WhatFinger


Ari Bussel

Ari Bussel is a reporter and an activist on behalf of Israel, the Jewish Homeland. Ari left Beverly Hills and came to Israel 13 weeks to work in Israel Diplomacy's Front from Israel.

Most Recent Articles by Ari Bussel:

Springtime in Israel

imageEverything is flowering in Israel at the moment, bursting with a full spectrum and combinations of colors only nature can provide. Blossoms are everywhere, from trees to bushes to lowly grass, in gardens, yards, construction sites, on the roadside and in the most unexpected places. No one will forgo celebrating a spring showing off its natural beauty and a chance to escape dormancy for a short, extraordinarily beautiful while. Life grabs the moment and lives to the fullest, opening up and delicately discovering a world, bestowing its natural beauty as a gift, not to oneself but to others. It is an intoxicating feeling of sharing, one that should be encapsulated and put aside for safekeeping for colder, darker or grayer times.
- Friday, July 8, 2011

Help in Answering a Question

I was asked what seemed a very easy question: Why does no country keep an embassy in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem? In 1947 (November 29) the United Nations called for a termination of the British Mandate over Palestine and partitioned the land into a Jewish and an Arab state. It was in 1948 that the Jewish state declared (May 14) and later in 1949 that it was admitted to the United Nations (May11). Sixty-three years have passed, and today there is not a single embassy in Israel’s capital. Earlier this month, the 44th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem was celebrated. Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel with approximately ten percent of Israel’s residents living there. So why, I was asked, is it that no country honors Israel by having its embassy located there?
- Monday, June 27, 2011

A Heavenly Promise

image2,700 hundred years ago, the Prophet Jeremiah described a mother, lamenting her sons, for they were gone, and with them she had no hope for the future, for her end of days, for continuation. It was a time of deep sorrow and mourning, describes the Prophet and says that God will turn it into immense joy and jubilation. He promised that the mother’s sons would return to their borders from enemy land. This can be the cruelest torture of a parent, who is weeping bitterly, exasperated from sorrow and the inability to bring home one’s sons, but Jeremiah is devoid of any doubt. He comforts the mother, promising—there is reward to your actions, your sons will return.
- Saturday, June 25, 2011

Those Progressive Liberals

Israel National News reports about the President’s Conference now taking place in Israel. Judea and Samaria Council’s chairperson Danny Dayan and J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami participated in a panel discussion about criticism and loyalty in the relations between Israel and the Diaspora.
- Thursday, June 23, 2011

Fighting Self-Hating Jews

A local activist in Orange County has been fighting a large organization. The organization is Jewish and it supports an initiative to send students, Jewish and others, to Israel. Thus far, the idea is fantastic. For instance, the program “Birthright,” started by philanthropist Bronfman and now an official endeavor of the Israeli government, sends young Jews to Israel to get to know the country. They return after a short stay, an all-expense paid trip, turned into Israel’s best ambassadors.
- Monday, June 13, 2011

Time to React!

There was a barrage of e-mails after Obama’s and Netanyahu’s speeches, what should Israel do, what should the USA do? Some warned Israel’s supporters that action is necessary for Israel cannot survive Obama. Others still use the recent speeches against Israel, blaming her for the fact that peace remains elusive after 63 years.
- Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The True Frontier

Iran seems to be heavily vested in its race to acquire nuclear energy, “for peaceful purposes,” of course. At the same time Israel focuses its energies on the hardships of living in an arid area as population pressures mount to a critical point.
- Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Holocaust as Seen in 2011

imageIt was ten a.m. in Israel on the Holocaust and Bravery Remembrance Day, and I stood in a city square as the siren started. It sounded somewhat distant, yet touched every nerve in my body. People stopped, instantly frozen in their tracks. Cars stopped, their doors opened and the drivers and passengers exited. No one was honking. No one was talking. Everyone stood straight, silent, their heads bowed. In this two-minute freeze-frame time span even the birds ceased their spring celebration. All was still, an entire nation respecting its dead, six million of them, as people recalled the Nazis’ attempt to annihilate their very being.
- Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sacrificial Lamb

