Today I celebrate twice and both celebrations are mixture of happiness and sadness. The first reason for celebration is the birth of the person I love most. I am happy because of the birthday and sad because I am currently away home.

The second celebration is that 59 years ago the UN decided on the creation of the state of Israel. I am happy because Israel is the most wonderful place on earth – sad, because I am not happy about the way things look right now in Israel.

But, looking at the date – Nov 29th, is a good reason for celebrations.

For me it is

Happy New Year
To the banana republic
In which generals are busy
Criticizing the political level
And disobeying orders.
In which the Generals are fired
And receive a pension instead of jail time


Happy New Year
To the banana republic
In which countless investigation committees
Produce mountains of draft papers
That no one will read
And those mountains will find their way
To a darken government archive

Happy New Year
To the banana republic
That in spit of all of the above
Has a gorgeous sun
Blue skies
Wonderful sea (even though it’s a little polluted)

Happy New Year Israel

Shit happens all the time. It might not happen all the time for each of us but it happens more often than not.

Each of us has his/her own definition for shit, but shit happens and there is no one that can escape it.

Even god had shit happen to him. Look at the Noah story – major shit. If you read the bible you will find lots of it that god had to deal with – Adam and Eve, Babylon Tower, David and Bathsheba, the holocaust….

So, god’s hands are full of it, since shit happens.

Job had some major shit happening to him – because god was bored and placed bets with satan.

Now, when shit happens to each and every one of us, we can either solve it or whine about it. God solved a world issue, he made every one drown. Job on the other hand sat down and whined

The point is that when shits happen you have it all over you and it stinks, oh yes, does it ever.

All I hear around me, ever since I came back to Israel, is that we were fucked by the world. As if the world prevented us from fighting, winning, losing, or what ever it is we were doing.

Those of you that know me, know that I am a selfish person, and in my opinion, selfishness is the only way to make things right. I do not share.

I do not share my victories
I do not share my defeats
I do not share the fame
Nor share the blame

Every thing I do is my responsibility, my pain, my gain, my gamble, my risk, my thinking, my success and my failure.

If people would be as selfish as I am, if states would be that selfish, if every one would be accountable for their actions, than the world would be a better place.

Humanity got used to the situation in which people and nations are not accountable for what they do. I can give you two examples that haunt Israel, but all you need is to open the newspaper and read all the examples you need, such as criminals being declared innocent, because they had a "hard" childhood, etc...

The first example is the suffering of the population in the Palestinian authority. After the Hamas won the elections with an overwhelming majority, Israel responded by cutting out the Palestinian authority financial resources. People in Israel and the world protested, saying that this is a “collective” punishment of the population.

Well my friends, it better damn be a collective punishment. The Hamas won the elections because the majority of the population voted for terror, voted for the destruction of Israel. As they keep telling us, it was democratic elections and no one forced the Palestinian majority to vote for the Hamas.

If the human standard was that nations are accountable for their actions, it would be no wonder that the Palestinian population is punished by Israel. right now Israel is expected to sit quietly and let the Hamas do what ever they want, just because they were voted for in a democratic way.

Well the Palestinians should be selfish and get what they voted for – war.

The other example is the war in Lebanon. Civilians are being used by the Hezbollah as human shields. Israel is being criticized for hurting civilians. According to this criticism Israel should hold back and not defend itself, as if there is no other possibility.

Well there are other possibilities. There are 4 million Lebanese that are being held as hostages by a few thousands Hezbollah members. They are mingled, and all they have to do in order to prevent being hit by Israel is resist the Hezbollah, and chase it away.

Lebanon should be selfish. Lebanon and the Lebanese people should be accountable and decide what they want – fight Hezbollah or fight Israel.

As I wrote, I am selfish. being selfish places me in the moderate left side of the Israeli political map. I would go a long way to make peace with other selfish people and nations. But, being selfish also mean I will not tolerate my life being threatened by unselfish people.

I don’t know when I will write a journal entry again, since I am going home. Next week is “Rosh Hashanah” – the Jewish New Year. Exactly a year ago (ok, ok, a year minus 3 days ago) I met the most wonderful person in the world. I was blessed and I have all I will ever want.

To you all I wish - may the coming year make you as happy as I am