First things first: If you are a Red Sox fan, than you good by me, not matter what kind of whacko Western exilic ideas you hold by. Period.

Second. "palestinian civil war". Hmmm.

"palestinian"? Sorry. I don't buy the term at all. It was first spun by our dear friend, that great lover of Israel the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and later dusted off and resurrected by Arab opponents of the existence of a Jewish country smack in the middle of their beloved 'Uma. The sooner you see through their lame canard, the better you will be able to deal with the situation at hand.

"civil"? See above. The Land of Israel is not their homeland, so they can't really be civilians in the real sense of the word, could they be? Residents, yes – full citizens, no. Plus – the Arabs in the Land of Israel, wherever they have congregated, have not had a civil thing to say about the true national entity here – the Nation of Israel – since we started returning in droves to our ancient native land some 200 years ago. But that's because no-one was here to greet us. They only came afterwards, seeing economic opportunity as foreign development money poured in because of the Jews.

"war"? Oh, now you're talking. War is what they know, and at present, war is ALL they know. First of all, war amongst each other's families and local societies. Secondly, war with others who promote in a different brand of Islam than theirs. Thirdly, war with the 'Peoples of the Book', the Jews and Christians, which the Qu'ran specifically states (at least in some places) are to be left alone. And finally, war with everyone else. Have we covered everybody? War is Yishmael's raison d'etre and way of life.

Do you get it so far? You are a a product of a society that views things in nice tidy boxes. Life here in the Middle East is ostensibly not so simple. Except that it is quite simple, if we were to admit to it. The Land of Israel was given to the People of Israel as an operating base for us to become what we are supposed to be: aLight to the Nations. The Christians AND the Moslems purport to believe in this.

So what is the problem?

We Jews, the greatest skeptics on earth, no longer believe in this. The dream of returning here for a national life in our land has nurtured us for centuries, for millennia. And now that we have almost got the ball rolling as we were promised it would – we give up, and back a gang of murderous thieves whose masterful lies have got us convinced that it is really their land too.

Wake up, Joshua. Give yourself a cold dose of reality. Time to recognize that 5th grade social studies could not possibly give you the proper tools for understanding what is going on here. Come to Israel, start over, and be prepared to find that things are not exactly as you think.

Looking forward to seeing you here one day.

Of course, the problem may simply be that Israeli politicians are too caught up in a complex web of intrigue, subterfuge and survival tactics; there is very little room left for much of anything else.

The recent UN elevation of Palestinians to that of 'non-member observer state' is a case in point.
If the result was such a foregone conclusion, why did Israel react in so lacklustre a fashion? I mean, scraping together only a mere 9 votes against 138 can hardly be described as a scintillating performance by anyone's standards. Why no counter-proposal, no alternate plan of action, no parallel measure that might pull focus away from the expected Palestinian triumph?

This apparent deficiency is surprising in a people whose powers of innovation in many other areas are considered legendary; in today's ever-changing world, this wait-and-see approach can be of no use whatsoever.

As I've said on many occasions here, the secret of success is to be so far ahead of the game that no possibility of losing it can ever enter into the discussion.

Http://yorketowers.blogspot.com

But win or lose, the game still has to be played.

I've heard, though, that winning does tend to feel a whole lot better, especially when the game has been such a hard-fought one.

Of course, the problem may simply be that Israeli politicians are too caught up in a complex web of intrigue, subterfuge and survival tactics; there is very little room left for much of anything else.

The recent UN elevation of Palestinians to that of 'non-member observer state' is a case in point.
If the result was such a foregone conclusion, why did Israel react in so lacklustre a fashion? I mean, scraping together only a mere 9 votes against 138 can hardly be described as a scintillating performance by anyone's standards. Why no counter-proposal, no alternate plan of action, no parallel measure that might pull focus away from the expected Palestinian triumph?

This apparent deficiency is surprising in a people whose powers of innovation in many other areas are considered legendary; in today's ever-changing world, this wait-and-see approach can be of no use whatsoever.

As I've said on many occasions here, the secret of success is to be so far ahead of the game that no possibility of losing it can ever enter into the discussion.

Http://yorketowers.blogspot.com

But win or lose, the game still has to be played.

I've heard, though, that winning does tend to feel a whole lot better, especially when the game has been such a hard-fought one.