I read a detailed account of the immensely detailed work that went into locating Osama Bin Laden and serving him with a message from the United States of America, a business card that read: Final Justice Served. Something, though, cannot escape my mind: the thought that Bin Laden successfully avoided the most sophisticated tracing system in the world for ten long years. Time after time he re-emerged from his “cave” with communiqués to the Western World, and despite repeated attempts, was never foiled. Not until now.
- Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The Spring Revolution

Not much information is allowed out of Syria, other than pronunciations that “foreign elements are at work and must be quashed, while anyone peacefully protesting is protected.” Syria is launching an independent investigation as to the events unfolding, mimicking the UN inquiry. The results of both could not be further apart, teaching that the best defense is a good offense.
- Sunday, May 1, 2011

The War for Israel’s Independence

Israel’s enemies are becoming more and more vicious in their attacks. They claim to anyone who would still listen that it is the last attempt to save Israel from herself. To them the Palestinians are the answer, in fact the glorified goal, and cannot do anything wrong; Israel is at fault. They no longer sound reliable, these “lovers of peace.” Just a few days ago they embarked on a field trip to the Palestinian village where the murderers of the five members of the Fogel Family lived. The brutal murder was a cold, calculated mission by two males, 18 and 19, one a student.
- Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Going to a War Zone

“You realize you may be going into a war zone?” I was asked as I booked my ticket to Israel. The time is Passover, a major holiday in Israel, and unlike all my other travels, this time I do not dismiss the notion outright and altogether.
- Sunday, April 10, 2011



Pastor Billy’s Legacy of Faith

image“Regarding the debate about faith and works: It’s like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most important.” -- C.S. Lewis Many times, we believe we know someone, until we are surprised to discover things we never knew about him. This Postcard is about an extraordinary person who possessed numerous facets, most known to all. He was a renaissance man, a basketball player, a preacher and a photographer, and he led a massive congregation. He was a man of color, tall and striking in appearance with his hair formed into long, cascading cornrows.
- Monday, March 21, 2011

Modern Day Anti-Semitism

The Palestinians, concluded the Israeli Government after fifteen months of extensive research, are inciting hatred and terror against the citizens and Government of Israel. To track this “culture of death,” Israel has now established an Index of Incitement.
- Saturday, March 19, 2011

Ignorance of the Worst Kind

“We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”~Golda Meir I was having dinner with an Ivy League graduate. As usual for me, the discussion diverted to Israel and the Palestinian terrorists’ attempts to destroy the only Jewish country.
- Friday, March 18, 2011

Be Careful Not to Offend Israel

There is nothing that can stop Israel or destroy her completely, if she only sets her mind on standing up and fighting back, if she only makes a decision to survive. Something touched a raw nerve in the Israeli Government when Palestinian terrorists entered a home, murdered the parents, 35 and 36, and three of their children, 11, four and a three-month old. Three children survived—the eldest daughter who was out while the stabbing massacre was in progress and two of her younger brothers who were in a different room.
- Monday, March 14, 2011

An Earthquake and a Tsunami

Children, not realizing the dangers, are more excited to ski, go to high ground due to a possible flooding or experience an earthquake. I was a student at Stanford when I experienced my first earthquake. For some odd reason, it seems to me they always happen in early morning. After a few shakers, though, the sense of “excitement” was replaced with apprehension. I used to say, “When Mother Earth’s clock rings, you wake up without delay.”
- Sunday, March 13, 2011

Civil Discourse about Israel

An interesting question was raised at a Jewish Federation event in Greater Los Angeles: Should Jews who do not live, pay taxes, or risk their lives in Israel have a say in Israel’s affairs? While the community is debating this question, Israel has long been struggling with the reverse question: Should Israelis living overseas have the ability to vote in Israeli elections. There are many hundreds of thousands of Israelis whose permanent residence is outside of Israel (in the Greater Los Angeles area alone there are rumored to be some 350,000 Israelis).
- Friday, February 18, 2011

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