Honey... Am I Home?

Recently a fellow blogger Irina talked about her experiences of visiting Israel. Even though it is her first visit she talks about amazing feeling of returning home, one that cannot be matched by any other place in the world, for there can only be one home. I was surprised to hear this because I myself always had the same, very unambiguous feeling about Israel, but always though it was just my imagination or a consequence of growing up in Israel. Of course, I had this feeling even when I just came to live there, so I guess you caught me. Now not only I hear the same sentiment from someone else (not for the first time too) but turns out many readers of Irina's blog had the exact same feeling. I am amazed. What's going on here? Does it works the same way for all Jews? Only Jews? What is the reason? Genetic memory? Some sort of collective magnetic field created by the people who live there? I know that whenever I am in a large Jewish crowd, even in United States, I get a glimpse of that feeling again.

Something is going on, but that is not the subject of this post. Instead I want to pose a simple question to all the people who feel the same way, and in particular to Irina's readers since they already expressed their opinion, and of course to myself. If you are so in awe of the land, if it is such a great experience to even visit there for a short while, let alone for a long while... What are you all doing in diaspora? Seriously, what? Is it money? Is it comfort? Is it security? Is it "I will get there eventually, just give me 2.. no 10... no 20 years" ? If it is Home, how can you live away from it? Who are you kidding? Remember, today you can go ahead and feel all you want at home in Israel for one reason only: some people are already living there, and making it feel home for you. But if they fail, if they fail because so many of us chose to be guests in our own home, we will loose it. This time maybe forever.

Who's Prime-Minister is this?

Apperently, Ehud Olmert considers "zionism" a bad word, and forgets which side he should be negotiating for:

"There are no zionist considerations behind this, as you claim. On my part this is a fair, real desire to give a lot and recieve very little in return"*

*note: this is a translation from russian which is a translation from english. I couldn't find the english original.

Israelis want disengagement / consolidation?

Latest poll done by Haaretz-dialoge shows that the absolute majority is against the consolidation plan. Namely, 56% are against and only 37% are in favor. Yes, statistics are lies, and dynamics change. But it is a known fact that in Israel poll results are biased in direction of the left and lately of Kadima and disengagement. Mr. Shimon Peres is a good example of this effect: he always wins all the polls and always looses all the elections. So I would say that the conclusion that can be made from this poll is that as of today at least 56% and at most 37% are against and in favor respectively. This, my dear readers, is called "a crushing defeat".