Who I thought I was getting

President Obama has offered Prime Minister Netanyahu a real sweetheart deal. Apparently, we get all sorts of great stuff if we just agree to stop building homes out here for another three months.

I haven’t felt this excited since I signed up for the Columbia House “Music for a Penny” deal when I was a long haired, spiked wristband wearing, dressed-all-in-black teenager.

I remember getting this incredible offer that if I signed up right away, I could get ten cassette  tapes (an ancient way people used to store music) for just a penny each! Each tape would be delivered straight to my door. What a great deal! I signed up and couldn’t wait to bolster my already impressive collection of AC/DC, Led Zepplin, and other hard rock greats.

Who I got

Instead, I ended up with the complete works of Helen Reddy and the Captain and Tennille. These tapes didn’t cost me just a penny either.

See my problem was I just read the words that were printed on the mailer in big red letters. I forgot to read the small letters written in black on the bottom of the letter. I wouldn’t really get “Back in Black” for a penny until I had paid full price for a whole library of music not fit for an elevator. (My apologies to any Reddy fans. No, on second thought there is no excuse for that.)

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The New York Times has chastised Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for playing “games” rather than focusing on peace. In one of the most insulting editorials to come out of the Times in some time, we are told:

It’s time for him [Bibi] to stop playing games, reinstate the moratorium, get back to negotiations and engage seriously in a peace deal.

What do they think Bibi has been doing since the last freeze ended? Was he playing basketball? At the beach? Thumbing his nose at all the serious peace proposals that the Palestinians have been offering?

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It’s been awhile since an Israeli weightlifter was in the news. The year was 1972 and members of the Israeli delegation to the Munich Olympics, including several Israeli weightlifters, were taken hostage by Arab terrorists. When the German police botched the rescue operation, the terrorists executed all the hostages. It took about a day for the Germans to realize that continuing the games was in really poor taste. They stopped for the funerals and after the Israeli athletes were safely in the ground, continued on.

Thirty-eight years later, an Israeli weightlifter makes the news again. This time, the Israeli is not a victim, he is the champion. The story of Sergio Britva, an immigrant to Israel from Brazil who won the weightlifting world championships last month, is not to be missed.

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Real people, not statistics

This morning, one of our friends here in Neve Daniel sent me this e-mail:

Hi – I am sitting here crying because one of the women murdered tonight was my son’s gannenet. Yehuda is six and is mentally retarded – his teachers are our world because they bring him such joy when the world is such an overwhelming and confusing place. Cochava was an angel, and we were with her an hour before she died – she was on her way home from the gan welcome back orientation when she was murdered.

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A reader sent in a comment to last week’s post. I had written about how wonderful it was to go for a run in this amazing country. His comment was:

Well look at the price paid by the Palestinians for all these accomplishments-they live in a prison and all efforts to create that 2 state solution seem to go nowhere. The Palestianians [sic] have lost and continue to lose their land, crops and homes to settlements. The Palestianians [sic] are abused , attacked and terorized by settlers with no protection from the Isreali [sic] police and the IDF.

Germany achieved many scientific and engineering marvels and look at the price paid by the peoples of the world during WWI and WWII by the German war machine and aggession [sic].

I don’t know who wrote the comment, but I appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight.

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