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A few months after I moved to Germany in 2006, palestinian militants tunneled into Israel, infiltrated a military base and seized a 19 year-old israeli soldier by the name of Gilad Shalit. After an unsuccessful attempt by Israel to release Gilad by military means, he remained in isolated captivity for five years and four months, held by Hamas, until an agreement, mediated by Egypt, was reached in October 2011 which would swap Gilad for over 1000 palestinian prisoners, many high-profile terrorists and convicted murderers. On October 18th 2011, the swap took place, and Gilad Shalit, now 25 years old, returned home.

The plight to bring Gilad home greeted me everywhere on my many trips to Israel during the past five years. His face was everywhere – on street signs, posters, stickers and billboards. His parents and activists, many who have never met Gilad, erected a protest camp in front of the Prime Minister’s quarters in Jerusalem. The family’s march across the country was accompanied by thousands. The collective pain by Gilad’s capture was immense and yet, extremely difficult to explain to those who are not familiar with what growing up as an Israeli is ultimately like.

Understanding why Israelis chose to swap a dangerous bunch of convicted killers is a difficult one. So much, to the extent where the foreign media is having a hard time at trying to explain it to their readers. As an Israeli, understanding the necessity of this deal makes almost intuitive sense, even with cognitive dissonance looming in the background.

I explained to someone yesterday over Twitter that Gilad’s return was celebrated in Israel not because he was a “national hero”, but because he was somebody’s son. Israel has national conscription, which means that service in the army is mandatory. Every Israeli goes into the army at the age of 18 and many young soldiers find themselves in situations they didn’t expect and/or didn’t want to be in. I served through the Al-Aqsa Intifada and have lost friends and colleagues to palestinian terrorists. One was shot at point-blank by a palestinian gunman. Another rode over an explosive. One of my brothers served off the coast of Beirut during the 2006 Lebanon war when the INS Hanit was fired upon. He lost some friends that day and it very easily could have been him, on the INS Lahav. A few years later, soldiers from the INS Lahav were wounded when attacked by activists during the Gaza flotilla raid.

It’s an uncomfortable reality, but it’s part of growing up in Israel. Many of us go through our service without seeing combat. Some of us go through it without being confronted with death. Some of us get wounded. Some of us get captured. Some never come home again. Israel’s policy of not leaving it’s soldiers behind comes from the understanding that a soldier is, first and foremost, a young Israeli with friends, family, hopes and dreams for the future. When Israeli soldiers lose their lives in battle or attacks, they are remembered not as military personell or numbers on a sheet of paper, but as sons and daughters.

This is a point which I find terribly difficult to bring across to my non-Israeli friends. In most western countries, military service is not mandatory and those which do have conscription service are not normally under a state of peril. The mentality of “doing your part to protect your neighbor” doesn’t exist (it’s more “doing your part to fight someone else’s war”). On first glance, the release of over 1000 palestinian inmates to secure the return of Gilad Shalit seems irrationally disproportional, but Israelis believed they were fulfilling a moral obligation to bring back one of their own and give him a chance at a future.

This is a strength of Israeli society, and also it’s weakness. There’s no guarantee that the released palestinian militants will not return to terrorism, Hamas played Gilad Shalit as a carefully placed card and took advantage of Israel’s desire to have him returned home at almost any cost. Hamas is widely celebrating the release of the militants, claiming to have demonstrated their superior ability to manipulate Israel. In the meantime, Israelis seem to have developed more of a “fuck you, we’re just happy to see the kid home” attitude, despite the understanding that the entire ordeal may not work out in their favor in the long run.

Personally, I’m relieved to see Gilad home and am excited for his friends and family. I’m happy that Israel is upholding it’s obligation to it’s citizens and am humbled by the great lengths to which the country has agreed to go to in order to bring back one if it’s own. On the other side, I am horrified – not necessarily of the possible direct involvement of the released palestinian militants in future acts of terrorism (although that’s certainly a concern) but the boost that the prisoner release has given Hamas and what this may do to the balance of power in the region in the long-term.

At the end of the day, Gilad is a shy, quiet young man who has probably been through a lot more than any of us should ever have to. And everyone’s just really damn happy to see him home.

