Israel

The state, the society, the war, the present hour.

Shameful Company

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To Joe’s summary below, I will only add that this is shameful company in which to find ourselves, on an issue that should be a no-brainer. Our national security on the Syrian front (Russia could invade our airspace at any time and bomb Jerusalem if they wanted) can not be tied to appeasing the imperialism of Putin – you know, the staunch ally of Israel’s enemies, the Ayatollahs and their proxies, and the common enemy of Israel, Ukraine, and democratic Europe.

I can only hope that by the next time such a resolution comes to vote, Israel will have new political leadership that is capable of securing our borders and our airspace without throwing our natural allies under the bus.

Слава Україні

“On today, the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a fresh resolution urging an end to the conflict, supporting Ukrainian sovereignty, adherence tot the principles of the U.N. charter, and calling for Russia to withdraw its troops.

There was a separate vote to add the language calling for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. It passed 93-18. Voting no:
Belarus
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Central African Republic
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Haiti
Hungary
Israel
Mali
Marshall Islands
Nicaragua
Niger
Palau
Russia
Sudan
United States”

Our World Is on Fire

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We plod and stumble through this horror of a deal after over a year and a half of war. The ayatollahs’ Islamo-fascist lapdogs parade the corpses of captured children, exchanged for living murderers and would-be murderers hailed as heros on resistance tv. Our economy suffocates as we collectively gasp for air. Still no elections.

Meanwhile the neoreactionaries and White Christian Supremacists have finally succeeded in taking over the US government, granting all practical power over Americans to the executive branch under the rule of POTUS, with the legislature, judiciary, and opposition relegated to party line toeing, toothless barking, and feckless hand-wringing, respectively. Will there even be elections?

Meanwhile the people of Ukraine stand alone against Putin the Great in his quest to contain America and control Europe, destabilizing the political processes of his democratic enemies and encouraging white nationalists across borders to scapegoat immigrants for all their personal and collective problems. Hailed by let’s face it far too many Americans and Europeans alike as a savior of western civilization, Putin accuses his victims of perpetrating the very same illiberal dictatorship that he has forced on Russia for years. Still no elections.

Meanwhile the Chinese megastate – empire, really – is slowly regaining its position as the world’s dominant economic power, slowly implementing it’s fifty year martial plan for political domination of Taiwan, the rest of east Asia, and the Pacific, slowly inserting itself into the infrastructure of countless countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, slowly overcoming all challenges to the astonishingly long arm of its ruling party. Elections??????

Meanwhile I’m just trying to raise my daughter right in the face of so many influences dragging her down, to teach her values and wisdom and love and awe and courage. I fail so hard at truly living these things myself, it’s no wonder she has trouble finding her way in them, too.

But what can we do? Our world is on fire. For those of us who’ve been through our own traumas, it’s been on fire for some time. Some days all I can do is make sure she knows she is loved. Some days the teaching and the parenting and the future-building will have to wait for tomorrow.

On the Bibas Family

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Since I first heard of the Bibas family’s capture, I thought the chances were remote that Shiri and the kids would survive captivity. It seemed unlikely to me that their captors would take the trouble to care for the children, and it seemed likely to me that their mother would either spend her last breath protecting her children or be unable to cope with the trauma of losing them. People are, after all, just people. רחמנא לצלן

Some may hear that belief and say I’m a pessimist.

Some may hear my belief in a stable and enduring solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict and say I’m an optimist.

The truth is I’m just a realist. I see what’s before my eyes and I extrapolate accordingly. Events tend to follow known patterns and can be anticipated.

Sometimes I’m wrong. Usually I’m right.

But my glasses are neither dark nor rose colored.

May we never lose another family the way we lost the Bibas family.

יי ינקום דמם

יי עוז לעמו יתן
יי יברך את עמו בשלום

Crazy but Saner

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I may think that our Israeli government is a coalition of incompetent politicians, populists, and petty thieves, but I’ve never worried about their incompetence reaching the level of accidentally firing everyone in charge of our nuclear stockpile and then not even knowing how to contact them to unfire them.

I’m not even sure that’s possible in this country. Too many procedural steps to go through.

Yet another reason to be grateful for the opportunity to immigrate to a still crazy but much saner country.

Ethnic Cleansing Is a Bad Idea

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POTUS’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is a very, very bad idea.

It’s immoral, illegal, impractical, and ineffective in securing Israel.

Israeli leaders should be distancing themselves from this dumpster fire of a suggestion as emphatically as possible without triggering the petty ire of POTUS.

It’s a tough line to walk but these are the times.

We need better solutions.

יי עוז לעמו יתן
יי יברך את עמו בשלום

Jerusalem Gothic

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An elderly man gets on the bus with a vase of flowers, meowing as he places the vase on the seat. Still meowing, he looks around, as if daring someone to contradict him.

I sit silently and look on. He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before.

The Only Horizontal Society

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In a world obsessed with hierarchies and the supremacy of some people over other people, one small nation stands alone as a horizontal society. Flawed, imperfect, very much a divine work in progress over thousands of years – with a tumultuous human history of being seduced by the allure of power over others – but the only horizontal society on the planet nevertheless.

Dispersed across all borders and including citizens of every ethnicity – all equally bound and freed by the law of a covenant that no king, emperor, or dictator can break. A nation of just laws, not powerful men – a brilliant rose among the thorns of tribalism and myth.

מי כעמך ישראל

This. Deal.

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Meanwhile here in the Land:

“Israel is about to free 110 Palestinian prisoners, including major terror convicts, nobody knows where they are going” (h/t Times of Israel)

But hey, we’re getting three hostages back!

After over a year of reducing Gaza to rubble!

Leaving Hamas funded, armed, and in power!

This deal, bro.

This. Deal.

All I can do is pray. Learn. Try to be less reactive. Try to be more helpful. Let a little light shine through the clouds. The rest is up to the Creator.

A New Deal for Israel

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I wrote a big long post about how aspects of this deal just don’t sit right with me, as I watch it unfold.

Deleted it.

Trying this approach instead: Given that This Is The Deal – what do we do after the exchange? What is the plan? Elections? Investigations? Strategy for finally dealing with Hamas?

Or return to October 6?

In moments like this, fear surges. The imagination runs wild. Defense mechanisms kick in. But we need to keep our collective eye on the prize: Change.

A New Deal for Israel.

The War in Gaza Failed

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The war in Gaza failed.

Hamas is still active, funded, armed, in power, and well-liked abroad.

Now can we have a strategy plz?

+ Elections

k thnx