CONTENTS
1. 300,000 attend sixth annual Love Parade in Tel Aviv (Ha'aretz, August 30, 2003)
2. Greek isle honors Israeli quake rescuers (Reuters, August 18, 2003)
3. Women shine in Israeli army (Palm Beach Post, August 17, 2003)
This is one of six emails I am sending today, detailing recent "human interest" stories from Israel. [You will not usually receive so many emails in a single week. Next week I am away and there will be no dispatches.]
This email contains three stories, with summaries first:
1. "300,000 attend sixth annual Love Parade in Tel Aviv" (Ha'aretz, August 30, 2003; Full article). "Some 300,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon, to attend the annual Love Parade held for the sixth time in the beachfront city. Dancing to loud music in skimpy bikinis and skintight shorts aboard carnival floats, Israelis took time out from the three-year conflict with the Palestinians, turning the Mediterranean shoreline into a massive techno party. The parade caused huge traffic jams in downtown Tel Aviv, police said, and asked drivers not to bring their cars to the area. Parties and celebrations will continue throughout the weekend in clubs, bars and cafes across the city."
2. "Greek isle honours Israeli quake rescuers" (By Karolos Grohmann, Reuters, August 18, 2003). "It was a regular training exercise for the then newly founded Israeli navy with three frigates and one corvette sailing south of the Greek island of Crete. But on the evening of August 12, 1953, the squadron's commanding officer, Admiral Shlomo Erel, intercepted a distress signal from the western Greek island of Cephalonia which had been hit by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale. Erel and many of his sailors returned to Cephalonia on Sunday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the quake, which completely destroyed the island's capital Argostoli and damaged many villages. At least 500 people died, with some figures putting the death toll at more than 1,000. "We immediately abandoned our exercise and rushed to their help, and when we arrived some hours later we saw an island that was completely flattened," Erel remembered. "I dispatched one frigate to act as hospital ship and ferry the injured to the port city of Patras," Erel said. Erel's ships managed to evacuate more than 300 injured islanders and the sailors treated more than 1,000 injured on the spot during their three-day stay on Cephalonia before Greek, British and American vessels arrived to help... "The injured on an open area at the port were shouting 'Israel, Israel' and to be honest this operation made a lot of people aware that we also had a navy," he said. "Even (then Prime Minister) Ben Gurion came on board when we returned and he sat in my cabin for hours listening to our story," the retired admiral said."
3. "Women shine in Israeli army" (By Margaret Coker, Palm Beach Post, August 17, 2003). "Since a landmark 1995 Israeli court ruling struck down the "men-only" rule for combat units, the Israeli Defense Forces have begun integrating women into front-line platoons, opening up more challenging ways for them to serve their country... The most prominent example of integration is the Karakal brigade, where women outnumber men in three infantry companies that protect Israeli's eastern frontier. Still, the unit's success has not ended debate about the proper role of women in the army, quieted worries about female prisoners of war or shattered the military establishment's glass ceiling. "We are working to prove ourselves," said Haddas, a 20-year-old Karakal trooper. "Some are hard to convince that women should be in combat." ... "They are motivated, they are smart. They can do everything required, and then some," said Ari, the officer of Haddas' squad... So far, one female combat soldier, 19-year-old Keren Yakobi, has been killed while guarding a Jewish settlement in Hebron."
FULL ARTICLES
GREEK ISLE HONOURS QUAKE RESCUERS
Greek isle honours Israeli quake rescuers
By Karolos Grohmann
Reuters
August 18, 2003
ATHENS - It was a regular training exercise for the then newly founded Israeli navy with three frigates and one corvette sailing south of the Greek island of Crete.
But on the evening of August 12, 1953, the squadron's commanding officer, Admiral Shlomo Erel, intercepted a distress signal from the western Greek island of Cephalonia which had been hit by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
Erel and many of his sailors returned to Cephalonia on Sunday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the quake, which completely destroyed the island's capital Argostoli and damaged many villages. At least 500 people died, with some figures putting the death toll at more than 1,000.
"We immediately abandoned our exercise and rushed to their help, and when we arrived some hours later we saw an island that was completely flattened," Erel remembered.
"When we saw the situation on the island I dispatched one frigate to act as hospital ship and ferry the injured to the port city of Patras," Erel told Reuters in an telephone interview. "The other ships helped with the evacuation.
"It was a strange feeling when we approached the island," Erel said. The sea was calm, the sun was up and nothing hinted at the destruction that had occurred on the picturesque Ionian island, which sits on one of the world's most active faults.
"Nothing, apart from the fact that we could observe cliffs sliding down to the sea and huge gaps in the rocky coastline," Erel said.
