alexist

There was an interview with Will Self in this week's Jewish Chronicle. He came out with a spectacularly dumb comment about Israel: It has a right to exist, but only if it behaves! Is there any other country in the world whose existence is predicated on its behaviour? By that logic, Germany should have ceased to exist after 1945. Heck, half the countries in the world would cease to exist.

In other news, my friend's husband received his call-up today :(

I'm continually amazed at the British newspapers.

They grudgingly admit that Hizbullah's activities are wrong. Yet, they have no solution, other than "Israel should stop".

On Friday, the commentators in the Independent said 2 things:
1) That the Lebanese government cannot stop Hizbullah
2) That an international force wouldn't be tolerated by the Lebanese--it would be seen as a stooge of the West and a repeat of 1982-3.

So if Israel can't react to Hizbullah (and as the Economist pointed out last week, the attacks may be disproportionate in terms of the immediate action, but possibly not in terms of the wider threat Hizbullah and its backers represent), and Lebanon can't control them, and an international force will fail--what should we do?

Oh yes--sit back and take it. Already, there's been comment and letters trying to link Hizbullah and Palestine. IT'S NOT THE SAME THING. Sheikh Nasrallah is open about his goals: the destruction of Israel and the Jews. He says it clearly. He doesn't care about a Palestinian state; he's still fighting the war of 1948.

Again, I don't necessarily think every Israeli attack is correct, and I'm unsure if Israel can unseat Hizbullah using its current strategy. But I do believe that it's a real threat. It's not just about a couple of kidnapped soldiers. That was just a test. If outsiders want the attacks to stop, they have to come up with a real plan. UNIFIL has been a failure for 28 years. It can only observe. (And I'm unsure about ANY UN-backed force, simply because they're so rarely effective.) If they want Israel to stop attacking, they need to neutralise Hizbullah. Plain and simple.

His pet charity has links to Hamas (the report alleges that the Charity Commission was wrong when it cleared Interpal).

Still not arranged one :(

What's killing us is scheduling:

Sept 9-12: Neil has business trip to Athens
23-24 (from sunset on the 22nd): Rosh Hashana
2 Oct (from sunset on the 1st): Yom Kippur

Try to find a free week in that--it bumps into too many weekends :( only possibility is the 1st week of September and I'm afraid things will still be crowded.

My mother's still making noises about us visiting, but it won't happen unless they somehow manage to move (no room for us at the moment! We could stay with my grandma I guess...) Although if it was just that, it would be all right, because I wouldn't mind spending Rosh Hashana there. I'd probably miss services (no shul within walking distance of parents'; there is one right by my grandma's, but yomim noraim tickets are always outrageously expensive in New York) but it's much less lonely than being on our own here.

I can fly till the end of October, but we'd wanted to go a bit earlier, so we'd get the end of the hot weather.

At this point, I forsee us never getting our stuff together, and not going anywhere...