Nearly a week has gone by since the flames that tore through the Carmel forest and claimed a total of 43 lives, were brought under control. Such a horrific death toll of mainly young Jewish, Arab and Druze lives; so many tragic tales. I’m sure you’ve read or watched reports on the subject and appreciate what a loss 43 lives are to a country of only seven million people. Of all those that perished, the one that affected me most was the loss of Ahuva Tomer, a formidable woman who was the first of her sex to command a police district, being in the officer in charge of police affairs in Haifa.

Ahuva’s achievement in rising close to the top of the police ladder in Israel was a testament to her determination and abilities, qualities which in the end cost her her life. As news filtered through of the bus trapped on the steep, winding road up to Damon Prison, Ahuva was filmed by Israeli television arriving at the junction at the entrance to the park. She was asked what she knew of the problem and briefly told of a bus that was in trouble with passengers on board. ‘I must go and get up there’ she said, brushing aside reporters’ questions.

That was the last time she was seen alive and well. It appears that she arrived on the road behind the bus just as it became engulfed in flames which also burned her vehicle. She clung to life for four days suffering 90% burns before, mercifully (some might say) she passed away on Monday morning.


Time and again over the last week the image of her leaning out of her car window, full of life and personality has sprung back into mind’s eye. I never met her, but I feel the loss, along with the rest of the Israeli nation who mourn such a totally unnecessary loss of life. 

And yes, it was unnecessary. Government ministers had been warned that the area was ripe for a major fire and that there were few, if any fire-fighters available in the area due to a series of cutbacks over recent years. They were told by an independent committee in 2007 that the lack of any planes to fight the inevitable major forest fires was placing lives in unnecessary jeopardy. Whilst a blind eye was turned time and again to the corruption that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars disappear from government coffers as money was paid to non-existent religious students, money couldn’t be found to update fire engines that were already outdated in the mid-1980’s, and as a result dozens of lives have been lost.

How embarrassing for Israel with all her military might and astonishing hi-tech society, that they had to rely on countries such as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, and even the help of a few Palestinian fire-fighters, (amongst many other nations), to put out a fire on our own land. The Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Public Security Minister Aharonovich and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should all hang their heads in shame and resign.

Israel’s Achilles heel has been exposed. Arab enemies don’t need to create nuclear bombs or sophisticated guided missiles to deal a mortal blow to the Jewish State. They now just need to wait until high summer and send incendiary bombs over the borders and sit back and watch the devastation. And don’t think the point hasn’t been lost on local Arabs and Palestinians who suddenly realise that with a box of matches they can cause utter panic and mayhem in this land. It’s all a terribly sad state of affairs.

 

And now a round-up of other Israeli news from the last week...

They say you should be careful what you wish for as one day it might come true! Well after weeks of waiting and hoping, at last the rain has arrived in Israel ...and with a vengeance. This isn’t the drizzly stuff you get in Britain and Europe; this is serious rain. Stair rods! Hailstones! It’s bucketing down! You name the phrase, we’ve used it in the last 24 hours. Let’s hope that the reservoirs are beginning to fill. They say we’ll have snow in the very north tonight and that Mount Hermon might be ready to receive skiers by the turn of the year. The 35 degree temperatures of last week are already a distant memory, but my garden’s looking very rosy!


Israeli envoys around the world have apparently been told to be extra vigilant after information was received that suggested that Iranian and Hizbollah operatives around the globe have been instructed to avenge the killing of two Iranian nuclear scientists, who the Islamic republic says were killed by Israeli agents. The warning has also been conveyed to Israeli scientists and academics working abroad. President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad gleefully declared “Our enemies are in for a painful fate”. And a Happy Chanukah to you too, Mr President!



Rallies have been held across the world reminding people of the incarceration of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still yet to receive even a single humanitarian visit from the Red Cross. The kidnapping of the young soldier more than four years ago has still to be condemned by the supposed international humanitarian organization and the rallies focused on Red Cross offices around the globe. From Buenos Aires to Vienna and from New York to Thessaloniki, people were reminded of Shalit and were asked to urge the Red Cross to do more to help secure a visit to him in Gaza.


A team of Israeli chefs competing at the Expogast Culinary World Cup finals in Luxemburg walked away with three gold medals, proving what I have always said, that Israeli food is just about as good as it gets. Making the victory even more heart-warming is the revelation that the four chefs represented the four main religious communities in Israel; Jewish chef Charlie Fadida, Muslim chef Imad Shourbagi, Christian chef Johnny Goric and Armenian chef Sarkis Yacoubian, made up Israel’s prize-winning team.


As Shourbagi rightly points out, “If we are getting along, what is the problems of the ones in the leadership?” By the way, the gold medal winner was a dish of Jerusalem quail with olives.  


And finally...in case you didn’t already know it (and I didn’t), a poll conducted by Forbes magazine between 2005 and 2009 across a total of 155 countries has placed the great Israeli public as the eighth happiest on the planet! My first reaction was that the rest must be a bloody miserable bunch (!), but after reading the report that concludes that 62% of Israelis citizens are “happy with their lives” and only 3% described themselves as “suffering”, I suppose that on reflection life here, despite the threat of the odd local difficulty and the breathtaking cost of living, isn’t so bad after all. 
 

Israelis ranked as easily the happiest in the Middle East and shared eight place with Australia, Canada and Switzerland, a long way ahead of the likes of the US and Great Britain. Denmark, Finland and Sweden topped the list, whilst sadly (literally), the residents of the West African state of Togo were the least happy.