Wednesday, April 15, 2026, sent at 01:00
During a short breakfast before going to the archives this morning I turned on the television for a bit of the news. While the newsperson was interviewing a Holocaust survivor some news updates were running at the bottom of the screen. I succeeded in photographing one of these items that particularly caught my attention:
It reads - Smotrich to the German Chancellor: "Don't preach morality to us, you won't put us in ghettos again". In keeping with my "Masada Shall Not Rise Again" sign, the distressing but all too truthful continuation of Smotrich's warning, if that's what it is, should be "we're doing a great job of doing that by ourselves".
I'm starting this report at 19:00. A short while ago the television broadcast a photograph of the start of the negotiations between Lebanon and Israel in Washington. I guess that this is as good a reason as any to be optimistic, and there are so few of those of late, that I'll take what I can get. As I've noted before, Israel could have opened negotiations with the Lebanese government long ago but preferred the military option it consistently prefers, even though it's proven itself to be ineffective.
And no, the war ain't over. Throughout the day, as is the case pretty much throughout every day for quite a while already, there have been missiles and alerts in the north. But we're far from there and the primary, if not the only, way we feel the war is through the ongoing threat of the ceasefire collapsing. But happily, this time I have nothing else to report.