The Bully Pulpit – Hamas mistreats the Palestinians
Let me tell you that ENCHANTÉ is for Israel, but has good ties with Arabs too. Let me also tell you that ENCHANTÉ has many Palestinian and Islamic friends and that we sometimes agree to disagree but remain good friends. At a personal level, it works. At the political level, the Israeli-Arab conflict seems insoluble.
Everyone who knows a little bit of the Palestine history knows that it was an area where Jews and Arabs lived together for thousands of years. Zionism had been seeking a Jewish state for itself for a long time and several efforts had been made to achieve that without success (see the Exodus Ship effort of 1947 below.)
(Notes added upon requests from readers: “Zion” commonly refers to a specific mountain near Jerusalem (Mount Zion), on which stood a Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was named the City of David. After almost two millennia of existence of the Jewish diaspora without a national state, the Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by Ashkenazi Jews to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in France and the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire.[16] The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in 1897 following the publication of his book Der Judenstaat.[17] At that time, the movement sought to encourage Jewish migration to the Ottoman Palestine. –Source: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.)
World War II and the Holocaust (in which Palestine Arabs did not participate but surely did not object) became the catalyst and led to the idea to use the British “Palestina Mandate”, an off-shoot of the Ottoman Empire that was dismantled at the end of World War I, as an area where a Jewish State could be carved out together with an Arab Palestine.
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UNSCOP (3 September 1947) and UN Ad Hoc Committee (25 November 1947) partition plans. The UN Ad Hoc committee proposal was voted on in the resolution.
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| Date | November 29, 1947 |
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| Meeting no. | 128 |
| Code | A/RES/181(II) (Document) |
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Voting summary
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33 voted for 13 voted against 10 abstained |
| Result | Recommendation to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out in the resolution[1] |
The Arabs objected, amongst others about “arable” land (you notice the pun?), but why? After all, the Jews had lived there too. Why not have two States, Jewish and Transjordan? While the UN agreed to the partition in 1948 (33 for, 13 against, 10 abstentions of a UN Assembly of 56 states), war between Jews and Arabs almost started immediately and has never really ended. Reconciliation has proved almost impossible despite the vision of Anwar Sadat who went to Israel and concluded peace with Menachem Begin in 1977 and recognized Israel.
One could say, that was Sadat’s “Mandela” moment. From that moment on, the Arab World could have settled their differences but it did not happen. Other Arabs did not share Sadat’s vision. Egypt was even kicked out of the Arab League for some ten years! On June 6, 1981, fanatic Islamists killed Sadat – and a host of others – at a victory parade commemorating the time that Egypt won back the Sinai from Israel during the Yum Kippur war. And where are we now? Another Palestinian-Israeli war, though this war is chiefly originated by a terrorist organization called Hamas that enforced its reign on the Palestinians in the Gaza strip when Israel relinquished it in 2005.
What ENCHANTÉ finds so unbelievably short-sighted is all this anti-Israel bashing in the Western media solely because of Palestinian casualties, however tragic they are. Unless you keep your eyes in your pocket, your ears plugged with clay, and your brain drugged with Kool-Aid (assuming you have brains), it is clear from all the photographs that it is Hamas that is killing its own people. The picture below was Tweeted by Hamas and intercepted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
Maybe Hamas considers their own people as canon-fodder like Napoleon did in his war with Russia or at Waterloo, and maybe they believe that when they die, even after multiple Israeli warnings to move out of their missile infested homesteads, schools, hospitals and even mosques (yes, Allah’s houses!), their dead will all be martyrs and go straight to paradise and live happily ever after. But their own people may not want to die. They live in fear under Hamas’s terror regime. So why are these Western nincompoops still choosing Hamas’s side? How can they when it is clear for all to observe that Hamas is using its own people as human shields and victim propaganda? Because they are all like the Nevil Chamberlains of World War II.
And don’t forget it was the Brits that rammed the ship “Exodus”in the Mediterranean in 1947 to prevent Jews from re-entering Palestine and shipped them back to Germany of all places!
