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Maybe I really have reached the stage at which these daily updates are no longer called for. Yes, the north still received quite a number of missiles from Lebanon today, but it seems that everyone not in that area accepts that the lack of quiet in the north is a sufferable issue that can be relegated to the daily news report, and disregarded in between them. In other words, we've adjusted to this reality.
Tomorrow we drive north for a Bar Mitzvah of the son of one of Tzippi's relatives. We're expecting, and hoping, that things will be quiet. We'll still be quite far from the Lebanese border, so it's a logical expectation. Hila will come with us, and Eitan will drive up in his car. Because we're going relatively early in the morning, Hila came here late this afternoon (I picked her up on my way home from the college) and Eitan joined us for dinner. And while I was washing the dishes Nadav called. He leaves Wyoming tomorrow for a few weeks in Mexico before he goes north to his next job in Washington state (with a visit to Laytonville on the way). This was the first time in quite a while that the five of us have been "together".
The news reports are that the chances are good that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire will be extended, and there's even a report that the Israel-Lebanon negotiations are leading to a temporary ceasefire. So in addition to things being relatively quiet there's also reason for some hesitant optimism. There may be optimism on the negotiations front, but internally they continue to be distressing. In a supreme court session today the government essentially said that it doesn't have to respect the high court's rulings. In other words, in their eyes the law is whatever they want it to be. We have lawlessness in the territories, and authoritarianism within.
Without, happily, much to report on the present situation, I spent part of this morning looking for a book review in HaAretz, hoping that it had been translated into English. It still hasn't been, so I put it through Google Translate and am attaching it here. It's distressingly worth reading. While looking for it I found a ten year old article by Noam Sheizaf who wrote the present book review. Yes, it's almost ten years old, but it's also worth reading (and considerably shorter):
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