Sitting with a bunch of Israelis, drinking coffee, beer and smoking cigarettes .... never been with so many people who smoke........shmucks.
Just tonight I sat listening to a 90 minute conversation about the price of underwear.
Some guy had some new undies in his car and people at the table were picking out undies and paying the guy 12 shekels (3 bucks) per undie.
Only in Israel could you have a 90 minute discussion of the price of undies.
All with chain smokers.
In the background were cages of about 50 birds...pigeons, parrots, also muskrats, gerbils, 2 dogs.
The man of the house, my friend's brother, Zvika, his business is selling pets.
The back of his house, outside, looks like a zoo.
Only in Israel!
He's divorced with a hot, younger Ukrainian girlfriend who was fun and talked raunchily.
I saw a cute little lizard today cross the sidewalk in front of me.
I marvelled at how cute he was. Only about an inch an a half long.
He proceeded to go out into the street and get flattened.
I thought it must have been a metaphor for something.
We have no idea when death is coming......and after it comes.....we have no idea it happened.
Bang!
So I tried to use the word for diarreaha (shilshul).
I say it wrong.....shulshul and the Isrealis think this is hilarious.
Isrealis love to laugh.
Can you blame them?
My friend Zippi has a lady friend who is about 70, long brown dyed hair, and chain smokes.
She keeps asking me for 200 shekels (50 bucks) for sex.
It's hilarious. I said she is worth much more and refuse to do it for less than 300 shekels.
This lady coughs like she's gonna die.....
Then she proceeds to lite up a cigarette.
The level of smoking here is disturbing.
Israeli farmers are under siege.
There are lots of arabs and bedouins in Israel who are stealing Israeli herds and animals and equipment and physically attacking farmers INSIDE Israel.
There aren't enough cops to deal with it and were little enforcement.
Israeli farmers in the heart of Israel have to carry a gun when driving a tractor on their own land to protect themselves from marauding arabs.
The bedouins are moving onto Israeli land to establish "Facts" so Palestine can take Israeli land.
Moving them becomes an international incident.
Arabs can kill each other and it doesn't make the news.
Israelis try to move arabs/bedouins off their own land and the world is appalled.
Israelis are understandably under a siege mentality.
Their history says "don't trust the arabs". They have plenty of evidence for this.
They got out of Lebanon and they got attacked from there.
They got out of Gaza and got attacked from there.
If they give the palestinians east Jerusalem.........
"insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome."
Israelis pray in shul for peace for the world......and feel tribal dislike for 0 the arab.
Arabs pray for peace for all in the mosque then rejoice when an Israeli is killed.
What is the answer?
We pray with universal values but act tribally.
Our actions reflect our true selves.
