PANIC IN THE NORTH

While Striar and I were flitting around Haifa's suburbs, the good folk of Kiryat Shmonah were getting all worked up over a rumor. There were whisperings of impending katyusha launchings that was somehow connected to yet another kidnapping of soldiers along the border. Businesses closed, parents took their kids out of school and generally just panicked. No katyushas landed an no soldiers have been reported missing and no mention was made on the news of Kiryat Shmonah's self proclaimed state of emergency. Today the conspiracy theories were rampant. 'Nothing was on the news because they still aren't sure'
was one. There were several other I couldn't quite follow because they were so strange and convoluted.
Israel is too small a country for anything like that to stay a secret for long. And there were a lot of sheepish faces in town today on the faces of those who went straight into panic mode. I'm glad I was out of town for the whole brouhaha.
On the other hand there is a funny feeling in the air up here. It's a little like the time just before last years war. I'm too tired and hurt too much to get into any more depth on it right now, but I will continue this tomorrow.

THE UPSIDE DOWN PYRAMID

You'd think that a pyramid that is balanced on it's tiny top (upside down) would eventually fall over. All the upside down pyramid that is Israel's system of government was set up so craftily by the founders that the closest it gets to tipping over is a very gentle sway in the wind. As Israelis don't understand what a real democracy is (they it's enough to have elections) I despair that we will ever fix the insanity that is our system of government and electoral procedures. It still works the way it was set up at the beginning. Back then it was pretty much the Union's game. The Histadrut which was the governing body for the pre state Jewish settlers chose who would run for any office. The Histadrut eventually mutated through several stages into what is today the Labor Party and the Histadrut is now the very corrupt union that still tries to run things. Eventually the Histadrut's rival organization (Leumit's Likud-Jabotinsky's followers) became popular enough to elect Begin, to just about everyone's surprise.
Being true politicians they had absolutely no incentive to change the way candidates were chosen, until Bibi Netanyahu became chairman and introduced an Israeli version of primaries. All the other parties followed suit and Israelis were more convinced than ever that this is a democracy. The point they keep missing is that in a real democracy, the power base should be the people, rather than the few at the top who are only interested in preserving their own power and to continue choosing who will run on their list for Knesset. It goes without saying that only people in the country who can set that pyramid on it's proper base are the government and Knesset. There is really no mechanism by which the people can force a change.
The MKs only represent loyalty factions in their parties and are selected in a strange primary vote that only decides their rank on the list. There is no such animal as local or even regional representation.
I would love nothing more than to turn that pyramid right side up, and work with a group that is trying to do just that. It's not going to happen as long as the 120 MKs hold out.
All the above is in partial explaination of why it's so hard to get rid of Olmert. Those 120 MKs have to vote him out and we the people don't have the necessary leverage to make them do it. Catch 22 anyone?

NO TIME WASTED

Barak certainly didn't waste any time getting rid of Peretz. In a move that shouldn't have surprised anyone, he went behind Peretz's back and with a phone call or two to Olmert in America put himself in as the new Minister of Defense. There was a cabinet vote by phone and Peretz was gone. Not that it's a bad thing that he's gone, but, if you are going to do that to a guy at least have the courtesy to tell him. It's the same old Barak who up and took the IDF out of southern Lebanon ahead of the schedule he'd previously announced.
This latest move could prove to be very expensive for him. It gives Bibi an even better chance at trouncing him in the next election. Not only was Barak's move against Peretz cowardly to say the least, he didn't even wait 48 hours to break his first campaign promise. He said that he wouldn't make any decisions about joining the present government until a date for new elections was agreed on. Huhn? He's taking over as Defense Minister on Tuesday and no date for elections has been discussed, never ming decided.
I'm kind of glad that he wasn't in his new office when the katyushas hit town a couple of hours ago. I have a feeling that same group who sent those over today just might give him a welcome gift on Tuesday. With Olmert and Livni both out of the country right now, I rather doubt that Peretz will even think about another adventure in Lebanon. The Lebanese government and hizzbullies were as surprised by the katyusha as we were. All the security types are saying it was just done in sympathy for the situation in Gaza by an Al Qaeda backed group. Their aim was so bad that they only hit a Pontiac outside a local water factory another parking lot and a UN post inside Lebanon. Thankfully no people were hurt.
Things sure are going to be interesting here for a while.

THE AMAZING EHUD OLMERT

Olmert scares me very much these days. No sooner did the PLO boss, Abu Mazzen decide to dissolve the unity government he had with the Hamas, than, oops, there was Olmert in Washington. G-d alone knows what Olmert hopes to accomplish there. It's more than likely that he will help get his arm twisted into helping the PLO. We've already helped them quite enough. We helped them to weapons that Hamas now plans to use against us. We helped them to the whole Gaza strip that Hamas now controls.
So, what's the answer? What do we do next? I'm not in favor of genocide. honest. I'm really not. So, what do we with two opposing warring groups whose purpose in life is to destroy us, and the US? Retake the territories and and try to sort them out that way? Iraq isn't exactly a shining example of that option.
What Olmert should do is come home right now, resign, and let Bibi Netanyahu and Uzi Landau start to straighten things out. I readily admit to not having a reasonable solution, and an unreasonable one is just that. It's time to turn the whole mess over to better minds. Not the usual international suspects whose solution would most likely be for us to go to Masada and jump, leaving the whole area to the so called palestinians. That would work for them, but I don't much like it.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED

So, Peres finally won an election, sort of. The Knesset elected him President after he twisted arms and threatened dire consequences to any MK who voted against. The only thing I'm going to say about that is "Go to Town Hall and read Caroline Glick on the subject.Here's the link:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=our_world_peress_big_day&ns=CarolineBGlick&dt=06/13/2007&page=full&comments=true
I'm not going to say any more as long as he's still alive. He's one of the very few people in this country who does scare me.
And of course Labor went and elected Barak to be their fearless leader. I guess I'll just have to suffer his smug superciliousness until the next election simply because I actually do have hope that Israelis have seen the light shine right through him. If I'm correct about that, it means Bibi will win the next election even if as the lesser of two evils. Barak winning will mean the end of Israel sooner rather than later.
We need someone strong with all the chaos in Gaza threatening to spill over into the West Bank. The Hamas have proven beyond a doubt that they only thing they know is how to use violence and destruction to get their own way. They joyfully killed fellow Gazans and destroyed facilities abandoned by the PLO for no good reason other than they we the PLO's. Isn't that wonderfully sensible? At their huge street party celebration they took care to not only threaten Israel, but the U.S. as well. And we are supposed treat them like rational humans? Be my guest and see what it gets you. At best, a bullet in the head before a flight off an 18th floor of a high rise building. They did that to two of their own, so what would they do to us? Skip the bullet in the head? When is the rest of the world going to wake up to what these so called palestinians really are? There's always someone out there just waiting to point the finger at us for all their problems, when in fact their problems are of their own making. After we came into possession of The West Bank and Gaza, the population was allowed practical autonomy locally. They elected their own mayors and local councilors, were allowed to work in Israel proper and they were much better off economically. Israelis were welcomed at their business and traveled freely in those areas. The very minute Arafart arrived on the scene with his merry band of terrorist henchmen, the mayors and other local officials were murdered for having been collaborators with the Zionist enemy. Those worked in Israel were violently encourage to become walking bombs. Hatred for Israel was spewed from every mosque, radio and TV station and taught in the schools. Some of this attitude spilled over into arab areas in Israel proper, and Israelis were suddenly persona non Grata in places they gone to for years. Sorry, but the so called palestinians are nothing more than a malignancy to their own people. In my mind, any one who sympathizes with them deserves what they'll get.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

After all this time spent writing here and talking just about every place else, it finally happened. Striar called to tell me that the Jerusalem Post, our English language newspaper had the above ads on the front page.It couldn't have happened at a better time. There's also one about the Golan Heights, but it's missing a minor detail. They forgot to mention the land we own in Syria. I hope that's just an oversight that will be corrected soon. So, there they all are!(a little fuzzy and not in order) At least I don't feel quite so alone any more. A few more voices have joined mine, and one of them is an ex cabinet minister from the Likud.
Sometimes I don't know whether to cry or laugh during the news and tonight was one of those times. An ex minister from Syria went to talk to one of the committees at the Knesset today and one of our Arab MKs chased after him yelling that he's a traitor to his people. It's not like we even have to ask which side he's on. The Arab MK I mean. The Syrian basically said what I've been saying all along; that Assad only wants the Golan, he couldn't care less about peace, he just wants the Golan. And all this was going on while the Hamas and PLO were going after each in Gaza yet again. The Hamas took some PLO guys to the 16th story of a building in Gaza, shot them in the knees, and head, then threw them off the building. And these bozos want a country?
As if all that isn't enough, Ehud Barak is trying to muscle his way back into power. The very same guy who turned tail and ran out of Lebanon leaving a basis for Sharon to pull out of Gaza unilaterally. Fat lot of good both those moves did us. I get physically ill when I see Barak on TV. He always has this arrogant, smug self satisfied expression on his face that makes my hands itch to wipe it off. He's more dangerous to us than all the terrorists together except maybe for Peres, but I'm not taking him on as long as he's alive.

RANDOM RAMBLING RANTING

It's business as usual in the Labor Party. They are embroiled in an election for their head guy. The first round soundly removed Peretz from the number one spot and put Ayalon and Barak in a dead heat to be decided next week in a run off vote. It makes me ill to be exposed to Barak's superior supercilious smirk daily. The man actually believes that he can actually lead the country to peace if elected. After all he has more experience than Ayalon, and thinks he can beat Netanyahu in a general election. Maybe he can beat Netanyahu, but I hope and pray that we won't be that stupid. After all, he's the military genius who turned tail and ordered a midnight scarper from South Lebanon almost 7 years ago leaving our allies, the SLA to fend for itself and most likely be slaughtered by the hizzies, after fighting with us for so many years against the hizzies. Our politicians have good reason to believe that Israeli voter has a short memory and will buy just about anything they are told. We did elect Olmert whose whole campaign was based on his having been Sharon's number two man. That should have been the best reason of all to not vote for him. Sharon lied and mislead the whole country right straight into the mess with Gazan kassams with his bald faced lies. So, being the good little dupes we are, we elected Olmert who went and made a huge mess of everything he touched. Rather than despair, which would be understandable considering our election history, I prefer to hope that this time we'll get it right. We are doomed if we don't.
There was a time when I thought that Avigdor Lieberman just might be part of the answer, then he went and joined Olmert's government and said he wanted to influence things from inside. That has never worked at any political level over here. It's nothing more than selling out your beliefs for a cushy chair around a shaky table and throwing any credibility he ever had right out the window.