Persian Presents

Pic.: A missile from Iran. The alarm called to go to the hardened room - at least 5 times this night. The phone starts to make noises and then the announcement - you have few minutes to move yourself into a protected place. Then the municipal siren and then the muted explosion in the sky of a neutralized Iranian missile or drone. Your sleep has been ruined and you are a tired zombie for the next 24 hours. Unable to work. 

For us and the USA, this is a war with no casualties. What surprises me? That Iran is focusing its missiles on Dubai, a small, liberal Arab statelet, which is not attacking it. On the other hand, Israel's long-term worry about Iran's nuclear weapons, has been solved for some years. Bibi's courageous leadership did it.

Trump: "A vicious group of very hard terrible people"

 Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against the Iranian regime. At 8 AM here the phone ringed sending me to the hardened room at home. From yesterday evening I have high BP and could not sleep till 4 AM. I am not feeling at my best. The youngest of my sons-in-law were called to the Army. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, announced his country’s strikes in a statement, adding that the country would be under a state of emergency. Anticipating potential Iranian retaliation, the Israeli government announced that schools, workplaces, and the country’s international airspace would close. Purim festivities have been stopped, and we are told the war will take some time. 

The Department of Defense is calling these strikes “Operation Epic Fury.”

We Were A Kingdom

 

Above: Shema (Hear!)

Below: King Yeroboam's Servant

Advisory

 

U.S. TO CITIZENS IN ISRAEL:

“Leave while commercial flights are still available.” The U.S. Gov advisory is urging American citizens to consider departing.

Thank you for the advice. 

The (Amazing) Permitting Business

 I make my living in the last ten years in the permitting business, yet I always considered it a marginal, nuisance addition to the main activity, which is building. I used to belittle it as absurd, incomprehensible, kafkian bureaucracy, but it is something more. I'll think more about this. I never considered it a big economic area but 50% is gigantic.

Planet of the Apes

 The largest armada has been concentrated in the Gulf, trying to force Iran to sign a non-proliferation agreement, that would impede its production of an atomic weapon. But the fanatical/suicidal regime is rejecting any agreement, humiliating the American President. This high alert cannot continue for long, so I do not know what will happen. Hopefully, the Ayatollah will lose their nerves and make a mistake. 

Concerns World Over

 Concerns about the fallout from a US strike on Iran have helped to drive oil higher this year, despite expectations of a global glut. American military forces have massed in the Middle East, and the State Department on Monday ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel at its embassy in Beirut. 

“Oil markets are in a holding pattern pending updates on the Iran situation, with a healthy dose of skepticism being placed on any de-escalatory rhetoric,” said Saul Kavonic, senior energy analyst at MST Marquee. The US military build-up has added a risk premium of around $10 per barrel to prices, he said. 

The whole world is expecting the resolution of the current tension in the Middle East. NASDAQ and TASE stock exchanges are unsettled, with random rises and falls of 10%. 

A Democratic party post-election study says that the support for Israel caused last election loss. The left is mad at Israel to the point that only strong and vocal antisemitic positions will satisfy it. We are back to 1938, when Roosevelt found that antisemitism made it politically onerous to help European Jews. I am more and more convinced that Arthur Koestler was right in that the Holocaust happened because European peoples wanted it. A hundred years later a universal sentiment is converging that Israel (and the Jews) are an unsufferable nuisance.   

Pic.: Vienna 1938. Jews publicly humiliated, forced to wash the streets. I could feel a bit of schadenfreude in the fact that the public in the photograph is barely represented today, as half of the younger Viennese are foreigners. They had ruined themselves and are semi-extinguished. 

"גַּם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת, לֹא-אִירָא רָע"