They Never Lose, We Never Win

I found this article by Rabbi Berel Wein about the latest war with Lebanon very enlightening.

We got a new pet

We got a new pet - a gecko. He ran into a our bed room in the middle of the night. My wife saw him running on the ceiling right above the bed and started screaming on the top of her lungs. It was really funny.

He was running on the ceiling.

And then I got a mop and got him to run down the wall.

And then he ended up inside a cup.

This is a Mediterranean House Gecko. In Hebrew he is called Shmamit HaBatim - שממית הבתים

We didn't name him yet. I still have to get a terrarium for him, because I don't think he is very happy in his plastic container.

Welcome New Olim!

The largest number of new olim from the US, UK and Canada in one day, landed yeterday in Israel. Welcome to all new olim!!!

I am glad see that my worries about Olmert saying something stupid didn't come true. He welcomed the new olim yesterday at the airport. Luckily he didn't say anything dumb. But he didn't get a standing ovation either.

Soon afterward, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the crowd, which gave him a muted welcome. He noted the difficult experience the country has recently been through, but said, "One thing that really strengthens this country is aliya."

He told the audience of teary immigrants, boisterous children and squealing pets, "When more than 500 Jews on this day come to the State of Israel, what they say to the world is, 'We are afraid of no one, because we trust the State of Israel, we believe in the future of Israel and we will build the State of Israel with all the Jewish people.'"

Rebuilding the broken

Hizzbolah announced that they will pay for destroyed homes in Lebanon. What I thought was interesting that they didn't just promise to pay for it, but they actually specified exactly what they will do.

A Hizbullah official said that people whose homes were totally destroyed will get money for one year of rent as well as for new furniture. Those whose homes were damaged will either fix it themselves and then collect money, or Hizbullah will send workers to do the job.

I don't know if these are just empty promises or they really mean it, but from what I have heard about HIzzbolah, if they say it, they mean it. I know they are doing it for PR and to restablish their image in Lebanon, and not out of the goodness of their heart, but still.

Is our government going to pay for people's broken homes, pay their rent, or send workers? Or how about at least reimburse them for what they spent in order to flee the rockets? Probably not.

The View

As I was reading the article about how our Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, sold all of his stock shares right after the soldiers abduction (I guess in anticipation of a war and the market crashing), and his probable resignation over the disaster in Lebanon, I remembered the poem by a famous Russian-Jewish (apostate) author, Alexander Galich, which was shown to me for the first time by my late grandfather a"h.

The original Russian commentary and text appears on this site. I have pasted it below, as well. Excuse my crude English translation.


Alexander Galich – The View

In Serebryaniy Bor (a small town near Moscow), near the entrance to the Rest Home (Boarding House) of the Central Theater, there is a wooden pillar that is sticking out of the ground. On it there are painted on division lines with numbers, from one to seven. On top of the pole there is a pulley wheel through which passes a steel cable. From one side of the pole the cable goes into the ground and from the other there is hanging a heavy weight.

The guard of the house explained to me:

This is Alexander Arkadyevich is a shit-meter. The cable is connected to the outhouse pit. As the level of the crap in the pit goes up, the weight goes down. While it’s on two or three, it’s ok. But when it reaches five or six, that means it’s a problem, need to call the scoopers.

I thought that this creation of the Russian masters wasn’t only useful, but also very educational. Therefore I dedicated to it the following philosophical piece, which I humbly named:

The View

It was murky and grey
And the forest stood still
Just the shit-meter’s weight
Slightly swayed on the hill.
Not all is in vain in this world
Although it’s not worth a spit
As long as we have weights
And you see the level of shit.

---

А.Галич - Пейзаж

В Серебряном Боре, у въезда в Дом отдыха
артистов Большого театра,стоит,врытый в землю,
неуклюже-отесанный, деревянный столб. Малярной
кистью, небрежно и грубо, на столбе нанесены
деления с цифрами -- от единицы до семерки. К
верху столба прилажено колесико, через которое
пропущена довольно толстая проволока. С одной
стороны столба проволока уходит в землю, а с
другой -- к ней подвешена тяжелая гиря.
Сторож Дома отдыха объяснил мне:
-- А это, Александр Аркадьевич, говномер...
Проволока, она, стало быть, подведена к яме
ассенизационной! Уровень,значит, повышается --
гиря понижается... Пока она на двойке-тройке
качается -- ничего...
А как до пятерки-шестерки дойдет -- тогда
беда,тогда, значит, надо из города золотариков
вызывать...
Мне показалось это творение русского
умельца не только полезным, но и весьма
поучительным. И я посвятил ему философский
этюд, который назвал эпически-скромно:

ПЕЙЗАЖ

Все было пасмурно и серо,
И лес стоял, как неживой,
И только гиря говномера
Слегка качала головой.
Не все напрасно в этом мире,
(Хотя и грош ему цена !),
Покуда существуют гири
И виден уровень говна !

What's wrong with this picture?

This just showed up on Haaretz's front page. Look at the picture and look at the headline underneath it. See anything wrong with it? Why is that soldier engulfed in a ton of flames while crossing the Lebanese border back into Israel?


