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| Sunset over the Sea of Galilee |
Sadly the sunny weather is encouraging more violence in the country. Yesterday an arab stabbed several people in a supermarket in a town outside of Jerusalem. Then this morning another arab was caught for inciting a mob lynch on a jewish motorist. Along the road today I saw at a checkpoint a body covered with a blanket - there was a small crowd of arabs and a huge posse of police and soldiers. Awful.
And that is the dreadful irony of good weather - the harbinger of violence.
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| 5 loaves 2 fish stone art |
And to top it all, the Israeli govt. is closed down with the PM sacking several of his ministers and calling for snap elections. The 5 party coalition has never been so divided over Israel's response to the recent violence. Rightists want to deny citizenship and all rights of the arabs, leftists believe a carrot is better than the stick ... and the center cannot make up its mind. It looks like the PM is now looking for a coalition with the ultra-orthodox jews - as in the good old days - where the latter is not interested in politics but only in their own religious agenda (funding of yeshivas, no military service, power of the rabbis over marriage and other social institutions ...). That way the PM has no opposition over his political decisions.
On a much smaller micro level, I'm busy helping to raise funds to buy basic necessities for poor christian families for the Christmas season. I hand over everything to the sisters of Mother Teresa who do the gift packs and delivery to these families. The recent war and Israel's crackdown and collective punishment of arabs have dealt a severe blow to poor families. We're doing our best to let them at least have a warm Christmas.
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