2009 May 19

Archive for May 19th, 2009

Tuesday, May 19th 2009

Today I’ll begin by mentioning a rather minor subject, which is the European Song Contest, the “Eurovision” which took place this last Saturday in Moscow. Israel has been taking part in this for many years, and we even came out first a couple of times, when Israel was more popular in the world.

This year Israel finished 16th out of 25 competitors in the finals, which didn’t surprise many of us, seeing how Israel is regarded by so many countries these days. Actually the Israeli singers were an example for peaceful relations, they were Achinoam Nini, who is a well known peace activist – and an Israeli Arab woman singer, Mira Awad. They sang a song in Arabic, Hebrew and English. I think the voting was more political than musical, but even so, I hope those two got their message across.

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Posted in Observations |

Tags: Achinoam Nini, Mira Awad, Netanyahu, Obama

Friday, May 1st 2009

This week Israel Independence Day passed quietly, people celebrated, went on picnics in national parks, beaches and forest areas and there were no terrorist acts, although there had been some warnings, and our security forces were on “stand-by”, and the movement in places of believed danger were limited. The Palestinians especially like to perform their despicable deeds on Jewish holidays.

Strangely enough, most of the news here these days concerns an international subject, the “Swine Flu”. So far there are two cases of this in Israel, evidently on their way to recovery, and five others were hospitalised, but laboratory results showed that four of them did not have this disease, one other is still waiting for the outcome. But an open phone line has been set up for people to ask questions about the Swine Flu, and the most often asked question apparently is “Should we abstain from going abroad?”. The answer is “No, you can go abroad, but go to Mexico only if it is really only of great importance.”

At Ben-Gurion Airport a temporary clinic has been set up, and people who had lately been in Mexico are examined for any signs of the disease, but even if there are none, they are told to stay in their homes for a week in quarantine. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Observations