Too tired to blog, but... - Haaretz

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Last update - 00:09 12/08/2007

Too tired to blog, but...

By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Jewish Affairs Correspondent

As exhaustion all but took me over towards the end of the week, I had to keep my dwindling energy just to getting home in one shape and was incapable of updating the blog. So here are three short posts to round off this chapter.

Wednesday, August 8

Katzrin

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I took advantage of a few rest-hours we had today between the night-marches and dawn attacks to drive up to Katzrin for the Yarden Vintage festival at the Golan Heights Winery.

As I struggled out of the car and limped into the winery, I realized that only a few hours ago, I had been attacking an imaginary (at least for now) enemy that was planning to descend on a strategic area containing one of Golan's main vineyards.

The festival was a great success in my eyes.

The Katzrin 2003 unveiled in the morning shows all the signs of becoming one of the best ever, the food was great and the string of bars and coffee areas and the workshops were interesting.

But perhaps the most significant achievement of the winery (some of course would call it something different), is to legitimize the annexation of the Heights in the Israeli mainstream.

I?ve no idea whether this was one of the original intentions of the local agricultural communities who founded the winery a quarter of a century ago and sparked the continuing revolution in Israeli wine.

But the fact is that over a thousand well-heeled Israelis and quite a few foreign visitors flocked to the Golan for the festival, without a thought that the were on our way to the Occupied Territories and that only a few kilometers the Israeli and Syrian armies are eyeing each other warily.

The winery is not the only reason that for many Israelis, the Golan is a summer playground but the winery (actually now they are "wineries" on the Golan) is definitely what has made the Heights so dear to that part of Israeli society who usually vacation abroad.

Over the last couple of months, along with the rumors of war, we've heard various ideas for a treaty with Syria, one of them that reportedly came from the direction of Damascus talked about a long-term lease of the Heights to Israel.

If there's any truth to it, this means that the Syrian regime realizes that Israelis just aren't prepared to relinquish the Golan and therefore is looking for some kind of face-saving way to come up with an agreement that will extricate them from pariah-state status.

If in the final outcome, Israel will manage to reach a deal and hold on to the Golan at the same time, it will be a credit not only to the tenaciousness of its armed forces (and especially the reservists) but also to the vision of the farmers who founded the winery.

Thursday, August 9
Somewhere in the North

By current IDF standards, a training period for a reserve unit from Sunday to Thursday is considered a long one. It boils down to 96 hours that have to be used to the best advantage.

At both ends of that is the inevitable process of reporting in and signing for weapons and the rest of the personal and company equipment, and then returning everything and signing out again. On arrival this is relatively simple, since Israelis never arrive on time and throughout the day the queue is generally short.

But everyone ends miluim at the same time, and a crowd of 300 armed men are clamoring to be let out. Usually the bottleneck straightens itself out in two or three hours in good-humored fashion but sometimes the mood gets ugly. Old hands know that trying to push to the front of the queue does you little good since the release slips are only given out when all the battalion?s equipment has been returned, so in the end everyone leaves more or less at the same time.

Whether or not you keep your cool or get annoyed with this ordeal that usually takes place after a long night's march and dawn attack, it?s an astonishing waste of time.

Every time I do miluim, I prepare in my mind an elaborate business plan that will allow the IDF to outsource all the basic reservist refresher courses and the maintenance of the reservists personal equipment and weapon.

Efficient and well staffed 'Miluim Centers' will be set up around the country. Every reservist who belongs to a combat unit will have to go to one of the centers once a year, but will be able to choose a date convenient for him and will be assured that by showing up on time, he will go through all the necessary refresher courses on weaponry, first-aid, wireless and intelligence.

He'll do all the weapons firing he needs on an equipped shooting range there'll be no need to call up an entire unit. And he'll be back home the same evening after some basic night-shooting.

The centers will also be in charge of keeping the reservist's personal weapon and equipment, making sure it's well maintained and have it waiting for him for collection before the next time he goes on miluim.

These centers will save precious time, both for the reservists and the army, will make sure that every combat miluimnik goes through the full list of refresher courses annually and save the defense budget millions.

Every miluim, I promise myself that first thing I'll do when I get home is write out a business plan and send it out, it's a sure thing. I will be doing a service to the nation, myself and miluimniks in general. I might even make some money out of it.

This time I'll definitely do it.

August 10, 2007
Jerusalem

I got back yesterday afternoon but we had already promised friends weeks ago to come over and I had to bring my brother his car back first thing this morning so my first night of sleep this week in a real bed was abbreviated.

I'm now stretched out on the sofa at home, trying to concentrate on what I have to do today. From the corner of my eye I notice the front-page of 'The Marker Week.'

Apparently they've done some research and reached the conclusion that thirty days of reserve duty a year costs each miluimnik 5,640 Shekel and 26 thousand if he's self-employed in loss of income and various personal costs not covered by the army.

I'm too tired though to read the small print and turn over, the cushion blots out the offending headline.

Sergeant Pfeffer will be back.

Previous entries:
August 7, 2007: 'You bet I'm going on this march'<
August 7, 2007: Training for the war that won't be<
August 5, 2007: 'The real change is that we're training at all'<
August 5, 2007: Olmert's own heritage is no excuse<

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