In 1947 international discussions were under way to settle the British mandate “Palestina”. Maps floated on negotiation tables.
Why not sit down and REASON to solve your problems without that hot-head demeanor and give each other the space to live? There is enough room if security can be assured!
Look at the daily barrage of missiles that Hamas started this time again. Which country in its right mind would allow that to happen to its people? USA? Germany? France? England? Saudi Arabia? Egypt? Wouldn’t they shoot back, too, with all their might? No, Jews just have to accept annihilation, problem solved. Then all these tunnels the Israeli detected, smuggling Hamas weapons and fighters into Israel to kidnap and kill. Who can pretend that this is morally right? All that because the Jews have no right to be in the Palestine region that is their homeland as much as it is for the Arabs? Yes, Arabs were there also in the past, but “Palestina” was not an Arab State and surely not an Islamic state!
Sinai and Palestine Area at the time of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago
Arabia map as it is now
Things have happened that should not have happened with respect to Arabs being forced to move out of the State of Israel, but the beginning was politically very murky, also because of British ambiguity. Lots of fights with the Brits erupted. But many Jews were forcefully removed from Arab countries, too! And they are not standing in line to return for “resettlement” like Palestinians say they want to in Israel. Remember the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947? That was a hundred times greater and also very murky. Still, there are Islamic people living peacefully in India (like Arabs in Israel) and while India and Pakistan are touchy neighbors, Islamic Pakistan is not trying to drive Hindu India into the Indian Ocean or firing rockets over the border!
Israel accepted the recent Egyptian brokered ceasefire. Hamas refused, even though other Arab countries and the Arab League agreed. Why? Because they did not get full Israeli submission? Why should Israel give in to terrorists? So Hamas continued firing rockets and continued to expose its poor Palestinian people. It’s only after that that Israel reluctantly began the ground incursion. Deference to the Bully never wins you any favor. Remember the bully in your schoolyard? Unless you beat him/her to pulp or get him/her checked by the management, he/she will only grab more power. It is unfortunate, but that’s how we human beings are made up. Many human beings are simply bullies.
Take that up another notch to world politics, and you have the perverted UN. Despite the fact that many UN specialized agencies do great work, the Assembly (57 Islamic States out of 198 members = 28.7%) has become a totally different politicized debating club from what it was meant to be at its inception in 1944. Western states generally support Israel, but they are now in the minority on a one- member-one-vote basis. So Israel will always be in the boondoggle at the UN: Because of the UN stereotype anti-Israel posture, Israel will always lose. Only in the Security Council can the USA and some Western Nations block nefarious General Assembly votes. How come that missiles were hidden in two UN Schools in Gaza as UN officials admitted? Would you miss somebody coming into your house or backyard carrying a bunch of missiles under his arm to hide? How come the UN people “did not see”?
Then there are those Arabs fuming at Zionism. Why don’t we hear them fuming at their Islamism that tortures, rapes, kills and suppresses people, even their own, and renders women unworthy creatures and even stones them half-buried in dirt?
Jews don’t do that. Israel does not do that. Arabs living in Israel can vote and keep their belief. What makes Islamic people believe that Islam is the only right faith? It started 600 years later than Christianity! What is so nice about a religion that suppresses other religions, steals their believers’ goods and homes where they have lived for years, makes them pay a tax and labels them secondary citizens, or worse, orders them to convert or die? Is that really what the “religion of peace” is about? Do we still have to deal with such eight century nonsense in the 21st century? After all, the reactionary Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1918 and good riddance.
Arafat never let an opportunity go by to fail to make peace. Moneywise it was much more lucrative to keep warring. His wife Suha (born and raised a Catholic in Jerusalem!) lived comfortably in an expensive apartment in the Bristol Hotel in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré in Paris after she left Gaza where she shared an apartment with Arafat. The CBS “60 Minutes” program, not exactly a “right wing” unit, reported in 2003 that Arafat had US$800 million in the bank and sent his wife US$50,000-100,000 monthly (depending on the sources) from the Palestinian Authority (PA) budget to live in Paris. This was confirmed by other legitimate sources, among others the IMF. Nobody knows what happens with all the aid money to the PA or Hamas.
