Among those cute stories and political jokes, though, you often find more disturbing things – for example, videos translated from Arabic by organizations like Memri, highlighting the latest outrageous statements by Islamic fanatics. Those videos are a window into the staple ideological fare of tens of millions of Muslims, and realizing that they probably represent the beliefs of nations and cultures throughout the Muslim world is, to say the least, scary.

We take it for granted that Israel always gets the short end of the stick in social media – that “they” hate us regardless of what we say, that our hasbara (pro-Israel public pronouncements) is second-rate anyway, etc. But interestingly, whenever MEMRI posts a video with translations on the bottom, allowing English speakers to understand what is really going on in the “mysterious Orient,” everyone suddenly understands the problem and danger: The talkbacks (sometimes thousands of them, when taken as a single unit) make it clear that lots of people, not just those who love Israel, are scared. And Muslims who do not subscribe to the “Down with Israel/America” philosophy and tactics espoused by these imams suddenly appear, posting messages and counter-videos showing the rational side of Islam. Why we don’t hear from them more often is a question we can’t deal with here, but suffice to say that when the fanatics decide to go after the “kaffir” (heretics against Islam) of the world, they usually start by “cleaning house” – ie, going after the Muslims they aren’t fond of.

What works on the negative side – showing the true face of radical Islam – can work on the positive side as well, showing the positive side of Israel. While there are many pro-Israel videos on Youtube, there are so many positive, untold stories that have never been told – possibly because those telling them don’t know English, or don’t have the “connections” to get their story out to the Youtube world. In a world of homogenized milk and homogenized fast food, language is the last barrier to getting your message out to the masses. Thousands of years later, the “curse of Babel” is still with us, and for thousands of years, the only to make yourself understood was to hire a professional translator, who knew the language of the people you were trying to reach.

Slowly but surely, that last roadblock to human understanding is disappearing, thanks to innovative web services that are bringing speakers of different tongues together. Google Translate, for example, lets you type in text or paste a URL into its translation box, and seconds later, you get a direct translation of your text in one of several dozen languages – or, a fully translated web page. As I’ve written previously, the translations aren’t always perfect, but if you paste the URL of an Arabic language news page into Google Translate, you’ll get a passable English translation of the page (sans, of course, proper grammar, in most cases. But who worries about grammar these days anyway?)

Text translations, while far from easy, are infinitely less complicated than audio translations. Accents, dialects, and the quality of elocution of speakers makes writing standard translations software nearly impossible, with applications needing major component additions for each specific language. That’s not stopping Google from trying, though, and one of the result of the company’s stated desire to make all knowledge accessible to all people is the new Youtube Transcribe Audio feature. Google doesn’t really have an audio site of its own, but it does own Youtube, and almost videos have sound. And when you combine Google Translate technology with audi transcription, you get either a window onto the world – with an automatic English (or other language) text translation of what you are hearing  – or, in some cases, a really funny story!

That’s because the service is still in beta, and clearly is going to be an ongoing project for awhile. Even the automatic transcription of audio in the same language (English voiceover to english text) isn’t always successful, but Google gets lots of credit for at least getting the ball rolling. When you load a Youtube video like this one, you may see a box on the bottom right of the video marked “CC” – which stands for “closed caption,” a caption generated by Youtube of the voice on the video. Hover your mouse over that box, and you’ll see a selection for “Translate captions,” which gives you a list of dozens of languages to translate the captions into. Magically, the captions change into something you can understand (more or less – try it on the above video and you’ll see what I mean!).

The criteria for being chosen for a transcribe/translate job aren’t clear, but the videos I found that do have them were mostly interviews, such as the one listed. And not all of the interviewees are as intelligent as the guy in that video, believe me – some of them are of the type that gave Youtube its reputation as the “black hole” of internet time wasting. So, if you want your inspiring Israeli story to be seen and read without Hebrew being a barrier to the viewer, check out dotSUB, a site that makes transcription and translation as easy as feasibly possible. Using dotSUB’s convenient tools, you can quickly and easily enter the transcribed text in your language, and then do the same for the translation. You can them download the finished product and upload it to Youtube, confident that you’ve got a first-class translation, all laid out with properly placed captions – ready to win the hearts and minds of the people “out there.”

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Honestly, are there really any luxuries any more? Cellphones used to be in that category, but since the powers that be have more or less eliminated pay phones, they’ve become a necessity for anyone who has to contact work or home on the road. Cars are a luxury only if you live in the center of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, and have enough money to take taxis when you need to. Your annual vacation? Absolute necessity – if you want to retain your sanity, that is!

If cutting is out of the question, then maybe “downmarketing” can be an option – for example, using a cheaper product or “house brand.” In some cases, cheaper products are perfectly acceptable substitutes, but in others, the switch isn’t as successful. For example, for gas from discount stations vs. gas from full price stations, substituting works. When it comes to “fake” vs. “real” Bissli, however, it doesn’t.