Last Thursday, a tremor measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hit the neighbouring island of Lefkada, damaging hundreds of houses and injuring at least 40 people.
FIRST ISRAELI HUMANITARIAN MISSION
Erel's ships managed to evacuate more than 300 injured islanders and the sailors treated more than 1,000 injured on the spot during their three-day stay on Cephalonia before Greek, British and American vessels arrived to help.
Gerasimos Pefanis, who at the time worked for the Greek telephone company, said the town had been turned into a mountain of rubble. "The sun was covered by the dust and it was like it was night-time," he told reporters. "I was covered by rubble for hours before being rescued."
Erel's rescue operation, which Greek officials on Sunday praised as heroic, was also the then infant state's first humanitarian mission.
"The injured on an open area at the port were shouting 'Israel, Israel' and to be honest this operation made a lot of people aware that we also had a navy," he said.
"Even (then Prime Minister) Ben Gurion came on board when we returned and he sat in my cabin for hours listening to our story," the retired admiral said.
"He then said we had proved that Israel was part of the area by the fact that we helped a nation with which we didn't have formal relations."
WOMEN SHINE IN ISRAELI ARMY
Women shine in Israeli army
By Margaret Coker
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
August 17, 2003
REHAV ARMY POST, Israel -- On a break from the searing midday heat along Israel's parched border with Jordan, soldiers of a special Israeli military unit debate who best exemplifies the machismo and bravery -- in army slang, "rabaak" -- for which Israel's fighters are legendary.
"Really tough. Can carry twice their weight up a mountain. Gives 120 percent for the platoon. Definitely more 'rabaak' than anyone," pronounce the warriors as they nominate their candidates for the squad's hardiest member.
These brothers-in-arms conversations are heard among soldiers worldwide. What's unusual is these objects of admiration are women.
Since a landmark 1995 Israeli court ruling struck down the "men-only" rule for combat units, the Israeli Defense Forces have begun integrating women into front-line platoons, opening up more challenging ways for them to serve their country.
The most prominent example of integration is the Karakal brigade, where women outnumber men in three infantry companies that protect Israeli's eastern frontier. Still, the unit's success has not ended debate about the proper role of women in the army, quieted worries about female prisoners of war or shattered the military establishment's glass ceiling.
"I grew up in a family of fighters, and I was raised to believe it's what I should dedicate my life to," said Haddas, a 20-year-old Karakal trooper whose American father, a Pittsburgh native, flew U.S. Navy planes before emigrating to Israel in 1968.
"We are working to prove ourselves," she said. "Some are hard to convince that women should be in combat."
Agreeing to extra military service is not all that sets apart the women from Karakal. The sisters-in-arms' heightened sense of duty and tenacity was apparent in a day on patrol with Haddas' squadron in the Jordan River valley south of the Dead Sea.
Those with afternoon patrol duty wince at the thought of enduring the summer's 110-degree heat in their body armor and helmets.
Haddas' squad and two others in her platoon were formed nearly 1 1/2 years ago during their four-month basic training -- where they showed themselves as well as their male commanders what kind of "rabaak" they could muster.
"I was always athletic, but this was tough. We didn't sleep, we were pushed and pushed. One day, it broke me, but my friends were there to help me out," Haddas said.
The mental and physical strains of the instruction bonded the soldiers as tightly as U.S. Marines and convinced once-skeptical commanders about their abilities.
"They are motivated, they are smart. They can do everything required, and then some," said Ari, the officer of Haddas' squad.
The Karakal company will be stationed at Rehav post, a ramshackle collection of prefabricated bunking quarters and trailers serving as a mess hall and briefing room, for the next year. Standing three-quarters the way up a craggy cliff located south of the major Israeli resort area along the sea, the base offers an unparalleled view of the barren frontier.
For Haddas and her sisters-in-arms, however, the spot is too sleepy to meet their ambitions as fighters. In the last year patrols have encountered only two men trying to sneak in from Jordan.
The sensitive issue of having women taken prisoner is a factor in keeping the Karakal soldiers out of the occupied territories. With almost daily combat between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, military casualties are a fact of life. So far, one female combat soldier, 19-year-old Keren Yakobi, has been killed while guarding a Jewish settlement in Hebron, a highly charged area where militant Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents frequently clash.
Haddas says getting a chance to serve in Hebron or Gaza, where more than 60 percent of skirmishes and military confrontations have occurred in the nearly three years of renewed fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, is the ultimate goal. Israeli brass say Karakal has not had enough training time to be assigned such a dangerous posting.
"In the U.S. Army you see the girls going everywhere and doing all things. I know it sounds bad, but one day I hope they'll transfer us to the hot places too. I want to have a chance to prove myself and show everyone what I've learned," Haddas said.