After months of waiting, the first issue of the German Wired goes to store shelves this morning. Wired has long been a staple publication of the tech and web sector, and I often enjoy buying the US or UK edition of the magazine before long train rides or flights. Wired is a solid tech magazine – specialized enough to keep it interesting, broad enough in topics to have a wide audience. Wired is fun.

Unfortunately, Wired has decided to alienate their female (and many male) readers by bundling their first issue in Germany with GQ Magazine (“Gentlemen’s Quarterly”). There are plenty of women who enjoy reading men’s magazines (and the other way around), but the decision to bundle Wired with a magazine geared specifically towards the male demographic sends a very clear message to women: “You are not our target market, and are not a part of the discussion.”

This is an unfortunate decision, and rather insulting. I understand that Wired DE is being test run and I can understand why Condé Nast would perhaps prefer to bundle the first, slimmer issue with one of their existing publications. Unfortunately, Condé Nast only produce fashion and lifestyle magazines in Germany (Vogue, Glamour, Architectural Digest, GQ), so someone on their marketing staff decided that bundling Wired with GQ would hit the target market more accurately in relation to any of the other Condé Nast publications. This is a bottom-line business decision and makes financial sense in a Condé Nast “ecosystem” (read: market segment).

In the real world, where hundreds of titles grace the shelves, the female Wired reader (and many a male reader) is going to ask herself why she has to purchase a men’s fashion magazine in order to get her Wired fix, in her own language. This sends a strong message about the market Wired is now catering to in Germany, and equally, that which it is not catering to – the rest of us.

A progressive, influential magazine such as Wired (well, maybe not as influential as it was 5 years ago) which is (mostly) serious about representing the broad spectrum of people in technology needs to cut the bullshit and play it’s own part. I don’t know what happened behind closed doors at Condé Nast and I wish to think that the new staff of Wired DE fought the decision to bundle the first issue with GQ fiercely, in order to uphold the image and standard Wired has built for itself throughout the last 18 years. If they did, they lost.

I will not be buying the first issue of the German Wired today. Nor will I buy it in the future, if it continues to be bundled with GQ magazine. I will also not support the digital edition of the magazine until the print edition is released as a stand-alone. I am not even remotely alone.

This afternoon was Slutwalk Hamburg. If you’ve never heard of a Slutwalk, don’t worry – I hadn’t before this morning, either. According to Wikipedia, a Slutwalk started as an event where “participants protest against explaining or excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a woman’s appearance.” and today is a global network of marches campaigning for gender equality and against sexism and sexual violence.

I normally prefer not to categorize my opinions in a way which would be gender-specific, so was happy to join a pan-gender event. I’m a strong proponent for women’s rights, of course, but I choose to support campaigns which are very firmly across the board. I’m a “gender equality-ist”, if you’d like. I oppose gender, race or sexuality-based oppression and discrimination of any sort.

Under this premise, I joined Slutwalk. Very quickly into the march, I realized gender equality wasn’t the issue – feminism was. Mention of violence, discrimination and oppression against other minorities took a back-seat to signs and slogans set to promote feminist- and female-centric agendas. “But wait!” you say. “Women are the most common victim of sexual violence and oppression. Surely there is a place to campaign for them and promote awareness”. Of course, I agree entirely. But this event, as it promoted itself on it’s own website, was set to campaign against “sexism and sexual violence”. This includes everyone. As I look at my male friends in the crowd, who can’t wear a dress in public for fear of being lynched, as I look at the mirror and don’t see a woman or a man – and I’m afraid to define myself publicity as anything but either. As I think of my friends who were born into the wrong body – the violence and discrimination they face is real. And yet – Slutwalk Hamburg chose to concentrate on female-centric themes. Despite my mixed feelings towards female-centric events (sometimes they can be rather discriminatory, often they greaten the rift between genders, but it depends on the context), Slutwalk promoted itself as an event against sexism towards any gender. Make no mistake – if you invite me to your event campaigning women’s rights, I’ll be happy to join. But don’t invite me to an anti-sexism event and conveniently forget that sexism goes in more than one direction. That, my dear friend, is in itself sexist.

