Despite having a lot to write about, the current state in Israel doesn't lend very well to my writing habit. I need to be in a specific mood to write properly, and my mood this past week could hardly have been further away.

I'm still up north; Monfort is situated in Kibbutz Sa'ar, just north of Nahariya. It means that when I'm at work I can hear everything - the Israeli artillery attacks, the choppers and planes constantly flying to and from Lebanon, and the Hezbollah-fired Katyusha rockets crashing down on most Israeli cities and settlements up north. When I go home, be it to my parents in Qiryat Haim or my own apartment in Haifa, the rockets follow. There are air-raid sirens every few hours, and explosions to complement the waiting.

Ironically it's not the rockets that really scare me; the air-raid sirens are the ones that really give me a fright, a throwback to yet another conflict that had absolutely nothing to do with us. Even wrose, there is nothing quite as jarring as walking the streets of Nahariya or Haifa; the usually busy streets and packed shops are shut down, closed, devoid of life. I make it a point to support whatever businesses that choose to remain open despite the situation (such as my own company). There is solidarity, and there is also exasperation.

Lebanon has no claim in Israel. There is no Israeli-Lebanese dispute. Two nations which could under other circumstances live happily in peace are now actively busy with survival because a bunch of freaking lunatics claiming to act under the volition of a nonexistant deity decided the time was ripe to kill. So here you are, assholes: the killing has begun, on both sides. I hope you're fucking happy.