One area where the cheap – as in free – alternative works as well, or even better, than the full price version, is in the area of satellite/cable TV. Because of the broadcasting and pricing policies of both YES and HOT, and the geopolitics of opinion-making in the Arab world, Israeli consumers can get broadcasts at least as good (some would say better) using a satellite dish and a digital receiver.

As it turns out, the age of terrestrial analog TV broadcasting – where you attach “rabbit ears” to your TV and turn on the set – is almost over anyway. Sometime next year, analog broadcasts of Channels 1, 2, and 10 will be ending, and in order to watch any TV, you will have to shell out for a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) decoder. Experimental DTT broadcasts began in August, and you can buy decoders (they run between NIS 300 and up, depending on features) in many electronic stores already. Note that as the time for DTT broadcasts to take effect draws near, the price of the decoders is likely to drop.

But if you’re a TV “maven,” you’ve probably subscribed to either YES or HOT, paying upwards of NIS 200 a month for the various “channel packages” the companies are so good at marketing. But what are you getting for your money? Last year’s sitcoms (and a very poor selection of them); endless repeats of B movies (except for a very occasional blockbuster); and, worst of all, endless “promos” for the most tasteless programs that air during prime adult time – broadcast during the hours kids are watching, and even on the channels geared to them! As a (now former) YES subscriber, this was my biggest beef with the company, and it seems to be a concern of many YES customers, based on what people tell me. Since YES and HOT are not allowed to accept ads (yet), I suppose this is their way of “breaking up” their programming. But couldn’t they find a better way?

As it turns out, those same last year’s sitcoms and B movies with the occasional blockbuster – sans the tasteless promos – are available for free to owners of satellite dishes and a satellite receiver, pointed at the southern sky and aimed at the Amos and Nilesat satellites. Amos, Israel’s own communications satellite, carries the satellite broadcasts of Channels 1, 2, 10, the Knesset channel, Middle East TV, and a Russian English language news channel – all free to air (FTA) – while Nilesat carries about 550 FTA channels. Most of them are in Arabic, of course, but about a dozen or so entertainment channels “speak English,” broadcasting the same mix of movies and TV series that you get on the YES and HOT entertainment channels. For free – meaning that there are no subscription fees to pay to anyone; once you pay for the satellite receiver and/or satellite dish, you don’t have to shell out another shekel!

Dubai provides no fewer than six channels with consistent English language programming, including some series available on the YES and HOT channels, and including three movie channels, which to me are indistinguishable from the YES movie channels. In addition to the Dubai FTA channels (their schedules can be seen at http://www.dmi.ae/dubaione/ and http://www.mbc.net), the Fox people provide an entertainment and movie channel (see http://www.foxme.tv/ and http://www.foxmoviestv.com/, click on the “English” button). And, there are a couple of others available as well (see http://www.city7tv.com and http://kuwaitlink.localweb.com/ktv2/).

Along with CNN, Euronews (broadcasting in five languages), several other news stations, and even a couple of sports and children’s channels with partial English language programming – supplementing the regular Israeli TV channels – you’ve got a full and complete TV package, quite similar to what you get with YES and HOT. Minus the tasteless promos (replaced by Arabic language commercials for things like Cadillacs, Doritos, and Kentucky Fried Chicken!), and the price, that is!

The FTA stations broadcasting to the Arab world even include stations that you would have to subscribe to in other parts of the world, like Nickelodeon and MTV Arabia (the latter broadcasting exclusively in English, and a lot less “racy” than other MTV channels). I suppose it’s part of the efforts to “win the hearts and minds” of Arab populations of less than friendly countries – MBC Persia, for example, is designed specifically to deliver Hollywood blockbusters with Farsi subtitles to Iranians. You can certainly see plenty of examples of the radicalism taking hold in Muslim countries on some of the other 525 Arabic language stations (if you’ve ever wanted to watch Hizbullah, Hamas, or Fatah TV, here’s your chance).

You can buy satellite receivers from a number of suppliers, both online and off (http://www.thm.co.il/ sells various models for between NIS 255 and NIS 725). Depending on where you live and how the dish is positioned, you may be able to pick up many Nilesat stations using an 80 centimeter YES dish (if you’re a current customer); YES tends not to remove the dishes when you cancel the service. For guaranteed reception, install a one meter dish (a do-it-yourself kit is NIS 525 at http://www.thm.co.il/; and in any case, you can get the Israeli stations without upgrading the dish). Or for a bit more, you could have a pro put together the system for you. Either way, your ROI (return on investment) will be no more than a few months, taking into account the money you’ll be saving on your cable or satellite subscription. It’s like cutting out a luxury – but getting an even better substitute!