Bristol Hotel in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré in Paris
Where did all this money come from? Hamas is not any better. Do you believe they are really suffering from hunger, disease and poverty? Yes, their suppressed Gaza Palestinians do, but not the Hamas “government”.
Deira Hotel and Lobby in Gaza
Gaza Hotel Lobby and local market
Apartments for “martyrs” and Gaza beach
Happy life at Gaza Beach and Gaza Shopping
More Gaza shopping and local markets.
Hamas home in Gaza and Hamas Leader
Iran, Qatar and others are faithful financiers. Even the US gives indirectly taxpayer money to Hamas now that they are joined with Fatah. Do you really think that any of this aid money goes directly to the poor Palestinians? From the “happy” pictures of Gaza, where Palestinians seem to like their life, one would wonder, why for heavens sake would Hamas want to expose that happy life to war with its intransigent attitude toward Israel? But no, war has a higher motive: Israel must be destroyed even if it destroys the Palestinians. So, instead of using the aid for further economic development, it will be applied to new missile launchers and tunnels, as was done in the past.
Why this moral equivalence from the USA? What’s left of its moral values? Where is the White House’s moral clarity? How was it possible that the FAA banned flights to Ben Gurion Airport, giving Hamas a win? Such a dramatic move could never have been made without State Department and White House involvement. Did the US want to pressurize Israel into a cease fire while Kerry was “negotiating” in Egypt? (Remember Kerry’s off the record scolding of Israel’s ground offensive as “a hell of a pin-pointing operation” and “we have to go there tonight, we’re wasting our time here?” Implying he was going to give the Israelis a lesson? This mindset ties in nicely with that FAA ban!) Former mayor Bloomberg courageously took an El Al flight to Ben Gurion to show solidarity.
Bloomberg flies El Al to Ben Gurion Airport after FAA ban. Kerry follows him quickly. Airport suddenly safe again?The ban was quickly lifted after Kerry had to visit Israel. Oh! that White House and State Department miserable hypocrisy!
What has become of the US motto “Peace through Strength” that got the Soviet Union down? Bully Putin is laughing his head off and keeps shooting at Ukraine, even after his cronies downed a commercial jet liner with 300 people dead and Europe and the USA did not take even one meaningful action.
A one Palestinian State is, for the time being, utopia. A well-known Israeli “dissident”, Mike Peled, describes in his intriguing book “A General’s son” how his father promoted that idea. He writes this as having grown up from an “insider” to a “dissident”. In this regard, he is not much different from US “dissidents”. The problem with “dissidents” in democratic societies is that their free speech does not necessarily mean they are right. They surely offer food for thought and sometimes galvanize into a protest march, but I am afraid that Mike Peled’s solution is not achievable at this time, and I even wonder if it is shared by the Arab world:
Jews and Palestinians all living peacefully in one single democratic State. The book has many good critics and, of course, rejections. No one denies that Zionism had racist elements, but Arabs are racist too. The USA had its racist differences and is still not free from it. If there are “lies” based in Zionism, come to Arabia and read the 1000 Arabian nights. The whole argument of a non-racist society in the one Palestine is a noble thought, but history is not encouraging. It may take another century before we grow out of that and make it possible, if ever we get a chance.
So far, a two-state solution with renegotiated borders for security is the best what can be obtained. Democracy in the Middle-East is unchartered territory and we learned that the hard way once more in Iraq. As long as the Jews cannot be assured of absolute security, it would be suicidal for them and for any state to open its borders and resettle hostile terrorists in their midst. And why should Arabs say that Jews cannot have their own State? Saudi Arabia is an Islamic State, Iran is, and other Middle Eastern countries claim they are Islamic States. Beats me.
It’s a mystery why Palestinian leaders never could build their own state and develop it economically the way the Jews did, despite all the billions of aid-dollars and technical assistance that they have been given for at least four decades. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving economic development it had started. What have the “Palestinians” done with it? For nine years, Gaza Hamas has done nothing but complaining, whining, fighting, subverting, and all for the greater good of throwing the Jews into the sea. What an impressive developmental mission. What a memorable contribution to humanity.
