The world has watched for the last week as Israel pummels the
Gaza Strip. I’m usually not that pro-Israel
based on their policy of encroaching on Arab lands just when it seems a peace
deal might flicker to life. I can
remember being a young kid trying to understand the Arab-Israeli hostility that
hasn’t dampened in the intervening forty years. I lived in Egypt for seven
months and traveled extensively throughout the Holy Land during that time. I was struck by the friendliness of the Arabs
and the difference in Israel compared to the Arab lands.
It was stark crossing the border into Israel near Eilat. You go from mud huts and desert into a land
that resembles New England in a lot of ways.
Verdant landscape and bustling cities compared to the desolation just a
few miles away. I attributed it at that time
to the value of freedom (something I still believe). I
think the Arabs are a great people who are so poorly led as to approach criminality. While the world press focuses on the bombs
landing in Gaza they give short shrift to the fact the Arabs have been sending barrages
of missiles into Israel daily. If this
was the USA with a missile launching neighbor the Gaza Strip would now be a
parking lot, so I don’t fault the Israelis.
This despite all the by now tired tricks (placing missile launchers in a
disabled community building or mosque) of coaxing the Israelis to bomb targets
that will engender the greatest world press outcry.
The Palestinians deserve better leadership so they can
accrue the same type of prosperity the Israelis have gleaned from virtually the
same territory. They have a significant
chunk of the holy lands (including Bethlehem) as well as some dazzling Mediterranean
beaches that would be a tourist mecca (poor choice of words there). The Gaza Strip is an area of abject poverty
and yet the leadership there chose to invest in a missile inventory in the
thousands which does nothing more than invite the type of attacks they are now experiencing
while gaining no positive military gains.
The Arab leadership should look to taking care of their people and not
pandering to public opinion across the globe.
They’ve mastered the art of victim-ship – it would be nice if they could
tap into the same vein of activism to achieve their latent greatness.
The wife and I watched the end of the World Cup yesterday
with what I guess was an exciting game (hard for this nascent fan to
tell). The Germans were very methodical
but the Argentinians were a lot more fun to watch. They even kept the theatrical diving to a
minimum until the end of the game. One
German player spent more time on the grass than a self-respecting mole. My hearing should return in a couple days
after sitting next to an ardent supporter of Argentina (Latinos stick
together).
This was one of the rare weekends I stuck close to home
without any major projects on hand. I
guess this is what people talk about at work when they say they come back
refreshed from resting over the weekend.
I spent some serious time at the grill over the weekend and noticed a tell-tale
sign I’ve lived here for a long time now.
This is the first place I’ve ever lived as an adult where I can clearly
see trees have grown since I first moved in.
That may explain the itch to move on.
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| Daughter Surrounded by Hollywood |
No reports from the kids over the weekend as they were not
following our example of resting. There
were movie premieres, weddings, and even a NASCAR race on their respective
dance cards. We did get this picture of
my daughter with one of her favorite directors Richard Linklater (Dazed &
Confused, Before Sunset, etc.). She
loves the movies Before Sunrise, Before Sunset , and Before Midnight. She wore a t-shirt celebrating the two leads characters
in those movies and Linklater started up a conversation with her since he
created those characters; well that and she’s just flat out gorgeous (but a
father doesn’t think that way). The picture is of her with Linklater on one side and the lead actor of his newest film on the other.
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