An IDF soldier atop an armored personnel carrier crossing back into Israel from southern Lebanon on Tuesday. (Nir Kafri)

Even the Lebanese wanted us to win

Even the Lebanese wanted us to beat Hizbolah. How sad? We failed everyone, even the enemy.

Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr said the Lebanese army would send 15,000 troops to the north of the Litani River around the end of the week, ready to enter the southern border area.

But he said the army would not be disarming Hezbollah, who have controlled the area for six years. "The army is not going to the south to strip Hezbollah of weapons and do the work Israel did not," he told LBC Television.

What's he gonna say?

Exactly a year ago when we made aliyah, Olmert was the one to speak in front of mainly right-wing religious crowd. He made some dumb comments about the disengagement which almost caused a riot in the terminal. And now, after a practically failed war, when no one likes him, he is planning to address the same type of a crowd, except much bigger, again? He just doesn't learn. I just hope he doesn't tell them how "we won", and "if they just would have showed up earlier we would not have had this war at all", or some other stupidity.

And now we are maraudering?

This is insane. IDF general says that if IDF soldiers in Lebanon don't have enough food or water they can break into Lebanese stores and steal it. Read on.

Are they out of their minds? Do they realize what the world will say? Besides, the greatest army in the Middle East can't provide their soldiers stationed only a few miles away from the border with food and water??? What??? How low did we sink? We have stooped to become marauders like all the other plundering loser armies of the world.

What ever the outcome of this war is, but our government and IDF command has got to go. I know I voted for them just a few months ago, but this is crossing all the lines.

Update:
Jameel posted that it's ok to do this according to Geneva convention.
Well at least we are legally ok. But since when does the world care about what we do is legal? I sitll think this is not something IDF should trumpet, especially to the media.

Why do Christians love hell so much?

I always thought that Christians don't really like the idea of hell, but they don't have a choice because that's what they are always preached. However that turned out to be not true. Read about the preacher who decided to preach that hell is not a real place and lost all of his followers.

What have we achieved?

As we are getting closer the so called cease-fire dead line I have been thinking about the status of what we have achieved in this war. So far we have not defeated Hezbollah, as today they pounded us with over 200 rockets, we have not brought our soldiers back, and we lost over 100 soldiers and even more civilians and over $1 billion. Close to a million people either left their homes or spent the last month in shelters.

So what is it all worth it? I don't know. I just feel like rambling at this point, because I got really upset today when over 24 soldiers have been killed in one day.

Our government has definitely screwed up big time and even if Olmert resigns or gets outvoted I don't see anyone else who is much better to take his place.

I kind of feel like Yirmiyah right now, depressed and frustrated.
אֲנִי הַגֶּבֶר רָאָה עֳנִי - איכה ג:א
I am the man who has seen affliction (Eicha 3:1)

Ahmadinejad launches personal blog

This was the latest headline on Haaretz:
"Iranian president Ahmadinejad launches personal blog (Reuters)"

Oh boy, I can't wait to read this one. Still can't find the link though.

Updated: 08/14/06
Jameel posted the link to the blog: www.ahmadinejad.ir

But be aware, some links on the blog upload viruses to your PC if it recognizes (by the IP) that you're from Israel. What a low life. He is trying to get us even through his blog.

The blog is in 4 languages. It looks like there is a whole team staffing it. I wonder who is actually writing it, Ahmadinejad or one of his writers, or more like a bunch of his writers? What a bunch of #&%*.

A profile of a normal Muslim family

This was a first one for me. Read this profile of a normal Muslim Israeli family. I love the father's statement: "I am happy that I am not religious". I guess religion is the problem here. If only Nasrallah would watch more MTV and drink more beer everything might have been ok.

A Letter from Zippori

This is an email I received today from an American Oleh who runs a Bed and Breakfast in the Galilee, in Moshav Zippori.

