Netanyahu and Abbas, time for face-to-face talks. {0c}

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening appealed to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to drop pre-conditions for face-to-face talks and meet him for direct peace negotiations “Any time…today, tomorrow, the next day. In any place.”

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All Quiet On The Western Front {0c}

This morning whilst half asleep and drinking my coffee, my peaceful mid-morning silence was shattered by an air raid siren. For the first few seconds I wasn't sure if I was actually hearing something. But as more sirens in the area began to wail I realized this was the real thing. My first thought was something along the lines of...

'IRANHIZBOLLAHAMASALQAIDASYRIAKATYUSHAQASSAMSCUDMISSILEROCKETBOMBSHELTERNOW!'

It took me about a third of a second to literally throw myself downstairs towards the bomb shelter in a wild panic, only to find my boyfriends very surprised mother and her friend sitting on the couch, calmly drinking tea and looking a little taken back with the sight of me, both alert and alarmed, flying down the stairs. Luckily it was just a drill that was being carried out as part of the Home Front Command's operations to prepare the ENTIRE country (not just those areas bordering Gaza and Lebanon) for any future conflicts or natural disasters.

It took me a few minutes to calm down and get my heart rate back to normal. It was then that the experience made me question 'Are we ready?'.

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2nd Class Citizen, 1st Class Tax Payer (A reoccurring theme?) {2c}

Whilst reading the paper today I came across a statistic relating to an issue that I’ve incidentally been talking about quite a bit lately. The title of the article in the Jerusalem Post declares “83% of Israelis want freedom of religion”

Actually a closer inspection the first line of the article points out that in-fact this statistic only relates to the Jewish Israeli population. I’d also be interested in seeing the demographic breakdown of the 1,200 Jewish Israelis interviewed for the survey. I realise the shaky ground one stands on when they start sprouting newspaper statistics, especially when they are being offered by an organization who’s mission statement calls for freedom from religion freedom of religion. As a guy I was debating gun control laws with last week pointed out, “you can use statistics to back up anything!” then again, you can probably guess what side of that debate he was on...

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