More Happiness in Israel

By Esther Korson
One of the main contributors to the sense of well being and happiness in Israel is our love of communication. People here love to be together, talk together, eat together, sit in cafes and restaurants together, hike together travel together, visit together—the key word, as you can plainly see, is TOGETHER! It’s probably one of the main reasons that Israel invented the cell phone, and so many other communications devises—so that people can be reached anytime, anywhere! The streets of Israel and the restaurants and the malls are full of life and full of noise. Once, McDonald’s opened its first (and last) drive-through branch in Jerusalem.  It only lasted for two weeks and I don’t think a single car ever ‘drove through’.  No one here could ever imagine why people would want to eat in their cars—since the purpose of eating out was to be TOGETHER!

some years ago, during the communist days, I travelled to Poland and while there visited the city of Krakow.  Polish friends showed me the old Jewish neighbourhood.  They explained that due to anti-Semitism in Poland, almost all of the Jewish symbols had been removed from the buildings.  But many of the streets still bore Jewish names.  Our footsteps echoed through the empty streets, and finally all I could do was to sit down on a curb and cry my eyes out.  It was the quiet that made me cry.  Before the Jewish population in Poland had been killed, that old Jewish neighbourhood in Krakow would have been filled with life and noise and interactions.  Polish people now live in the buildings there, but the streets are empty and quiet—and the contrast broke my heart.

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Nasrallah Assad Ahmadinejad meet in Damascus to discuss "Zionist threat"

Nasrallah Assad Ahmadinejad meet in Damascus to discuss "Zionist threat"

Syrian President Assad holds banquet to honor Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Hizballah terror leader Hassan Nasrallah at his presidential palace in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Ahmadinejad and Assad together unleashed vicious rhetoric against Israel, with Ahmadinejad declaring that the “criminal” state of Israel is doomed, and Assad charging that Israel “is capable of aggression at any point.”

Ahmadinejad also vowed during his visit to Damascus that Arab nations will usher in a new Middle East “without Zionists and without colonialists” and "resistance is the most successful way to liberate land," continuing with his speech and to emphasize further Ahmadinejad said "If the Zionists want to repeat their mistake again, they must be uprooted from the source"

While the United States is trying to drive a wedge between these two sponsors of terrorism, Syria and Iran, the methods being used to accomplish this are evidently not having their desired effect, with President Assad saying while meeting with Ahmadinejad on Thursday, ''We wanted this festive day to be one of accomplishment, so we signed an agreement on annulling entry visas between Syria and Iran…This agreement would result in more communication and enhancing of the common interests of the Syrian and Iranian peoples.”

U.S State Department spokesman P J Crowley responded to this new situation saying "The US wants to see Syria play a more constructive role in the region, and one step would be to make clear what Iran needs to do differently. And, unfortunately, there was no evidence of that today."