Opuscula Europe to label Israeli products

 

EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS WANT TO LABEL all products from Israel. (Maybe they'd like to label Israeli products with a yellow star.)

That could turn out to be good for Israel.

Back in 1947, when it was the soon-to-be Nation of Israel vs. The Hordes of Arabs waiting to invade the nascent nation once the English evacuated, the world (mostly) stood by Israel as the underdog David to the Arab's Goliath.

Having successfully fended oft repeated attacks by its neighbors, and in the process regaining land promised Israel by the English and UN, the world started to view the adversaries in a reverse light - millions of Arabs now were the David to a few thousand Jewish Goliaths.

Now, Israel once again is David, but this time the Goliath is the European Union.

IF THE PRO-ARAB SYMPATHIZERS want to label all products from Israel with a design that even the most illiterate consumer can recognize as Made in Israel then I think Israel should aid and abet in this effort.

All products from Israel should carry an image of the Israeli flag someplace on the product or product's container.

Fruits and vegetables from Israel should carry - as do products imported into the U.S. from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, and other "South of the Border" suppliers - a sticker showing the country of origin.

Most packaged products list the country of origin on the packaging - box or bottle. Sometimes it is very small print, but the nation of origin is supposed to be on the product.

Even clothing identifies the country of origin.

For most Americans, electing to buy one nation's products over another comes down not to politics but to quality and price.

That's not to suggest that for some consumers politics is not absent in their purchase choice; there are those who simply won't purchase a Blue and White product because they accept as fact the fallacies proclaimed by the BDSers. Never having BEEN to Israel and never being willing to listen to anyone other than the BDSers, they won't buy any Israeli product even, as was Soda Stream, it was largely manufactured by "Palestinians."

For these people, many of whom are Jews, Israel can do no right.

ON THE OTHER HAND, there are people who will, given the opportunity and a competitive price and quality, buy Israeli products as quickly as they would buy a product from almost anyplace else.

While I personally prefer to Buy American, if the American product is inferior or substantially (>10%) more expensive than an import, I'll buy the import. If there is no American product, e.g., Minhag Morocco sidurim and machzorim, I'll buy from whatever country makes what I want; in this case, that country is Israel (although to be fair, Israeli bookbinding is terrible).

As a Jew I occasionally go out of my way to "Buy Blue and White," but usually if I (a) need/want the product and (b) if the product is well made.

The world is a place of many different languages. To avoid trying to have "Product of Israel" labels created in 70 languages, Israeli products should bear a universal symbol of the Jewish state - a small flag stuck on, imprinted on, or sown on to every product exported from Israel.

Let EVERYONE know the product is Israeli - and at the same time, make certain Israel's quality assurance/quality control is A Number 1; no shoddy products to denigrate Israel's name. The "Made in Israel" identifier also must be an identifier of quality.

Opuscula Airline ranker Partner with BDS?

 

ISRAEL HAS 15 air carriers. Most are domestic, in-country air carriers, and a few others are cargo carriers or specialized - e.g., crop dusting or helicopter tour companies.

There are at least 3 scheduled international airlines, alphabetically

* Arkia Israel Airlines

* El Al

* Israir

NONE of the Israeli international carriers is listed on the UK-based Skytrax list of "Top 100 Airlines."

North Korea's Air Koryo is ranked last (#150) in the rating company's survey - it, like Arkia, El Al, and Israir, failed to make even the "Top 100" list.

ON THE OTHER HAND, many Arab airlines made the list. There probably will be no argument that at least two of the list leaders

* Qatar Airways (1)
* Turkish Airlines (4)
* Emirates (5)
* Etihad Airways (6)

treat their passengers as passengers once expected to be treated.

Still, there ARE some Arab airlines that, like their Israeli counterparts failed to make the "Top 100" list. Missing are EgyptAir, Royal Air Maroc, and Royal Jordanian Airlines.

According to the The Star article about North Korea's airline, the "SkyTrax ratings are focused on service and not safety."

I have flown on several of the "Top 100" airlines as well as El Al. While I might not rank El Al as my favorite carrier - it's over priced and it no longer offers convenient flights from South Florida - it most assuredly would make my personal Top 20 list. (British Midland, thankfully no longer a scheduled carrier, would compete with North Korea's Air Koryo for the "World's Worst" carrier. I'm ready to explain why my Midland's flights were so bad.)

My #2 son who frequently travels to the far corners of the world, likes Lufthansa (#12 on Skytrax' list) and the Spouse favors Iberia (#56). Iberia is OK for me, but the jaunt from the arrival gate to the departure gate in Madrid always is impossibly long. (My best U.S.-Israel flight was on KLM (#28) via Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.) Because of France's De Gaulle airport I try to avoid Air France (#15) and any flights that require a change of planes at that airport. Air France service is, in my opinion, nothing to write home about.