Dear friends,

Thanks to everyone who has written and expressed support and worried about us. We are fine! I'm sorry that I'm answering you back in a mass mail, but I figure this is the best way to let everyone know what is going on.
I came back yesterday after more than 2 weeks in reserve duty all over the north. I serve a spokesman to the foreign press, and was kept quite busy fighting off TV, radio and print journalists from all over the world. I've been taking journalists for many years on tours of the border with Hezbollah and I'm on record telling them all that when the war starts, the Hezb is going to rain thousands of missles all over the north and there isn't anything that we will be able to do to stop them. Still, no one failed to ask if we weren't surprised when it happened. We have been practicing a policy of restraint for years, hoping that the longer we put off the conflict, we might get lucky and history would catch up with the Hezbollah and they would disappear back down the hole they crawled out of. Unfortunately the Iranians never rose up to overthrow the facist towelheads that have been oppressing the Persian people since 1977. And the Lebanese, despite having an excellent chance fall in their laps, never took the opportunity to take their country back for themselves and instead chose to make a deal with Nassrullah.. The war was probably inevitable for a while now and it's outcome is also unavoidable.
Sorry to be pessimistic. I don't think it makes a difference whether we pound the shit out of Beirut or not, I hope we do because it will give Nasrullah something to fix when he starts running the place and something for the Iranians to piss money away on instead of new weapons. The loser of the whole mess is Lebanon and there isn't a people who deserve it more, they were stupid enough to dismantle their militias, which would have been their only defense against this bully. We had to go in there last time to throw out the PLO because they were too busy lying on the beach, and this time, why bother? Let the best and the brightest emigrate to South America and let the Iranians turn what's left into some kind of Shiite slum on the Mediteranean.
I'm sure we'll have no problem coming up with a mutual deterence pack with Hezbullah, we were never their real target to begin with and once Nassrullah is sitting in the palace in Ba'abda, he'll have bigger global jihad fish to fry.
The big question for us is what the Syrians will do. By the time anyone is reading this, we might be at war with Syria, it's that close. It all depends on what goes in that vast empty space between Bashar Assad's ears. Syria has no argument with Israel, the Golan Heights is bullshit, any Syrian leader prefers the IDF sitting up there instead of some ambitious Syrian General controlling a Division or two. For over 30 years we've been watching the back of the Father and the son, and it serves their strategic purposes that we stay there. No one in the Syrian govt gives a shit about "sacred Syrian soil" All they want is to perpetuate the regime and keep their heads attached to their necks. If they think that that it's a clever strategic decision getting their army destroyed for the sake of their buddy Nassrullah, wait till they see how it feels when the Iranians eat them for lunch.
Anyway, these are just some of what I feel like saying whenever I get asked "What do you think will happen next? I dunno, and I wouldn't express these thoughts in uniform, and I never went to the school where they taught strategic analysis. I can't even take credit for being a simple soldier. I saw plenty of real soldiers the last few weeks and they're big brave young guys who have a life in front of them that they plan to live. The Hezbollah takes the same type of kids and teaches them that dying is the best thing they could do for Allah and the kids swallow it whole. The truth be told, in Moslem shitholes like Lebanon and Iran, they wont have much of a life anyway.
I spent most of my days on the front line and got shelled regularly, twice it was close enough to knock me off my feet. And I learned a true thing they said in London during the V-1 bombings: If you heard it, that means that it missed, if you didn't hear it, then what difference does it make?
The B&B is pretty empty, it's not that we're close enought to get shelled (though at least 4 katyushas fell in this area) but no one is in the mood to go on vacation, we lost all our summer business and don't know how long it will be before things get better. But, thank God, we are all fine. The kids see it all as a big adventure and we watch the news every night and the boys have put up bumper stickers on their doors "WE WILL WIN" and "WE ARE STRONG' and I think we are. And with the experience that comes from getting this far, If we take it a day at a time, this too will pass, and things will return to be not much different from the way they were before, except of course, for the poor families of both soldiers and civilians who had the bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and soldiers who put themselves in between us and the bad guys.
Please remain in touch everybody, don't believe everything you read in the papers and have a good summer.

[Name Removed]
Moshav Zippori
www.zipori.com

Shaving on Motzaei Tisha B’Av

Over 3 weeks my beard grows really huge and it drives me absolutely crazy. So I wanted to mention that it is permitted to shave your beard right after the 9th of Av at night even though regular hair cutting and eating meat and drinking wine is prohibited until after chatzos of the following day.

The Chida in Machzikei Bracha (OH 458:4) write as follows: “In a city where the custom is to eat meat on the nigh of the 10th of Av and a particular person has the custom not to, as long as he did not accept this custom (i.e. to wait until the following day) as a neder and it happened to him that his period of mourning (for a family member) was over during the 9 days (i.e. he could not cut his hair before the week of 9th of Av). Since the custom in these cities to shave beards with either a chemical or scissors these people have great pain not to be able to shave, and therefore it seems to me that they would be permitted to shave their beards right after the 9th of Av at night, since it’s only a custm and the main halacha permits it anyway. Etc…”

The Shaarey Teshuva (OH 458:2) makes the same point as the Chida, and he adds from the Hagahos Maimoniyos that shaving would permitted even if the person has the custom not to eat meat until after chatzos on the following day, because one has nothing to do with the other.

So this implies since our practice is to shave all the time and it really bothers us when we can’t do it for a long time it would seem from this Chid and the Shaarei Teshuva that we can shave right after Tisha B’Av even though we don’t cut out regular hair and eat meat until the following day.

Al Eleh Ani Bochiya

I am sick and tired of reading about the Lebanese displaced. Every single media outlet reports how many hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from their homes. But what about the Israeli displaced? How come no one reports about them? There are over 350,000 Israelis who have been displaced from their homes. By us in Bet Shemesh there are hundreds of families sleeping in local schools and community centers who can't work and don't hav enough money and clothes. How come no one reports about them?

I got really annoyed after seeing this cute map that MSNBC has posted showing locations of the Lebanese displayed. And look who provided the map, the Lebanese government and the UN. The only article that I have seen talking about Israeli displaced was this one in NY Times. Seriously, what’s wrong with the world?

It’s the night of Tisha B’Av and “about these I cry”.