[One morning last week I came back from early services to find an avalanche of bread on our front walk and lawn. Clearly the Holy Hurler is back at work. The rear of our place doesn’t have a square foot without a pyramid of canine excrescence, and now he is determined to get the front of the house decorated as well. Will I have to install security cameras to catch him in the act?]
[Muffy, bored with her role as heroine, is back to being Muffy the Slut. Whenever a prospective male is in sight she raises her tail to display the merchandise.
Two kittens, now almost fully grown, from her first litter are around, as is one from her second litter. A new visitor is a scraggly skin-and-bones one-eyed cat I’ve named The Pirate. The coloring seems to be Muffy’s but this pirate is so filthy it’s hard to be certain.
Since the onset of winter, and particularly since the ‘war’ began three weeks ago, we have been going through cat vittles at an amazing rate. I thought it has to do with cold weather, and the felines’ need to burn calories to stay warm. But a neighbor says all the animals are affected by the anxiety vibes adults and children are giving off. The animals need, she says, comfort food as much as we do.]
GOODBYE 31: January 17/18, 2009
SIRENS AND SERPENTS
One of the problems with being a politician is that you lie with such regularity no one believes you on those rare occasions when you tell the truth.
Barak and Livni are saying the operation in Gaza has achieved its goal, but the public can’t accept it as the rockets keep falling. Naive Israelis. They thought the goal was to stop the attacks when, in fact, the goal was to increase the electoral prospects of Barak and Livni.
These prospects having increased – quite dramatically in the case of Barak – the curtain can be lowered on the Gaza Follies. It is midnight as I write this. At 2am a unilateral cease fire goes into effect. And if the bad guys keep shooting? We will complain to our friends, the Egyptians. And we will get really, really, really annoyed.
Another factor leading to the Unilateral Surrender, sorry, Unilateral Cease Fire, is that the Enlightened Ones have been taken aback by the degree of religious fervor the war has unleashed.
Miracle stories abound, starting with the one in which two soldiers are directed away from a building by a woman in black who identifies herself as the Matriarch Rachel. Moments later the booby-trapped building explodes.
It would be easy to mock this tale with a pitying and condescending smile. As a veteran of Gush Katif where I witnessed numerous miracles, and as a recipient of bombs and bullets that should have sent me to Valhalla but which I survived, I know better than to dismiss this and all the other tales.
What must infuriate the Enlightened Ones are the pictures of secular soldiers putting on ritual fringes, kissing Torahs and asking religious people to pray for their safety.
Definitely not in keeping with their view of Israel as a secular, progressive state.
Last Monday some forty-three Women in Green members and friends showed up. We had been expecting twenty, and were set up for that number. With the overflow we had to use our front lawn, smelling – to my shame – of fresh dog poop. It was wonderful seeing these people, dear friends, valued friends, true comrades in arms. It was less wonderful seeing that they were accompanied by a crew from Israel television Channel 1.
I had promised myself to do no more interviews, and tried to ignore the tv crew who intruded on the hugging/kissing/reminiscing and nagged for ‘just a few words’. With some Women in Greeners saying ‘talk to them, Moshe’ I agreed.
Looking around to see if Rachel was in the vicinity, and finding the coast clear, I did one of my trademark shticks, one that Rachel hates. I turned to the cameraman and stuck my cigar up one nostril. “Why are you doing that?” said the interviewer, taken aback.
“This way I can continue to smoke while talking to you.”
We never did see our segment on television, but have been told that Rachel was very effective.
By the time Women in Green departed Rachel was near collapse. We put the house back in order and, just as Rachel was about to lie down we were informed that reporters from Sweden, Norway and Canada were on the way. Rachel pleaded with me to deal with them and I, on a role from my earlier shtick, agreed.
The Swedes and Norwegians arrived simultaneously, though in separate cars. I recognized the Norwegian as one who had done a hatchet job on us in Gush Katif. When told that I wouldn’t see her until the Swedes left she got huffy and demanded to see Rachel. Rachel, I told her, was busy with a representative of Morpheus Magazine. In compensation I directed her to a gentleman whose English was already passé in the time of Chaucer and who spoke in such a slow and convoluted manner listeners were rumored to have slit their wrists while listening to him.