Sorry, ENCHANTÉ can’t have respect for that and is pretty fed up with this Islamic terrorist and anti-Israel stuff and refuses to be political correct about it as so many in the dumb permissive US and European media are. Friends of ENCHANTÉ consider its author outdated but it wishes we still had an Eisenhower or Reagan USA, Thatcher steel in Europe and an another “Mandela” like Anwar Sadat in Egypt. Today’s leaderless “normal” is pathetic.
Precious Independence
Everyone loves freedom. Fireworks and all. At Independence Day.
But Independence is a fragile good. Once obtained, many Peoples realize that Independence turns out different from what they asked for. Strongmen leaders grow into tyrants and apply harsh suppression. The national economy is mismanaged and drained into poverty because of greed, corruption and tribalism. Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité evolves into socialist Dépendence.
The American Independence succeeded well and grew into an exceptional configuration of fifty states and the strongest world economy. In his “Democracy in America” (issued from 1835 to 1840 in two volumes), Alexis de Tocqueville marvels about the American Democracy sprouted from the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and an example for the French Revolution (1789).
But he also says that if its Congress discovers how to bribe the populace with public money, the American Republic will cease to exist. That danger is more than obvious today with “Obamacare” and other state-enforced laws that received only partisan approval.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Liberty from Independence is replaced by the tyranny of the majority, elected by an uninformed gullible electorate. Look at today’s American and European scenes: freedom has transmogrified into socialist servitude: dependence, not Independence. Or is replaced by the tyranny of the local bully (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mobutu, Idi Amin, Allende, Castro, Chavez, Sadam, Assad, just to name a few). The French Revolution turned into another tyranny by Napoleon. Remember the “guillotine”.
The Arab Spring of Hope got squashed by religious and secular tyrants (not that much different from what happened after the French Revolution.)
Still, thousands from other countries that once jumped in the streets celebrating their Independence from colonial powers risk their lives and indebt themselves to flee to Europe and the great USA. It is still better there than in their own “independent” crime-ridden, tortured and economically ruined homesteads.
Because freedom is a precious good, Peoples who lack it try to steal it. Or destroy it. Not only outside forces attack a free society, inside forces do so, too: liberal/socialist forces vie for more “government”, to impose their will and regulate freedom to smithereens, as is happening in the USA. Freedom-people seem unaware or complacent that they have a precious good, except at moments when they sing The Star-Spangled Banner, America The Beautiful, la Marseillaise, God Save The Queen, or other national anthems. At the Olympics or the World Cup Soccer, fans stand and shout it out. But the day after the fireworks fade, they return to their usual infighting, busy destroying their hard-won unity, or fall back into complacency, watching sports on TV.
What is left of the Arab Spring? The Independence hopes of the young people, seeing a possibility for democratic rule, a blossoming economy and full employment, living in a world deprived of arbitrary law, torture and daily fear?
Do we in the “West” have any responsibility to defend our liberty and to help others who are suppressed to gain or regain their freedom? I believe we do, and if we don’t, it will be at our own peril.
Can we help in the Middle East that has struggled for centuries to form political unity but never succeeded? Surely our “colonial”forefathers who drew arbitrary boundaries, overstepping tribal and religious realities, bear much responsibility for today’s political mess. As a result, many out there want to steal our liberty and to replace it with their own interpretation of how we should live, just as a matter of revenge.
We in the West should remain willing to offer a helping hand to liberty loving Peoples, but at the same time stand very strong to defend our own and make it known we will hit back very hard if they try to take it away from us. At present, the wishy-washy attitude from some Western countries invites attack. A weak posture, even the perception of one, can lead to very quick disaster (9/11 and subsequent events, both in Europe and in the USA, are obvious and dangerous examples).