Upset as I was over this issue, what eventually pushed me to leave the parade halfway-through was the hijacking of the event towards anarchist agendas. Chants such as “no god, no state” and others towards the legitimization of house-squatting had nothing to do with the event, but were the most consistent and loudest of all. At first, I thought it was a small group of anarcho-punks which had hijacked the event for their own agenda, but as I advanced towards the front of the procession, I realized that those shouting anarchist slogans was also a large group right at the front – holding the Slutwalk banners, thus identifying themselves and the parade to onlookers as bearing an anarchist political agenda.

As a demonstration goer, I felt violated. I came to oppose sexism and this group had hijacked the event towards their agenda (without protest from the rest of the participants), thus speaking for me and the entire procession. This is non-permissible. As a first-time Slut-walker, I felt betrayed. So I left.

Instead of a gender-equality event demonstrating against sexism and sexual violence, Slutwalk Hamburg was a feminist-centric event with an anarchist political agenda that largely ignored it’s own printed claim. If I would have known this in advance, not only would I not have signed up, but I would have made sure to sew the seeds to organize an alternative event. Maybe now is the time to start thinking about the logistics.

You might not know this, but I’m afraid of a lot of things. Riding bikes, driving a car, speaking in public, speaking in German, the list can get a bit long. Some of these things I do an a regular basis and they still terrify me each time. Most of these actually boil down to one “core fear”, which isn’t really a fear at all but a deeply rooted assumption of failure. Despite the knowledge that I can always pick up where I left off if I made a mistake or two, this never translated into understanding. How does something like this happen?

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I get asked rather often if I keep kosher (huh?!?) and if bombs go off often in Tel Aviv (no). I can’t blame those asking for their ignorance: Europeans don’t understand (nor care) that Jews are an ethnic group and are unaware that there have only been a few incidents of suicide bombings in Tel Aviv, the last of which was years ago. I’d be silly to think that any of these points are on the international agenda.

And yet – I always seem to get upset and take it far more personally than I should, when people ask me stupid questions about Israel. I often wonder if it feels similar to the way someone from Rome would, if asked if he/she voted for the current Emperor.

The reason for this uneasy feeling is that I have a love/hate relationship with Israel which runs rather deep. Truth be told – I don’t feel particularly bonded to the country. It is not my “home” and I reject the concept that a piece of land is the “natural” place for any ethnic group (or for me). That said, growing up there, speaking the language natively, serving in the IDF and knowing every back street in Herzliya have contributed to a nostalgic fondness I have towards the country, which makes it hurt so much more when observing it from the outside.

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I haven’t blogged in a really long time out of extreme lazy, so it was bound to take something I feel very strongly about in order to change this. It just so happens that I care enough about user interfaces in order to break this vow of silence. It hurts when beautiful applications are shipped with terrible interaction design.

To-do list app Wunderlist is an example for a pretty application which ignores user experience. I’ve been playing around with it in the past few days on the Mac and have grown to like it’s simple, to-the-point functionality. Unfortunately, key parts of the UI are so terribly convoluted – Wunderlist is far from being as intuitive as it should be. I’ve compiled a list of the UI quirks which makes Wunderlist so awkward on the Mac OS desktop. aspiring app designers, take note: ignore user experience at your own peril.

I’ll list these from 7 (least annoying) to 1 (omg-what-are-they-smoking):

7) Wunderlist’s title bar does not cap the application content

Besides giving an overall “unfinished” impression, this makes it less clear where the title ends and the app begins, thus it is less clear which parts of the header area are draggable around the desktop.

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I am releasing the “Zenith” icon set under the public domain. This means you can do whatever you’d like with it – share, modify, redistribute – without any restrictions (read about public domain).

Zenith was an experiment of mine in open source interface graphics, created in late 2005 and originally released under the GPL. The project was created entirely and exclusively with open source graphic tools (Inkscape and Gimp).

Download the Zenith icon set here (Preview it)

A small compilation of music videos I like due to their creative use of brightly colored imagery.

Yeasayer “ONE” By: Radical Friend from ODDBLOOD on Vimeo.

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