I'm hardly a frequent flyer, but I have been flying commercial for a number of years; from tail draggers (e.g., DC-3) with real "box" lunches to Lockheed Super Constellations and L-1011s, now Boeing and Airbus jumbos. I'm not sure "bigger is better."

I have flown on the no-longer-in-the-air Eastern, National, Pan American, and TWA, as well as several others that were "absorbed" by still-flying airlines (Northwest (Orient) merged with Delta and US Airways merged with American). I've had bad experiences with several of Skytrax' "Top 100": Alitalia (74), American (79), Delta (45), and United (60). El Al compares favorably with all of the "Top 100" on which I have hours in the air - and waiting on the ground. I have flown multiple times on each of the currently flying airlines.

Although I realize some major mid-east carriers, particularly those of Israel's neighbors Egypt and Jordan, are absent from Skytrax' "Top 100", I still find it hard to accept that El Al and Arkia failed to make the list. No one ever has spilled coffee on me on El Al (it happened to another passenger on a KLM flight), no one gave my meal - with my name clearly marked on the box - to another passenger (British Midland). El Al never lost my luggage, unlike Delta and US Air regularly did when I was a consultant. El Al never left me stranded short of my destination and sent me on my way in an over-crowded jitney as United did.

Lod, El Al's home base - much improved since my first El Al flight in 1975 - is an easy to navigate airport - with free WiFi; I think better than Madrid, Rome, London, and far, far better than Paris .

From this passenger's limited in-flight experience, I think El Al should have made the "Top 100" list; that it didn't suggests something is rotten - not in Denmark but at Skytrax' UK headquarters.

Opuscula Poor Europe Inundated By Refugees

 

SINCE WRITING the following entry. the Times of Israel published an article headlined Egypt billionaire offers to buy island for migrants. The ToI article announces a proposal by Egyptian Naguib Sawiris to buy an island from Greece of Italy to settle refugees from civil warfare. His plan calls for the refugees to - as did the Jews in Israel - build their own cities and infrastructure, starting with temporary housing. If Greece (badly in need of money) and Italy decline to sell an unpopulated island, perhaps Sawiris could convince Saudi Arabia to set aside some empty land for the project. (Egypt has enough problems with terrorists to preclude building in the Sinai.) Certainly worth the world's consideration.

THANKS TO OBAMA'S "ARAB SPRING" that destabilized Muslim-dominated countries across Africa and Asia, Europe has been invaded by thousands of Muslims trying to escape civil warfare in their countries.

Now Europeans don't know what to do with the refugees..

There is a simple answer to the refugee crisis.

SEND THE REFUGEES

To ANY of the TWENTY-TWO (22) Arab League member states

To ANY of the FOURTY-SEVEN (47) Muslim dominated countries (The number includes the 22 Arab countries).

Arabs are invading Europe from across Africa and parts of Asia; notably Libya and Syria, but other Muslim-dominated countries as well.

Prior to Obama's "Arab Spring," these countries were controlled by iron-fisted dictators: Gaddafi in Libya and al-Assad in Syria. (Meanwhile, Obama kowtows to Russia's Putin as he rapes the Ukraine.)

Many of the Arab counties are hardly populated. Saudi Arabia, for example, has a population density of 12.72 per square KILOMETER and is ranked Number 211 of 242 nations - there are only 31 nations with a LOWER population density according to Index Mundi. Turkey has 104.16 per square kilometer.

By comparison, the European countries most impacted by the influx of Arab refugees are

France (102.92)

Germany (226.87)

Italy (204.69)

i
United Kingdom (261.66)

Not only are the most-desired European nations already densely populated (in comparison with many Muslim-dominated countries), they are finding the refugees taking over their countries and demanding that their hosts conform to the refugees' demands, e.g., sharia (religious) law not only for their fellow refugees but the native population as well.

Even Arabs escaping their own countries murder non-Muslim refugees in transit, according to the BBC.

Admittedly not all refugees will try to take over their host countries, but given the Moslems' history of large families with multiple wives, they soon will be the majority population and, in gaining the demogrfaphic upper hand, will change the political nature of the country.

The U.S. experienced something similar with the Cuban invasion of South Florida. To survive in Dade County residents are almost forced to speak Spanish; many merchants in Miami have no staff with a command of English. There ARE Cubans who have "mainstreamed" into U.S. society, but a very large number established Cuba on America's shores..Where major stores once had signs declaring "Si Habla Espanol" (Spanish spoken here) now a few merchants advertise "We speak English.")

It will offend liberal sensibilities, but the best thing for BOTH Europe and the refugees is to send them to Muslim-dominated countries.

For the refugees, that would put them with their Muslim fellows so the cultures and mentality would be the same or similar while removing the threat to Europeans that their culture and mentality will be redefined to Islamic standards.

 

An additional web site for population density by country is https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density