Israeli society under attack

The war had a complex impact on Israeli birth patterns:

Initial Decline: Birth data from June–July 2024—reflecting conceptions in October and November 2023—show that the war initially had a negative impact on fertility rates across the population.

Subsequent Surge: Starting in August, fertility rates began to rise again. This occurred across all population groups, but once again the largest increase — by a significant margin—was among Jewish women, whose fertility rate rose to 3.19 children per woman.

Israeli Jewish births in 2024 were 134,000 compared to 131,000 in 2023. Despite war and hardships, Israelis are choosing to expand their families, contrary to trends in the West

The data shows that despite the challenging circumstances of war, Israel experienced a significant increase in births during 2024, particularly in the latter part of the year, continuing its position as having one of the highest fertility rates in the developed world.

Migration patterns: 82,700 Israelis were registered as having left the country over the past year, up from around 55,000 a year before. 23,800 Israelis returned home in 2024, and 32,800 new immigrants arrived, down some 15,000 from a year earlier

Rescueing Pigs

The Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue (SCGPR)  announced it rescued around 400 guinea pigs this week from a Los Angeles property where they slept outside "with improper food, water, and care."

Guinea Pigs are cuys, the small rats that the Andean natives fatten in holes in their homes and eat. When I was working in Ecuador's highlands, I was served this rodent for lunch (see pic), and I found it edible. They are not kosher. 

Buddhists never kill an animal and are vegetarians. SCGPR is not just another Southern California craze; they have roots in an ancient Indian philosophy. Those little critters may house the souls of dead humans in one of their stations of eternal soul-recycling.  

Common Sense

 
Trump: "Hamas didn't really want to make a deal. I think they want to die…"

“It got to a point where you are going to have to finish the Job…”

The erectus

 

The first hominid to expand successfully from Africa was Homo erectus (see ill.), a large and powerful specimen, formerly called Pithecanthropus erectus. Pithecanthropus is an extinct primate intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes. African humans carry plenty of erectus genes, and the hybrid hominins prospered and spread. Sapiens migrated out of Africa and mixed with Neanderthals already living out there, resulting in Europeans with European Neanderthals and Asians with Denisovan Neanderthals. Thus, we have three different hybrids co-existing today. Evolution continues.  

The eroding support strategy

 Contemporary wars are lost when public support for them erodes and turns pacifist. France lost Algeria not because it lost the war, on the contrary, but because the leftist French media and public opinion turned against it. They became convinced and convinced the nation that the enemy was right and its cause just. The Vietnam War was also lost, not on the battlefield, but on American campuses.

I would say that the international propaganda war against Israel has been won by HAMAS. Yet it is NOT eroding the Israeli public's support for the war in Gaza and elsewhere. The reason is our familiarity with the Arabs and their savagery. We cannot allow ourselves to give up.  Pic: Syrian soldier shaving off Druze moustaches. It reminds us of the pics of laughing Nazis cutting the sidelocks פיאות of religious Jews.

BTW, Zahal moved forces to the Mountain of the Druzes in Syria, and the Syrian army retreated to Damascus. At this moment, Syria is de facto divided, and the South is under Israeli control. For the first time, the frontier was open, and anybody was free to take a tour in the other country. 

Dancing with Khmers

 
Yesterday went to the cinema. A very long film about a dance group that tries to revive Cambodian traditional dance and culture. I never liked Cambodian music and dance; it is highly stylized South Indian culture, slow and delicate. There were stories of Phol Pot and Khmer Rouge soldiers. 

Looking at the British Encyclopedia, it suggests that the emptying of  Phnom Penh (phnom means “hill”; Penh is a woman’s name), which is Cambodia’s single metropolis, had the purpose of destroying the Chinese middle class. Like in Indonesia, overseas Chinese are physically indistinguishable from the natives, so Phol Pot sent to the countryside all the inhabitants of the cities, for their presumed Chinese ethnicity. I see ethnic cleansing everywhere. This insight of mine is probably wrong.

Miracles

 The shekel is strong and is expected to continue strengthening. Two reasons: "The first is Israel’s large balance of payments surplus. The second is that financial institutions will start to reduce their currency exposure. TASE is better than foreign bourses."

Globes: Following the military changes that have taken place in the region, the shekel is now at a new equilibrium level and can only strengthen. 

My daughters have grown up, all have academic degrees, are married, have healthy children, and own property. When arriving in Vienna in 1956, we were so destitute that we had to beg and sleep in a police cell. I still remember the coarse jail blanket and the frozen walls. It was winter.