A politician recently said that being strong does not mean having to go to war. Perhaps. But displaying a wimpy attitude and falling overboard in political correctness only invites a murderous mind to blow us up. You don’t believe that? Remember how World War II started with weak Neville Chamberlain, the amazing lack of intelligence of 9/11 due to political correctness, etc.. Nobody believed these events would be possible. But they happened, and will happen again if we do not show our teeth and preparedness to hit back. Tiny Israel does, and they are feared. Not so anymore with Obama’s BIG USA. Don’t misjudge or undervalue your Independence. Defend it. It can be lost before you know it.
It’s unfortunate but that’s how our world is made up. People enjoying freedom don’t like to be nasty to others. They become complacent, lazy, too comfortable in their own skin. But others who don’t enjoy it are willing to be nasty with you. That’s the human world we share. Nature has the same contrasts: a beautiful day or scenery gets destroyed by a hurricane, a tsunami, or a deadly flood. We cannot change it but we can protect ourselves.
Guard your Independence beyond the fireworks.
Inequality
Kathryn of Omaha TV and her panel of Mother Earth’s Weekly Squirms is on-screen and millions of viewers have tuned in. Take-a-listen.
Kathryn: “Glad you are still with us, Mars Man, to tackle another fad that is overflowing today’s media, namely “inequality”. A French economist, Thomas Piketty, has written a tome of 800 pages about the increase in inequality between the haves and the have-nots on Mother Earth over the last one hundred years. The book “Capital in the 21st Century” has brought forward a tsunami of criticism and acclaim. Does Mars have a similar problem?”
Mars Man: “Definitely not. Inequality is human-made. The great Mars Magnifier gives every Mars Man what we need. It’s supra-natural, gender-neutral and omnipresent, and was created by the Big Bang of Mars. Every Mars Man taps from it from birth and lives happily ever after. We don’t need to work, don’t have to pay taxes, and have a sea of time enjoying ourselves. We never get bored because we are too busy having fun.”
Kathryn: “But that’s wonderful. Why don’t we have such a machine on Earth?”
Mars Man: “As I told you at your last Round Table, at Big Bang Time, Mother Earth disqualified itself because Eve handed Adam the testosterone apple, and everything has been going downhill for you since then.”
Kathryn: “But how do you define Mother Earth’s inequality syndrome?”
Mars Man:”Your inequality is a natural phenomenon. I don’t understand why someone has to write an 800 page tome about it, much less where you would find the time to read it, only to advance a French argument favoring higher taxes on people who work harder than those who don’t and want to keep their hard-earned money grow over time.”
Kathryn: “What’s wrong with that French argument?”
Mars Man: “First of all, it’s French. The French popular advice is if you want to get rich, marry a wealthy person who’s plain-faced and can’t find a partner, and then have a mistress or lover on the side to keep your sanity, while using the money of the plain spouse to live well. So, the French say, taxing that bad person to poverty makes sense. But destroying money is unproductive because then it stops working, and as you know taxed money goes down the drain and that’s a waste. That’s why so many wealthy people are leaving France today and want to come to Mars.”
Kathryn: “And what’s the second point?”
Mars Man: “I was getting to that. Inequality is good. You say on Mother Earth that someone else’s grass is always greener. Humans want to keep up with the Joneses. It’s an incentive to do better, have upward mobility, make new things. On Mars, we do that for fun. On Mother Earth, you do it for money. But if you tax the hard-earned money away, you kill the incentive to work more and go back to the stone age.”
Kathryn: “People here are arguing that the rich must be taxed more to spread the wealth.”
Mars Man: “Why do some people get rich and others don’t? A film star, a smart person? Why not tax someone only because he or she was born beautiful, to give it away to the ugly? Tax George Clooney ninety-nine percent of his salary? And why not tax someone because he got more brains than someone else?”
Kathryn: “Don’t give the tax people here any ideas, they might just do it. Let me get our panelists in. Bob Foolsman, how do you look at it?”
Bob: “All men are born equal and have the right to the enjoyment of life and liberty. That’s what Jefferson and his followers said.
A system that is based on rewarding talent, hard work and achievement creates inequality and hurts the person who has no talent and lacks the incentive or has no brains. But that person still has a right to the enjoyment of life, thus needs a home, a TV and a long chair to look at it.”
