I’ll be at the JCC’s Israel Solidarity Gathering tomorrow night. It’s part of the nationwide Jewish Community Federation’s drive to raise $18 million for the Israel Crisis Fund. The funds will be dedicated to moving the people of Israel—Jewish, Arab, and Druze—who can’t afford to move from the north out of the range of Hezbullah rockets.

You can contribute here if you’d like. Or you can donate to your local Federation. I’m sure your synagogue or JCC has the details. Either way, put a couple of bucks into the pot and help those people get out of the range of Hezbullah’s rockets. 93 landed Sunday, causing 93 casualties—including two deaths.

I’ll bring the camera, and may actually go out and purchase that digital recorder I’ve had my eye on. I don’t think we have any big stars lined up, but you never can tell—we’re only two hours south of DC.

In any case: Give generously. Let’s get those people out of harm’s way.

Yesterday morning, I woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by sick people, nurses, and attached to monitors.

Today, I woke up in my bed, surrounded by cats, attached to a sleep mask. (My window faces east, and the summer sun is early.)

I much prefer my bed.

So do Tig and Gracie, judging by the purrs. I did not get the famous simultaneous bellyrub twofer, as Gracie preferred the ear-skritches (I’ve been giving extra skritches all around from you, Rahel). But I did get stereo simulpurring.

Cat therapy. Better than a shrink.

This is going to be it for a while. I’m finding myself repeating the exact behavior that put me in the hospital. I’ll still post, but I cannot obsess about the war. There’s a clickable graphic on the left side of the page that will bring you to a list bloggers who are featuring regular war news and coverage.

Me? I’m going to see Pirates of the Caribbean with my niece today, then probably visit with Sarah and the G.’s. She has my wallet, with all my credit cards but one (brought it to the hospital by mistake), so I think there’s a little bit of a ransom involved. Probably not babysitting. All four of the G.’s are a bit stressful at times, and Sarah is not a cruel woman.

But to the war:

Hezbullah is willing to talk about the soldiers they kidnapped. Gee, ya think the ground invasion might have had something to do with that?

Hizbullah agreed to allow the Lebanese government to begin negotiations regarding kidnapped IDF soldiers, according to speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri on Sunday afternoon.

Earlier Sunday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told a French news agency that the soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were in “good physical condition.”

A UN observer actually tells the truth about one of his own being shot by Hezbullah:

A UN observer was seriously wounded Sunday by Hizbullah gunfire during fighting with Israeli troops in south Lebanon, a spokesman for the UN peacekeepers said.

[...] “According to preliminary reports, the fire came from Hizbullah during an exchange of fire with the IDF,” he added.

How many rockets have been fired at the Israeli civilian population by Hezbullah so far? This many:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz told the Cabinet on Sunday that Hizbullah has thus far launched some 2,200 rockets at Israel since the beginning of hostilities.

According to Peretz, a Hizbullah unit named “Nasser” was operating south of the Litani River, and was launching some 100 rockets at Israel daily.

The original Nasser is dead, and he died in shame for having launched and lost the Six-Day War, the Negev, and “pan-Arab pride.” May the unit named after him suffer a similar fate. And soon.

Funny how you don’t see a phrase like, “Hezbullah has launched a total of 2,200 rockets since the war began” in AP boilerplates, but you do see a running total of Lebanese killed. I wonder why that is? Hm. Let me think… oh, right. Israel Double Standard Time!

The Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem has been canceled due to war.

A controversial international gay pride parade that was slated to take place in Jerusalem next month has been canceled due to the war in the north, the organizers of the event said Sunday.

The contested parade, which was to have been the highlight of a week-long international gay festival in the capital, was nixed due to the security situation in the country, and the fact that police would not be able to allocate sufficient forces needed to secure such a major event, said Hagai El-Ad, the Executive-Director of Jerusalem’s Gay and Lesbian Center, which is hosting the event.

He added that the festival’s other smaller indoor events, including a film festival and workshops, would take place as scheduled.

That’s a wise decision. Some nutjob stabbed three people at the last one, and threats have been made about this one.

The Dorktator is making noise again. His spokesman says that if the IDF heads towards Syria, he’s ready to rumble. He’s already tried to resupply Hezbullah while the war is ongoing.

