It seems that there is really no limit to the nonsense generated by neocon attempts to rationalize the failure in Iraq.

This week, I read a column (translated into Hebrew in Haaretz) by Edward Lutwack, of a thinktank in Maryland. Civil wars, writes Lutwak (more or less), are nasty affairs, but they have a purpose: they help people settle their differences. Why, after the American civil war, American society got where it was supposed to be and flourished. And so on through a list of other examples. So if the Iraqis are having one now, better let them get on with it, because this, too, has a purpose; this, too, will lead to a beneficial reshaping of Iraqi society.

Did you get this? American basically did the Iraqis a favor by getting rid of their dictator so that they could have at each other. What's a body count of (at conservative estimates) 35,000 souls, if you end up with a country in which the tensions have been played out?

Needless to say, no one has compiled statistics on "might-have-been" civil wars -- places where social tensions ultimately were settled without large-scale violence of this sort (South Africa might be an instructive example in this regard).

Well, maybe we should have the Americans invade Israel. We certainly have enough tensions here to fuel a civil war or two between the Arab and Jewish denizens of the land (if not among the Jews themselves). Here, unlike Iraq, there shouldn't be a problem finding the WMD, especially since Shimon Peres has told the world that we can unleash them any ol' time we like to take out Iran. We're a small country; they won't have to look too hard. And of course finding the evidence of government corruption won't be too hard, either. Then we can really have peace in the Middle East.

These neocons cling to the naive idea that the Americans invaded Iraq in order to install democracy there. As though the U.S. had a record around the world of getting rid of nasty dictators, rather than installing them -- like Pinochet and Noriega -- wherever it appears to suit their interest. To them as to us Israelis, it seems, America is to be worshipped and served by all as a kind of omnipotent, benevolent god, whose actions are always for the best.

Perhaps it bears remembering that we are forbidden to worship any God but God.

Ariel Sharon lies unconscious in a hospital room, tubes entering and leaving his corpulent body, "clean" fluids going in, waste going out. No one knows how much of his brain is left -- not even the doctors who operated upon it. The man who sent the murderers into Sabra and Shatila, who is among those responsible for the continous state of war in which my own sons will soon find themselves taking part as soldiers in the IDF. Now better know for evacuating the settlements of Gush Katif -- a brave act designed, in part, to ensure Israel's hold over the West Bank.

A country prays for its fallen leader. A public prayer for his healing is recited in my own synagogue. I hold back. Why should I pray more for this man than for any other person? I do not wish his death. I do not wish to pray for him, either. I am glad that he has left the national scene.

There are interesting things to ponder on a socio-cultural level. When the winter storm "of rare severity" predicted for the last few days failed to materialize, I joked to my friends that science, for all its touted expertise, can perhaps build an atom bomb, but it can't predict the weather, and it can't tell us whether Sharon is going to wake up. Seriously, though, this man could quite literally afford -- didn't even have to afford -- the best medical care money can buy. Yet that apparently didn't stop his care being bungled. Possibly it was even bungled for quite reasonable, conscious reasons. After all, had he not been given the blood thinners and then been felled by another blood clot instead of a brain hemorrhage, everyone would probably be blasting the doctors for withholding them. The doctors, with their usual fear of lawsuits, etc., perhaps tried to figure which possibility was the more likely, and got it wrong.

So what does that have to say about the rest of us, under our semi-socialized health-care system? Does one really do better with private health insurance? (And maybe I'm just saying this because we didn't get it? Is expertise better than intuition? And do we want our health-care resources spent on rescuing old men's brains that have been blown out anyway?

More to come ...

Hello, world.

Yesterday, for the first time in months, maybe even years, I let myself feel a little bit optimistic about the political situation here in Israel, when Amir Peretz beat Shimon Peres to win the primaries in the Labor Party. A social democrat at the head of what calls itself the "Labor" party?! It's not exactly the messianic age, but maybe from wherever She is awaiting, She relaxed a shoulder blade and gave us a wink.

As for Peres, he's not merely a "loser," as he's been known since he lost the 1977 (!) election. He is a sore loser. Always has been, now more than ever. One of the commentators in Haaretz speculated this morning that he might join up with Ariel Sharon, who has problems with his own party since the Disengagement, to start a new center-right party. Ho, ho. Years ago, a Pensioners' Party ran for the Knesset. With a party run by two octogenarians, who would need one??

The changeover in leadership could give some timeliness to my Davar Torah on Hayei Sarah, to be published in a couple of weeks on the Netivot Shalom website (www.netivot-shalom.org.il).

Shabbat shalom out there,
Debbie