in Tel-Aviv. I, myself, am not hosting any refugee at my house (though Idok offered a different view of hosting refugees<\/a>). However, the cancellation of Depeche Mode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concert has seem to hit the Israeli Morale<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First, the opening act cancelled<\/a>, two days ago which was indeed the opening act to Depeche Mode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cancellation (who can find me the link to the one who said that joke?, and no, not velvet<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The thing is, that Depeche Mode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cancellation is just a sign for Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world support. Though the UN Security Council did not condemn<\/a> Israel for the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mistake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Qana (ignore the headline, read on) the world is still afraid to come here (obviously). But even when people are afraid, they are standing with who they support. I guess that by understanding why Depeche Mode cancelled, i understand why the world fails to support Israel. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not only Israel where life was stopped, but also in Beirut<\/a>; and war is never good for business.<\/p>\n

The only thing that this war is an exception for Tom Friedman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Golden Arches theory<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 (Israel<\/a>, Lebanon<\/a>). Two countries are fighting, while both of them are holding a branch of McDonalds. When Friedman wrote this theory (which he later explained in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The World is Flat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) he forgot, probably, one thing. The next war will be between the modern and the fundamentalist (sorry for using western-dialectics here) and not between the modern and modern, or fundamentalist and fundamentalist) and when the Clash of Civilsations<\/a> occur, then no one can tell what will be the outcome.<\/p>\n

The only question, which i try to run from, is deciding which of the civilisations is better. Should ultraorthodox behaviour lead to a better world, or will modern life do so? Both Tel-Aviv and Beirut are modern cities, which much alike. Both on the shore of the Mediterranean sea, with active life and with cultural diversity. Both, however, misrepresent their country. Both Israel and Lebanon, the black sheep of the Middle east, have many religious sects fighting (either violently or not) against modernism and against other religions in the area.<\/p>\n

Both cities try to appear modern, and hide the fact that their nation is at war while the music goes on. Maybe now Beirut is different, but in peaceful times, there still is a war both in Lebanon and Israel. Both cities suffer from this war; Tel-Aviv has suffered many terrorist bombing during the last 10 years, when Beirut has as well. Both cities, however, are fighting for normal lives.<\/p>\n

Tel-Aviv, much like Beirut, wants this war to end. It wants it to end not only to gain peace, but also to return to average day life, the quiet which hides the real tension that was brought out by this war \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the tension that religious extremists, no matter from which religion, cannot be satisfied by partial victories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Depeche Mode cancelled their Israeli Concert scheduled for Thursday evening in Tel-Aviv. Whilst it may shock non-israelies, Tel-Aviv is quite active, with all shops open, and business are as usual. Tel-Aviv now is crowded with refugees from the north and many businesses are offering discount prices for residents of northern towns hosting in Tel-Aviv. I, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2jk.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}