December 6, 2006
People get sick, you know. It doesn't mean they don't care. But thanks for asking.
I will have to keep this short so that i can recover.
Negotiations. Gates seems to be into getting us back into negotiations after a long time of the US telling us not to negotiate. I like negotiations.
December 7, 2006
I DO have a little problem with negotiations,actually. It is hard to say we will be giving back anything to Palestine. The West Bank was part of Jordan and the Golan part of Syria. Some of it was ours from '48. An Arab state of Palestine should exist, of course, but i think it should be clarified before we begin that if we are negotiating with Syria we should make sure about ownership and what is going to whom.
Just before i got so deathly ill, we went to see Boris Godonov, that old Russian propaganda classic. Now to see this nationalistic opera pageant, that admits a terrible past and its wonderful character, in Israel - is a real experience. I don't know much Russian - but the word for 'heart' must be repeated in at least 100 arias. (I know - there are only 31 in the whole opera - but it feels like 1000. So essentially this is about how Russia may commit sins, but it has heart. Since once you SAY you have heart you can commit all manner of evils, and we are seeing this every day in the news - both local and international. not just russia.
December 7, 2006
"You have a shoe fetish!" My daughter laughed when i told her i crawled out of bed today to go to Shiruzzi on Ashtorei Hafarchi Street to buy myself an incentive to get well. "Don't undervalue all my other fetishes," I responded. Shoes are only one of my many escapes. And afterword i said to Ezi, What about underwear - what about lipsticks?" "What about medicines?" he said, and I disagreed. "Medicines I need to hoard for the war."
The shoes, by the way, took away the last of my cough.
December 9, 2006
2 conversations: one last night with close friends from the U.S. and one today with local close friends. Me, i didn't talk much - i'm still sick. One of the Americans (really one of the most intelligent and learned people I know)was complaining about self-hating Israelis and how we really harm ourselves. He asked why and I came up with some silly response about wanting to fit in with the modern world etc. After I heard some Israelis talking today about what they are learning about history and archeology i suddenly realized that these guys really want to get to the bottom of things. They want to know the whole truth. They don't want to live through any kind of mythology. They know that so much of the present has been invented and they want to get back to before the inventions. And they are not self-hating.
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