THE FAT LADY IS SINGING

For the first time this morning I woke up feeling not only sad but lost. Twenty-four killed last night. Our children dying while I sleep. And I keep asking myself 'WHY'?

We went into this war to get back our kidnapped soldiers. So where is that in the UN agreement, Mr. Olmert?

We went into this war to rid the north of the threat of katyusha rockets. So where is that, Mr. Olmert?

We went into this war to free this nation from a deadly enemy? Where is he, Mr. Olmert?

The ink wasn't dry on the agreement and you jumped up, like a smart little boy in class and said, "ME, ME. LET ME SIGN FIRST." You wouldn't even let your/our Foreign Minister, Tsipi Livni go to the UN. Maybe you did her the best favour in her life. This stain is on your hands, Mr. Olmert.

So, let me see if I've got this straight. We went to war without accomplishing any of our goals. Am I right, Mr. Olmert?

One thing you did accomplish. Yes, sir, you did. You set the stage for the next war. One I hope with all my heart will be without you at the helm.

Israelis are a magnificent people. As Jews we know how to laugh at ourselves. Graffiti all over the city in Hebrew says: Wake up Sharon...Olmert is in a coma! Ahhh my wonderful Israelis.

I also learned something new this war. I learned the word...nif-gah-eem. Meh-tim are dead...p'tsu-im are wounded. So what the hell are nifgaheem? Nifgaheem is the scary word. It means that they are dead but the army hasn't identified the bodies yet. OY.

In the newspaper Haaretz... www.haaretz.com you can read articles by many journalists. I want to quote a bit from two articles written this week by Ari Shavit...look him up.

Mr. Shavit's first article, written on August 11 was titled: Olmert must go.

"Olmert is a prime minister whom journalists invented, journalists protected, and whose rule journalists preserved. Now the journalists are saying run away. You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power pring the next war very close, and then say---oops, I made a mistake....There is no mistake Ehud Olmert did not make this past month....Still, if Olmert had come to his senses as Golda Meir did during the Yom Kippur WAr, if he had become a leader, established a war cabinet and called the nation to a supreme effort that would change the face of the batte, a penetrating discussion of his failures could be postponed...Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a prime minister."

My youngest works for the Prime Minister's Office. He and a select hadfull of young men and women scan the news twenty-four/seven. Yesterday, Shabbat he worked from six a.m. until two and then again from midnight last night until seven this morning. He just came home.

'Imma, did you hear the news?'
'No, honey, I just got up.'
'Twenty-four dead.'
'Twenty-four dead?'
'Yes.'
'Go to sleep yeled (son).I'll take this watch.'

A few days ago I ranted and raved about the left wingers...I call them 'fine-shmekkers' which looslely means lovers of a good life. I wrote how my two friends sang and danced 'give peace a chance' remember that blog...'Be a Sport...Make a Phone Call'?

Ari Shavit wrote another article, August 12 in haaretz.

"What the hell happened to us? A simple thing happened:We were drugged by political correctness...It made the baseless assumption that the occupation is the source of evil. It assumed that it is the occupation that is preventing peace and causing unrest and perpetuating the instability. At the same time, political correctness assumed that Israeli strength is a given. That Israel is insanely strong. Therefore, political correctness disdained any attempt to build and maintain Israeli strength....Another thing happened: We were poisoned with an illusion of normalcy...Israel must prepare a defense envelope that will protect its internal environment from the external environment surrounding it....

"Both political correctness and the illusion-of-normalcy spread first and foremost among the Israeli elites (MY FINE-SHMEKKERS---now I understand the word!)...The Israeli public remained for the most part sober and strong...On the other hand, the Israeli elites of the past 20 years have become totally divorced from reality...Instead of being constuctive elites, in the past generation the Israeli elites have become dismantling elites...So that what is now being revealed before our eyes, as the smoke of the Katyushas continues to rise from the Lebanese thicket, is not a failure of the IDF but a failure of the elites that turned their back on the IDF....However, now it is wartime. The citizens of the north are still in bomb shelters, the soldiers of the regular and standing armies are risking their lives in a war that was not properly planned or properly defined and is being conducted poorly...Therefore, while the war is raging we must find the sprit and we must find the language that we lost in the years preceding the war...Israel tried with all its soul and all its might to be Athens. However, in this place, in this era, there is no future for an Athens without a speck of Sparta."

HATIKVAH
Kol od balevav p'nimah כל עוד בלבב פנימה
Nefesh Yehudi homiyah נפש יהודי הומיה
Ulfa'atey mizrach kadimah ולפאתי מזרח קדימה
Ayin l'tzion tzofiyah עין לציון צופיה
Od lo avdah tikvatenu עוד לא אבדה תקותנו
Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim התקוה בת שנות אלפים
L'hiyot am chofshi b'artzenu להיות עם חופשי בארצנו
Eretz Tzion v'Yerushalayim ארץ ציון וירושלים

Hatikva - English Lyrics
As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And forward to the East
To Zion, an eye looks
Our hope will not be lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem...

Have a good day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in