Hi and thanks for coming by to see what this is

By PHILIP BARNEA
Now I know that there are millions of people out there, writing their own personal impressions of life every day. So why bother reading mine!
Well, I hope that you’ll find it interesting, perhaps enlightening and even amusing (from time to time). But more than that, I really want to give you my views and interpretations of things that are happening in the State of Israel, the Middle East and the rest of the world – in so far as they relate to Israel, my home.
I’m not an expert on the Middle East, I have no connections to the military, the government or any influential people – all I am is a 64 year old man who has been living in Israel for almost 40 years. And that’s my goal, to provide you with another version, another interpretation of events as an ordinary person sees them. I have no hidden agenda, don’t need to get re-elected or raise my popularity. All I want is to perhaps make people understand that, whatever they read in the media – Israel is not the bad guy!
So, first a short bio. I was born in the UK in 1949. My parents were working class folks living on the outskirts of London in a small town called Chingford. They raised my brother and I to be Jewish, kept a kosher home, celebrated all the festivals – the whole “gesheft”. My childhood was pretty normal, at least until I went to high school, I was one of three Jews in my year (around 500 kids in all) and I soon learned that the lessons of the Second World War hadn’t been learned. I was regularly taunted as a “Jew boy”, accused of having all the worlds money (despite the fact that we lived in a small house and both my parents worked) and of being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Me personally! I was often waylaid either in the school yard or on my way home by gangs of boys who would taunt me, call me names and insult my religion, parents and family. On more than one occasion, this would end in a fight which I always lost since I was one against a group of kids.
The thing is, and I’ll go into this in another entry some time, these kids didn’t realize that by beating me up, they were making me stronger, more determined than ever to be Jewish, if you like, more defiant. It was this relationship that was responsible for me, later on in life, making the decision to leave the UK and come to Israel.
Anyway, at the age of 14 I joined a Jewish/Zionist youth organization (mainly because of the girls), became a fervent Zionist and on the third day of the Yom Kippur War on October 9 1973, came on aliya with a group of 10 friends.
Since then, I married, have 4 kids, 5 grandchildren and live on a kibbutz about 10 kilometers from the Lebanese border near the Mediterranean coast. In the 40 years that I have been an Israeli, I have seen and experienced a lot. The world has changed, Israel has changed, I have changed. But at heart, I’m still that young boy who won’t let the neighborhood bullies defeat me.
So that’s the reason for my blog – to show the world that regardless of how much you call me names, try to beat me up and scare me – I’ll still be here, stronger and more determined than ever to show you that I am here to stay – and so is my country!