The Swede was a delight, and not just because she was beautiful. Most of the time was spent discussing Scandinavian composers, about whom she was very knowledgeable, so I was in heaven. For all I know she will do a piece like ‘Hitler loved Wagner, Moshe loves Lars-Erik Larsson’. I really don’t care. A wonderful hour.
That left the Canadian, who never showed up. Rumor has it his dogsled overturned, he was pissed on by a penguin, mauled by a moose, and turned into blubber by a bear.
We had a houseguest for several days, a dear old friend from Brooklyn. Desperate to escape from here, even if only for a few hours after yesterday, we took him to the village near Rehovot where we had celebrated Rachel’s birthday. Everything was fine until we were ready to leave. I couldn’t start the car. The alarm went off and would not stop. Pressing the code didn’t help. Finally we managed to get it going, and assumed the problem was a weak battery in our car starter.
The next day, Wednesday, I took Rachel to Ashkelon for an appointment, and the car wouldn’t start when we were ready to return. The alarm was going off, and when a woman approached I apologized for the noise.
“Don’t apologize” she said, “I have the same problem. It’s the army…”
She proceeded to explain that our Peace Partners in Gaza planted many mines and booby traps that are set off by a remote car starter, and to neutralize these the army has equipment that renders many frequencies unusable. I have since learned that thousands of our cars are affected.
The inconvenience is a small price to pay for keeping our boys safe in the war effort, but infuriatingly large if the war effort exists solely to boost Barak and Livni.
2am. I suspect the bad guys will honor the cease fire, violating it just enough to show they are still in charge, but not enough to force genuine retaliation. Then, when the elections are over, and a government of snivelers is formed, they will resume full scale shooting. If I were a betting man, and had something to bet with, I would wager that we will have a coalition government with Netanyahu the Spineless as Prime Munster, and Barak and Livni reprising their current roles as Virtual Defense Minister and Brain-Dead Foreign Secretary. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
9am Two rockets have just fallen on Sderot. Does that upset us? Of course not! We are opening all the crossings so that humanitarian aid can flow in, and are opening field hospitals at certain crossings so that injured Peace Partners can receive first aid before being transferred to hospitals in Israel. [short pause while I mop up my vomit]
Rhetorical questions. Will the world love us now? Will they at least hate us less?
2pm Sirens sounded here and everyone, except you know who, raced to the sewervilla. I stood outside, puffing away, a laundry basket on my head for protection. Those emerging from the sewervilla after the explosion looked, laughed, and applauded. My reputation as Resident Lunatic is secure.
Sirens go off several times each day, but the one that disturbed me most was the siren set off in Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh by a malfunction. My mother and her neighbors were panic stricken.
On Thursday consecutive sirens were heard late afternoon. Rachel hurried out and I promised to follow, but stayed glued to the tv. It was the last scene of Karl Marx’s ‘A Night at the Opera’ and Kitty Carlisle was singing an aria from Puccini’s “Muppets In Outer Space”. I couldn’t help noting that the siren was more on key than the soprano.
Friday afternoon we had four consecutive sirens, the last just as Shabbat began. This last had the loudest explosion and all through Shabbat rumors spread about where the missile had landed. None of the rumors has been confirmed.
As Shabbat ended a siren was heard, but few responded. In our case we could hardly waddle. A neighbor – the wife of the Holy Hurler! – had brought us her home-baked bread, a genuine Yemenite delight, consisting of one part zaatar, one part cumin, and eight parts cement.
Now we can only watch as the homunculi who rule boast of their glorious triumph, while we weep at how they have once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
When the Almighty punished serpents for tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He made them crawl. But in His wisdom, He allowed them to remain dangerous. Snakes may crawl, but they also bite. You may find a snake loathsome, but at least you treat it with caution if not respect.
When the Almighty made us – His people – loathsome crawlers couldn’t He have left us with something that would have made the world treat us with caution rather than contempt?
- moshe
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