# 373 – Transition – Elections – Vaccine

Transition – Elections – Vaccine

Thank God there are some truths about which we need not argue, even though there are some people who still will try.

Blood is red.

Cars do kill

Antique English drinking glasses are beautiful

Time will always tell.

OK, that’s a hint of the philosophical side of me. Maybe the pandemic is getting at me. But without writing things like this, where would I be? Some of you had my latest scripture already thrown at them. I wrote 2 poems about ’dust’ after we re-grouted the tiles in our living area. For those of you who want 2 minutes of literary sponge, go to

https://www.ourboox.com/books/dust/

OK? Recovered?

The presidential transition in USA? Of course it’s reported here, but it’s not automatically front-page headline stuff. Except of course, when it refers directly to changes for Israel. E.g.

Jonathan Pollard’s release – I’m not taking sides right now. Suffice to say that this guy who spied in USA on behalf of Israel has been treated exceptionally badly by consecutive US governments since his incarceration in 1987 – 33 years. Why now? I believe it’s because Joe Biden, when Obama’s V.P., was strongly against releasing Pollard. Trump is giving in to his buddy. Netanyahu. That guarantees them both some friends for life.

Saudi delays signing anything with Israel (apart from allowing Israeli flights over Saud airspace). This ‘warming of relations’ between Israel and the Arab moderates is extremely important for many reasons, not least the redefining of the definition of ‘Middle East’. Used to be ‘Arab’. Now it includes Israel. And the spit is between Iran, Turkey and their satellites, and the ‘more moderate’ rest, which now includes Israel.

You may not have heard, But since the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain (and later, Sudan), there has been a flurry of well-publicised meetings between the 2 sides on so many levels. They include media, sport, irrigation, hi-tech, tourism end so on. Today, it was announced the UAE were sponsoring Beitar Yerushalayim, one of Israel’s top football )soccer) teams. I can see it now: like in North London, the aeroplanes will fly over the stadium with ‘EMIRATES’ screaming at them from the stadium roof.

Wow, is this the end of Israel’s involvement in the Eurovision Song Contest? Or European basketball (where they have done extremely well)?

Will it now be Maccabi Half against Tripoli every year?

But Saudi will wait a few weeks, so that it can offer Biden something to influence his dangerous Mid-East policy. We are all scared of his naivety vis-à-vis Iran, and his anti-Israel stance towards the end of the Obama presidency. (We won’t forget US’s abstention = support for the UN Resolution 2334, which, among other subjects, recognised the Temple Mount as an Islamic site). And just 2 days ago, during an important regional meeting in Bahrain’s Manama, one of the Saudi princes poured anti-Israel abuse into the microphone – with our Minister of Foreign Affairs sitting next to him, quietly treading the current necessary diplomatic path to regional co-operation.

I regret to have to mention that, no matter how crossed our fingers are that a new Middle East is dawning, the desert tribal mentality still rules, and today’s masked and distanced hugs could still be followed by an unmasked stab in the back. Not only aimed at Israel, I might add. It is the very internal strife among the Arabs that has helped Israel survive during these 100 years of struggle.

Israel’s headlines focus now on the inevitable collapse of the unity government and the likelihood of a 4th election in 2 years! We’ll be speaking Italian next. If ever there were a country that needed trusted leadership, it is Israel, and now.

And did I mention vaccine? If ever there was one word on its own that illustrated an oxymoron, it is vaccine. I know there is somewhere a definitive definition of the word, but that ping-pong now being played with this word around the World is a sad joke.

I refuse to delve deeper into the subject for the time being. Let’s just watch the British pied piper, leading us towards…….?

Stephen