MADRID - Syria will enter the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah if Israel Defense Forces ground troops enter Lebanon and approach Syria, Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal said in an interview published on Sunday.

“If Israel invades Lebanon over ground and comes near to us, Syria will not sit tight. She will join the conflict,” he told newspaper ABC.

Israel does not want war with Syria. But if the Dorktator sends a unit or three towards the IDF forces in Lebanon, we will see a three-front war. However, it’s just talk. Baby Assad knows endgame when he sees it, and a hit by his forces on the IDF is the endgame for his regime.

Following a meeting Sunday with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said a multinational force should act to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Syria into Lebanon. Peretz also noted Israel has no intention of entering into a war with Syria.

However, the multinational force requested by Israel is not blue-helmeted. They are talking about NATO.

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Sunday that Israel would accept a temporary international force, preferably headed by NATO, deployed along the Lebanese border to keep Hezbollah guerrillas away from Israel.

And oh, look: Gorilla Boy is blathering.

Iran’s president declared Sunday that Israel had “pushed the button of its own destruction” by launching its military campaign against Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn’t elaborate, but suggested Islamic nations and others could somehow isolate Israel and its main backers led by the United States.

The Islamic street is waiting for Iran to join the fight. When Israel defeats Hezbullah, Iran’s client-state in Lebanon, Iran’s stock is going to tumble severely. Make no mistake, this is a huge setback for Gorilla Boy, especially in light of the IDF’s ability to push Hezbullah out of any stronghold when the IDF concentrates on it. When this thing ends, there will be a large buffer zone, and Iran will have one giant black eye. And now, he is too stupid to stop putting out empty threats and rhetoric—which will make him look even weaker in Muslim’s eyes.

And last, but not least: 1,293 Israelis have been injured by Hezbullah rockets since the war began. That’s another statistic you won’t see in the AP or Reuters reports.

And now, to my day of de-stressing.

You know that saying, the world’s smallest violin is playing? Even that one isn’t going to play for Saddam Hussein’s health.

BAGHDAD, Iraq Jul 23, 2006 (AP)— Saddam Hussein was hospitalized Sunday on the 17th day of a hunger strike, the chief prosecutor in his trial said.

Jaafar al-Moussawi said he visited the prison Sunday where Saddam and the seven other co-defendants are held and was told that the ex-president’s health “is unstable because of the hunger strike.”

Good.

Die.

Save the world the trouble of finishing your trial.

“We took him to hospital and he is being currently fed by a tube,” al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. He refused to identify the hospital.

Damn. Let him die, you fools.

A UN official professes shock and horror at the leveling of the Hezbullah neighborhoods in Beirut.

Israeli bombing of a Beirut neighborhood where Hizbullah had its headquarters has breached humanitarian law, a senior UN official said on Sunday.

“It is horrific. I did not know it was block after block of houses,” Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, told reporters as he toured the shattered Haret Hreik district. “It makes it a violation of humanitarian law.”

“It’s bigger, it’s more extensive than I even could imagine,” he said, surveying a pile of rubble.

Yes, and Hezbullah was bigger, and more extensive, than the UN is willing to acknowledge.

“We are setting up a major relief operation but the violence has to stop,” Egeland said, calling for a halt to the war.

“The rockets going into Israel have to stop,” he said. “The enormous bombardment that we have seen here with one block after another being leveled has to stop.”

Do you see the disaparity in those statements above? It’s as if the rockets raining down on northern Israel are just fireworks, and do no damage. They are not. They killed two more in Haifa last night. Hundreds of Israelis have been wounded by Hezbullah rocket fire—aimed deliberately at the civilian population.

But this is the quote that boils my blood:

“It is costing too many lives and it will not lead to a solution in the south. There is no military solution to these things, it is only a political solution.”

The UN has had six years of political solutions. It has been unable to dissuade Hezbullah that they’re full of crap regarding the Shebaa Farms. It has a two-year-old binding UN resolution stating that Hezbullah and all other militias in Lebanon must be disarmed.

The political solution did not work. Therefore, Egeland’s logic is not only wrong, it is entirely backwards. Obviously, the only solution to the Hezbullah problem is military force.

The political solution got Israel 13,000 Hezbullah rockets aimed at her cities, and she is now paying the price for six years of “political” solutions.

To yet another useless UN bureaucrat, I say: STFU.