Israeli Independence Day Special: Enough with the Obsession With National Security! (English Transla

Note: this is an English translation of a previous entry which was written in Hebrew especially for the Israeli Independence Day.

Happy Independence Day Everybody! I decided to write this entry for the Israeli Independence Day, but it is probable some of you will be pleased by it. The entry is written in Hebrew, due to patriotic feelings, but I'll probably translate it into English later and post it as a separate entry.

The story went like this: I talked with Peteris Krumins on Freenode, and he told me that he is about to graduate with his Bachelor Degree in Physics. (Good Luck and Mazal Tov!) In any case, we discussed graduation ceremonies in Israel and Latvia (which is Peteris's home-land), and he referred me to a few photos of a graduation ceremony in Latvia.

The first picture that caught my eye was this picture of several girls who were apparently about to receive their diploma. As one can see they are incredibly cute, but I found their costumes very funny in comparison to what I am familiar with. Peteris told me that these are standard formal costumes of girls there, and he asked me if I could find him photos of Israeli females in formal dresses.

So I went to Flickr and searched for "israeli girls", and what do I find? Uniforms upon uniforms. My eyes became black from all the Khaki. High-quality photos of good-looking female soldiers, but that's it - only soldiers. Peteris told me that these photos were a hit on Digg, Reddit and the rest of the social bookmarking sites, which may be the reason why Flickr ranks them so highly.

OK, a female solider in uniform (or a male soldier in uniform) is not such an uncommon sight in Israel, given that most girls serve in the military for two years starting from the age 18, and some of them also choose to become officers or serve permanently. But most of the women we see in Israel are not wearing uniforms. So this search in Flickr gives a false and political impression.

The search "israeli woman" does not display only soldiers, but it too has a very political orientation.

Now here's the substance of my complaint: I think Israel is perceived as a hyper-political and hyper-security-obsessed country, both by the citizens of the world and by its own. I'll give a few examples:

1. When I studied civics in the 11th grade, the Civics teacher (whom I remember quite fondly) asked the class to which committee of the Knesseth, the prime minister was obliged to be summoned, and the students said "The Committee of External Affairs and National Security". But, the correct committee was "The Committee for the Critique of the State", and the teacher noted that it was an indication that we perceive the national security as too important (and she noted that beforehand as well).

2. In this essay Paul Graham proved "scientifically" that it would be a pointless mission to establish a "Silicon Valley" (i.e: a hub of startups) in Israel. He probably didn't hear of companies such as Mirabilis, Check Point, Zend and many other examples of numerous, high-quality former Israeli startups. Most of the companies I have worked for as a programmer in Israel have been startups. There isn't a shortage of them, and there were many like that even during the recession.

3. When I wrote the entry "A Brief History of Linux in Israel" on the Hackers-IL wiki, I originally wrote that Israel had many problems including "heavy taxation, irrational and abundant regulations, quite a lot of terrorist activity, etc.". Someone (who I think was an Israeli) deleted what I wrote and left only the "large amount of terrorist activity".

   With all due respect, the terrorist activity is not the worst problem that hurts Israel. More Israelis have died from road accidents and from smoking than from terrorist activity. And, as I noted, the high tax liability harms Israel much worse than the terrorist activity, and Israel won't lose anything (and will even greatly benefit) the more it will lower it.

   Thus, the editing was misleading.

4. Too many foreign people I have talked with from outside Israel in Internet chats have asked me if Israel was safe. Apparently, their impression is that there is shooting in the streets, missiles falling everywhere and that Israel is not safe. But the reality is that most Israeli residents feel perfectly safe.

Naturally, I, too, am not a Tallith that's entirely azure. My first serious story was based on the political situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border, although in my defense I must say that it has a much more universal message. I have also written some essays about politics as well as many political posts on my blog, albeit not all of them are about the political-defensive state of Israel.