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It doesn’t always work out that way. Even speakers of Esperanto, that world language unifier, are known to have differing, irreconcilable opinions at times. Esperanto, by the way, is alive and well, with as many as a million people worldwide speaking it. There’s even a site where you can learn it online (for free): http://en.lernu.net/, with lessons, forums, books, stories and even jokes in Esperanto. Interestingly, the site makes a point of saying that “people of many different ages and cultures use this website. Therefore, we ask that you always be tolerant and polite in your communications with other lernu! users.” And if the enlightened Esperanto folk can’t get along, what choice do the rest of us Neanderthals have? Not much, I guess. But it’s still a good idea to get a to know what the other guy – or the other side – is saying.

Any Israeli has got to wonder what they’re saying in Arabic. For many Israelis, anything in Arabic – in voice or in print – sounds threatening. We think that “they’re” always plotting against us, and that everything written in Arabic newspapers is an accusation against us, or even a blood libel. It just looks and sounds so – well, alien!

Given the political situation, it’s understandable why many Israelis (and Westerners, for that matter) would feel this way. And there’s no question that lots of what is written about Israel and Jews in Arabic newspapers, magazines and web sites is less than complimentary, shall we say. But we’re not always on the front pages of their publications – and they have plenty of beefs with others or among themselves that have nothing to do with us. And the entire idea of labeling a large group of hundreds of millions of people as “they” or “them” is ridiculous, anyway. There are hundreds or thousands of subgroups and subcultures among every large (and not so large) group – and the Arabs and/or Muslims are no different. To us, they seem a large, mostly unified mass, with their chief preoccupation the destruction of Israel and/or Western culture that threatens their way of life. Would we still feel that way if we could actually read what they wrote for “internal consumption” – or if we could communicate to them in their own language?

Maybe; my job is to ask the big questions, not answer them! The only way to find out is to actually read what they say in the Arab press and on Arabic language forums and web sites. No doubt you have read newspaper stories in local papers quoting from this London-based Arabic daily or that Jordanian or Egyptian semi-official weekly. While once you had to know a language well in order to understand pieces in such publications, the Internet today offers several options to enable you to understand those stories, using translation services by Microsoft, Google and others.

There Google goes again, opening up the world’s information sources to the common person. If you’ve never given Google’s translation engine a whirl, you must check it out. Some non-English language pages you come across on Google searches have a link that says “translate this page;” this is where they do it. The Google engine can translate to or from 25 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, and some “easier” ones, like Spanish and Italian, too (no Hebrew, though). You can paste text into the page’s translation box (it will even try to figure out what the language is if you aren’t sure) and display it in a language you can understand. Or, you can type in a URL, and the page will come up with its contents translated!

You might not always get proper sentence structure or grammar, although the translations into English do come out quite readable, from the pages in Arabic and Chinese that I converted. If you really do want to check out the Arabic press, you can use this site, which has links to Arabic language publications throughout the world (including the ones in the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia). I decided to check out an article at random from an Arabic language publication in Jaffa, called Al-Sabar. Putting the link into the Google engine, I got a reasonably understandable translation of the article – which turned out to be about the ongoing feud between Daniel Friedman and Aharon Barak, translated from a piece by an Israeli writer!

There are also several applications that make use of the Google engine to provide translations. One of the best I’ve come across is the Translate.net application, a free download that you use as your desktop translator based on not only the Google engine, but over two dozen other online translation services as well. The program will automatically choose the service, depending on what you’re translating; you tell it the subject matter of the translation – business, science, law, banking, etc. – and Translate.net finds the the right service with the right words for you.

Also highly recommended is FoxLingo, downloaded over a million times already (three times by me!). This one (for Firefox users only, so far) makes use of 35 online translators – it handles Hebrew as well – and lets you choose between the translations services, automatically translating a page upon request when you surf to it. FoxLingo lets you make some interesting comparisons, like which service – Google’s or Microsoft’s Live Translation – is more understandable. All of the 41 “foreign” languages handled by FoxLingo can be translated into English, and many of the key languages for Israelis interested in regional events – Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Russian, as well as Japanese, Korean, Ukranian, and most Western European languages can be translated in Hebrew as well. There are even applications now that will automatically translate SMS messages between writers of different languages: You write to them in English, and they see it in Spanish! Check out http://www.speaklike.com and http://home.transclick.com/ for some examples.

We’re not professional translators here – although if you were, you could go to http://www.proz.com/ and sign up to do some professional translations for a fee (or get someone to do some professional translating for you) – but that’s a story for another day. The translations offered by the free online services and applications (both Translate.net and FoxLingo are free) aren’t perfect, but they’re enough to give you a good understanding of what your neighbors are reading. What we’ll find when we figure out what they’re reading is something else.