Fred Garfinkel: ‘But that’s utopia. Why not give him or her a swimming pool, too? Mitt Romney turned companies around so that they and their workers contributed to the Treasury instead of drawing unemployment checks. That’s an art. Art is worth money and he earned it and paid taxes on it. And yet, he gets slurred for not paying taxes by a politician who gave him the middle finger and only receives a salary from the taxpayer and doesn’t produce anything good.”
Mars Man: “To us Martians, that is Topsy-turvy. You know the story in your Bible: those two servants who invested the money of the absent landlord got rewarded for it on his return, and the one who didn’t and put it under his mattress, got punished instead. That was the right decision, but on Mother Earth you want to do the opposite.”
Charles Hammerschmidt: “And where to does it all lead? Look around. Stagnation. Nobody in his right mind wants to work to only pay more taxes. We are all born unequal. Inequality is a fact of life. Bob is just jealous because he wasn’t born a George Clooney.”
Fred: “I’m jealous of those NFL football players, or the Yankees, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, all worth multiple millions of dollars. I am simply not as good at it, however much I try. There you have it: inequality. But nobody talks about them, it’s always the CEOs and families that built wealth with their hands and minds that get clobbered.”
Mars Man: “Your politicians have a knack for getting on the bandwagon when they believe a significant portion of the populace likes to vent their frustration that they’re not equal to those who are successful.
If they do and vote for more taxes, the inequality will even grow larger: less investment by the wealthy means less jobs for the unequals and even lesser chance to get even, while the wealthy have other means of capitalization to keep their money growing.”
Kathryn: “Well said, that’s the end of the show. Wish you a good journey back to Mars City, Mars Man.Viewers, thanks for joining us.”
Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund
Dear Guests:
The Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund (www.audreyhepburn.com) is in continuous need of money to fund its efforts to save malnourished and orphaned children. I wrote the short story “Audrey” with the purpose of raising some money for the Fund to show my gratefulness of having met her in my personal family life. So I am sending a kind reminder.
Recently, I stumbled on a small picture of Audrey in the house of a Dutch friend in Nice who had kept it for me during the years. She had also met Audrey in her youth in Amsterdam, when, in 1947, Audrey had moved there with her mother, Aunt Ella as I called her, from Arnhem. A sister of Audrey’s mother, whose name was Geraldine, used to help my friend’s father, whose wife had died, to take care of her disabled little sister. Ella took Audrey to that house from time to time.
The picture below got cracked during the years. It was first restored by Kendal Brenneman from Lancaster USA <http://www.kendalbrenneman.com>, a kind friend of the Audrey Fan club, and further refined through my daughter’s office (trial/graphix.com). It was taken by a Dutch photographer in Arnhem, in 1946, probably at the Arnhem Conservatory where Audrey took dancing lessons when she was 16.
The back of the photograph shows the genuine identity of the photograph. The handwriting on the back is that of an Aunt of mine who had received the photograph from Audrey’s mother to keep it for me. The photograph seems rare as I have not seen it anywhere in the many Audrey photo books published.
Audrey, 13 years old
In an earlier blog, I showed a family picture (above) when Audrey was 13, the age I met her during World War II. You can see the similarity between the two foregoing pictures, but also her gradual blossoming into a beautiful woman.The cover of the Audrey story I wrote shows one of the first photographs when she started modeling in London in the early fifties. It is also a rare picture as I have not seen it anywhere else either. She must have been about 21 at that time and you can clearly see how she had grown into the beauty that made her famous.
I am sending these photographs around again to entice you to purchase the Audrey short story published on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IKY4CC0) for a mere $0.99 or thereabout, depending on where you are (net proceeds will go straight to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund), or go directly to www.audreyhepburn.com and make your contribution there. Through recent connections with the Audrey fan club http://www.audrey1.org/ I was surprised to see how many people are still Audrey fans. She did indeed leave a fabulous legacy that few stars can emulate. I just hope it will continue to shine on the needy children through the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund. Give it your best!
Thanks so much!