But I think that as a people, we Israelis are too obsessed with the military and the national security of Israel. If you ask me, the main reason our security status is so terrible is the fact that Israel has constitutional discrimination. Until we completely eliminate it, it will beget institutionalized and private discrimination and racism, as well as non-supportive treatment from even amongst the most liberal of the Arabs and the rest of the world's citizenry. And I'm saying this as a Jewish Israeli. If I may contort what Yoda said: "Do or do not. But don't do for a Jew and don't do for a Gentile, or vice versa."

As Israelis in Independence Day, we should remember that the IDF and the National Security are a means, not an end. The end is that the citizens of Israel would be able to live good, peaceful, happy and prosperous lives. Happy Independence Day to all Israeli Residents!

Syndicated 2008-05-11 16:03:08 from shlomif

"High-Quality in Software" and "Star Trek: We, the Living Dead"

The first revision of a new essay, "What Makes Software High-Quality?" (with a focus on open-source software) was added to the essays section:

The Program is Available for Downloading or Buying

That may seem like a silly thing to say, but you'll be surprised how many times people get it wrong. How many times have you seen web-sites of software that claim that the new version of the software (or even the first) is currently under work, will change the world, but is not available yet? How many times have you heard of web-sites that are not live yet, and refuse to tell people exactly what they are about?

More text has been added to the screenplay "Star Trek, We the Living Dead":

Katie: Professor Shlomo Abramovich? You're King Solomo... Errr... I'm not talking with you again. [Goes to sit on the Swing, frustrated.]

Shlomo: Mosheh, remember I told you about Katie?

Mosheh: oh yeah! She looks cute when she's angry.

Katie: Moses, right?

Mosheh: that's right.

Katie: well, in case you've had any interest in me, I should note that I have a policy against getting involved with people who are 4 times my senior or more.

Mosheh: relax! I have married girls who were 15 times my junior or more and my own descendants, and retrospectively I can tell that many of them were more mature and rational than I was in most respects.

a new question and answer has been added to the FAQ about why I don't obscure my email address.

Added a note about the site's hosting provider, and a link to this page from the front page.

Added a "Slashdot this" badge to the bottom of the text of all the pages, next to the "Bookmark This" button.

I'd like to thank Alan Haggai (alanhaggai@gmail.com) for finding a problem in the site, which allowed me to correct it.

Syndicated 2008-05-10 18:47:52 from shlomif

רשומה לכבוד יום העצמאות: מספיק עם ההתעסקות בבטחון!

Syndicated 2008-05-07 19:36:35 from shlomif

Perl Must Decentralize, Diversify and Colonize

Andy Lester has written a great article about some of the social and philosophical problems with the Perl world. He says that while Perl 5 is a great technology, has a very comprensive collection of reusable, open-source code called "CPAN", and has a lot to show for, it has suffered from concentration of effort and other such problems.

This, in turn, contributed to the fact that many programmers concluded it was "dead", "dying", "not good enough", or other such negative hype and negative myths. While Lester's article suffers from some problems, it still makes a good read even if you're not an avid Perler.

Syndicated 2008-05-07 05:50:46 from shlomif

Today is my Birthday

I was born on 5 May, 1977, so today is my 31st Birthday. peachuk has already congratulated me on her blog (with a nice cartoon), and other people have already congratulated me on IRC and IM. Someone I know also wrote me something on Facebook, which I tend to dislike. Next time, an Email or an IM will do, but thanks.

I felt a bit depressed towards my birthday, but today I'm feeling great. Today was productive for me as I worked on an XML grammar for Unix-like fortune cookies. I learned RELAX NG in the process (and can recommend it) and made some progress, but it's still not ready for prime time.

I also chatted on the IRC a lot, and spent a lot of time explaining the essence of Perl 5's references to someone who only knew Unix Shell and very minimal Python. I remember I had problems with C pointers back after I learnt BASIC, which didn't really have them, and still remember that I only truly understood references in Perl after learning some Java (and possibly also after reading SICP).

So I geeked out today. :-) For other events that had occured today see the Wikipedia.

Cheers! -- the 31-years old, Shlomi.

Syndicated 2008-05-05 15:23:41 from shlomif