I’m currently in the throes of writing the new, updated City Guide Tel Aviv, which will be published shortly before the city celebrates its upcoming 100th anniversary. Dalit Nemirovsky, City Guide’s tireless producer cum energizer bunny, has me running all over town, from morning to night, interviewing people who design and sell gorgeous, unique jewelry, clothes, bags, shoes, dishes and furniture, or who have opened chic new restaurants, boutique hotels, cafes, bars and clubs. Ah oui, my life is terribly difficult. Weep with me.

Based on all the new places I’ve seen over the past week, it seems as though Tel Aviv launched itself into yet another phase of its endless forward motion while my head was full of Beirut and the post-Beirut controversy. It’s completely amazing to see how many new places have opened up over the past few months – I feel as though this little city is almost exploding with creative energy.

Anyway, the point is that between my regular gig covering the daily episodes of As the Middle East Turns, the City Guide and a couple of freelance writing jobs, I don’t have time right now to write long, reflective blog posts. So today’s offerings are a potpourri of links that I think y’all should know about.

Linda Grant’s brilliant new blog

She’s a prize-winning novelist, she’s an acclaimed journalist, she’s a wonderfully generous friend, and now she’s a blogger. Linda Grant won the Orange Prize for When I Lived in Modern Times and the Lettre Ulysses for Literary Reportage for The People on the Street: A Writer’s View of Israel. Her latest novel, which will be published in February, is called The Clothes on Their Backs.

And her blog, which she launched four days ago and has already managed to cram with more thought-provoking and link-rich posts than I can keep up with, is called The Thoughtful Dresser (“because you can’t have depths without surfaces.”). Click here to read her thoughts “on books, clothes and other matters.” Find out how many pairs of shoes a man should own, how the Gap responded to news that one of its Indian subcontractors used child labour, and which Nobel laureate author thought the superficial was important – and why.

Brilliant new post from le Nizo, mon amour

Nizo on the Palestinian right of return. Intro: “When it comes to the Missile East, most people tend to interpret things according to wishful thinking, or as they think things should be. I don’t have that luxury, since I’ll probably be the age of Methushelach before I see the state of Palestine, and it’s unlikely that they’ll allow my future freckled red-headed lover and me to run an auto-garage/spa combo replete with flamingos wading in a giant martini fountain.”

Read the rest here.

The Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006: The media as a weapon in asymmetrical conflict

When I was in Beirut, a Lebanese acquaintance who worked as a producer for a foreign correspondent during the war asked me, “Have you ever seen a news photo of an armed and uniformed Hezbollah fighter in battle?” No,” I answered, “I haven’t.” “That’s right,” he answered. “You haven’t, and you never will. Because every single photo that came out of south Lebanon during the war was taken under the eyes of the Hezbollah. And no reporter would risk losing his press credentials by sending a clandestinely taken photo to his editors.”

Marvin Kalb and Carol Saivetz of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government have written a throughly researched paper that is written with admirable intellectual detachment. Every journalist should read it, then read it again, because it contains salutary lessons that should be applied in covering all conflicts. Excerpt:

“If we are to collect lessons from this war, one of them would have to be that a closed society can control the image and the message that it wishes to convey to the rest of the world far more effectively than can an open society, especially one engaged in an existential struggle for survival. An open society becomes a victim of its own openness. During the war, no Hezbollah secrets were disclosed, but in Israel secrets were leaked, rumors spread like wildfire, leaders felt obliged to issue hortatory appeals often based on incomplete knowledge, and journalists were driven by the fire of competition to publish and broadcast unsubstantiated information. A closed society conveys the impression of order and discipline; an open society, buffeted by the crosswinds of reality and rumor, criticism and revelation, conveys the impression of disorder, chaos and uncertainty, but this impression can be misleading.”

Read the rest of this very important paper here.

This shouldn’t need saying, but just in case there are some overly literal-minded people reading this post I would like to make one thing clear: I am NOT implying that Israel should control the foreign press! Quite the opposite, in fact.

Channel 10 report: Israeli Muslim women bus drivers

This report is in Hebrew, with a little Arabic thrown in. Channel 10’s Lucy Aharish (26, and the first female Arab news announcer/reporter to work in the Israeli Hebrew broadcast media) covers the story of a program that provides training for Muslim women in the Galilee region who wish to join the workforce. Fifteen years ago their husbands would never have allowed their wives to work outside the home, but economic necessity has forced Muslim women out of their traditional roles. According to the report, the program has helped 2,000 Muslim women find employment, by providing both training and childcare. One of the women interviewed for the report says that the program has led to a huge improvement in the status of women within their traditional society. The report focuses on trainee bus driver Nabila Abudba’i, a traditional Muslim woman who wears a hijab and says she always dreamed of having a non-traditional job.

UPDATE: Haaretz has posted the video of Channel 10’s report with English subtitles and narration. Link here.