John
On vacation? Go Riviera!
It’s time to pack again, load the car, attach the camper, take the train or go by plane. Down south, where the sun shines and the blue of blues blinds your eyes. The French Riviera. The Côte d’Azur. One of the few privileged places left on Mother Earth. In other lands, not that far away, people shoot, bomb, murder, torture, rape and curse in the name of Allah, but here only peaceful nature, calm and serenity prevail in the name of sanity. Not that the rush in July-August to get here does not take its victims. It’s a bit like that baby turtle race to the sea. Some make it, others don’t and get tragically squashed on the highway. But once you are there, heaven awaits you.
Let’s start in Nice. How privileged its citizens are: all that splendid wealth of nature handed on a plate for free. Only take your swimsuit and an inflatable pad, take the bus and you’re on the beach.
This is how the beach looks like when nobody is there.
Or like this, still early in the day or a weekday when everybody is at work.
Or like this when it’s weekend!
Granted, I would feel more comfortable on Aruba’s or Bali’s sandy beaches, but don’t worry. Travel a bit farther west to the Lavandou, and you find the most delightful sandy beaches ever and a lot less crowded than in Nice. Let’s take a look at what borders on the beach of Nice: it’s the splendid Promenade des Anglais.
The Promenade was started in the early nineteenth century when Nice was still part of a fiefdom called “Sardaigne” and wealthy European aristocrats, especially British suffering from stiff bones and arthritis during their bitter winters, sought the soft climate of the Côte d’Azur to survive. Reportedly an entrepreneurial British reverend among them, named Lewis Way, launched a fundraising effort to finance the construction of a boardwalk along the coast that started in 1821 and was completed in 1824. When in 1860 France annexed Nice, the boardwalk was baptized “Promenade des Anglais”. In subsequent years, the Promenade was extended and its many brilliant villas along it turned into exclusive hotels, such as Negresco.
Now let’s take a side trip to Menton, taking the small coastal road a few miles to the East, past Monaco and near the border with Italy.
The coastal road along the beach in Menton.
On the way, a view over Monaco with a glimpse of the Royal Palace at the very end. Just imagine having that view of the Mediterranean at your disposal every day of your life. That’s why many hills along the coast are built to the knock with villas, apartments and mansions as well.
A glimpse of the Alpes Maritimes in Menton’s hinterland, streets characteristic for the Mediterranean towns.
As in Nice, the beach in Menton is graveled as well. Seagulls are waiting for a snack. I’m sure that in the USA they would have found tons of sand to cover it all. But here, nature is left to its natural course. In fact, the gravel (called “galets” in French) is naturally supplemented by the rivers flowing into the Mediterranean.
Off we go to the Eastern side of Nice: avoiding places like Cannes, Saint-Raphael and Saint Tropez that are too crowded. Two places we really liked: Théoule-sur-Mer and above all: a little village called Cavalière in the Lavandou where you can still enjoy the Mediterranean without feeling you are besieged by hordes of tourists and loud motor cycles.
Théoule-sur-Mer
In the back you can see the snow-topped Alpes Maritimes!
In Théoule, the beaches have soft nice sand and you can enjoy a hearty grilled Dorade at its restaurant if the chef is in a friendly mood. In our case he got mad at us because we took seat at a table laid for three, and we told him in plain French *#! and walked out on our way to Cavalière, where we did have our Dorade on a friendlier terrace.
Unparalleled Côte d’Azur. You may be far away from theater or the concert hall, but what you get in return is peace of mind (if you got the money.)
Yes, Cavalière, our favorite place, about two hours from Nice (if you take the highway A8), where the mountains descend graciously into the Mediterranean, offering you splendid little private beaches where you can feel like the wealthiest person in the world without having to be one. A hidden beach where you can stay almost by yourself. Of course, French women bathe always topless, what women in Africa do because they don’t have money to pay for a bra — back to nature. Our place to stay and never to leave.
Your dream house, for grabs!
Farewell, Cavalière…..our pearl of the Riviera.
The end of a “Nice” Côte d’Azur adventure.