Goodbye 32

[I owe a debt of gratitude to Muffy-the-Slut’s paramour, The Impregnator. I hate this creature so passionately that when he appears I forget my aches, pains, physical limitations and try and harm the furry fiend.

I, who won’t bend down to pick up a coin lest I have a stroke from the exertion, am bending for stones though I turn red and the blood rushes to my head.

I, who have torn ligaments in my arm, am hurling these stones though I barely have strength to pick my nose.

I, who can barely move on two mangled legs, run after a creature who flies on four legs.

So thank you, you furry feces, for providing me with the only exercise I get.]


[Our car alarms are working once again. But for the period that thousands of car alarms were disconnected we had a bright and shining example of co-existence as Jewish and Arab car thieves worked together in harmony. May this heartwarming occurrence inspire us to even greater cooperation in future.]


[I fear the natural world is turning against me. We occasionally see a lizard on an outside wall. Suddenly dead lizards litter our lawn. Worse, flying rats a.k.a. pigeons, are dive-bombing our laundry whenever I hang it out. Do I have to perform some sacrifice to appease the deities? Serious suggestions gratefully accepted.]


GOODBYE 32, THE SOUND OF SILENCE


Hardly. The sirens may be silent but planes streak over at low levels almost hourly. What a waste of expensive aviation gasoline. And if the reporters no longer call or visit – praise be to Allah! – the shnorrers have returned en masse. The former, at least, limited their depredations to daylight. The latter work from dawn to midnight.


Not one person I have spoken to – okay, you know I hardly talk to anyone these days – believes the quiet will last very long. The most optimistic think it may last several weeks. So, what did we achieve?


The outpouring of hatred against us during the war has neither surprised nor upset me. The Palestinian Narrative, that they are an ancient people dispossessed by interloper Jews, has achieved a level of acceptance everywhere, aided and abetted by self-hating Jews. It is, like Global Warming, a religious belief that cannot be argued against. What has thrown me for a loop is the degree of Jewish participation in the anti-Jewish demonstrations. To see a young woman holding a sign "Queer Jews for Palestine" in a California demonstration has upset me far more than it should have amused me. It simply buttresses my own anti-Semitism.


[Rachel is always reminding me that I'm less an anti-Semite than an anti-everything. And she's right. I don't discriminate. I hate almost everybody equally.]


We attended a meeting of people who want to return to Gush Katif. I always say, whoever is first, I’ll be second. It is the triumph of hope against realism. There were about thirty people, the usual suspects, my kind of people. The meeting had been called by Daniella Weiss, a founder of Gush Emunim and a very great lady. That there are as many Jews as there are today in Judea and Samaria is largely due to her pioneering efforts after the Six Day War.

The meeting itself was less than satisfactory. Lots of well-meaning chatter. Perhaps I'm being unfair. All beginnings are difficult. I suspect that I am terrified of being disappointed. Losing the paradise of Gush Katif just over three years ago almost killed me. To lose it again… would certainly finish me.


4 February. Just when you think it can't get worse, that we have hit bottom and the only way is up, our Fearless Leaders pull out their picks, axes and shovels and dig us even deeper.

Who would have thought they were devotees of "The Howdy Doody Show" and had modeled themselves on Phineas T. Bluster?

A soldier is killed by a roadside bomb? Our response: bluster.

Kassam rockets hit Sderot, including one next to a kindergarten? Bluster, bluster.

A Grad missile, yesterday, in the center of Ashkelon? Bluster, bluster, bluster.

Of course the air force bombs empty buildings, empty because their occupants have been forewarned. How humane. How stupid. How Jewish.

It's Groundhog Day. Was there a war? Soldiers killed? Great heroism? Miracles? Spiritual awakening? Victory declared? Fearless Leaders preening over their 'accomplishments'?

Elections, seven days away, are often given as the reason we don't respond. Nonsense! Our politicians took us into this war solely because of imminent elections. And don't be surprised if, in a day or two, we see the March of the Murderers as thousands of imprisoned 'militants', their hands forever stained with our blood, walk free in exchange for Gilad Schalit. Whether Schalit is vertical or horizontal is immaterial. "We got him back!" our Fearless Leaders will exclaim. "Give us your votes!"

The real problem is that Jews talk. And talk. And talk. Our propensity for verbosity guarantees paralysis. We never act. We barely react. It is a sometimes loveable, sometimes annoying flaw in the Western Jewish Diaspora. In the Middle Eastern jungle in which we live, it is a fatal flaw.


[Apropos elections… I'll be voting for the National Union because I love and trust their number three, Dr. Arye Eldad. Otherwise I wouldn't bother voting.

Ah, for the days of the Roman Senate, when a horse could be elected Senator. Imagine, a noble steed… In our Knesset we are already inundated with chickens, snakes and swine.]

moshe