Despite some negative sentiment towards everything Israel, Elbit has achieved more than $32 billion in backorders with Europe, driving much of its export growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aug. 21<\/strong>: Happy belated birthday beautiful Ariel. He would have turned 7 on Aug. 5. Thought about him, his younger brother Kfir and his mother Shiri \u2013 all murdered by Hamas shortly after their abduction on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I was driving home, \u201cI Thank You Child\u201d by Zakk Wylde, written almost 30 years ago, shuffled onto my Spotify. It was played by Yarden, the father and husband, who himself was held hostage, at the funeral of his family, for Ariel and Kfir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Always gets me, this song. But it\u2019s devastating, with the Bibas tragedy: \u201cIt was you who made living all worth the while \/ Oh, I thank you, my child \/ Comfort in your eyes \/ For the warmth inside your smile \/ Faith\u2019s done gone astray \/ It was you who made living all the while \/ All my fears repressed \/ Oh lovin\u2019 you child it\u2019s the best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 18<\/strong>: And the beat goes on in the Strait of Hormuz. A bit quieter lately, although it may heat up again, with the 60-day \u201cceasefire\u201d officially expired. While Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel. How do you spell deterrence? According to my Yiddishe Mame, \u201cPftt. Pftt. Pftt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 14<\/strong>: Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare, Moody\u2019s biannual report of the Israeli economy was positive. Basically, it saw no pressures on Israel\u2019s credit rating, though the country faces a complex geopolitical situation, further complicated by upcoming elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to an historic five-year low of 1.2% (versus Canada\u2019s 2.6%). As for my own pocketbook, I haven\u2019t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft (they\u2019re used by nearly 40% of Israeli adults!) in years, so all is fine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel moved to second place in The Economist<\/em>\u2019s Big Mac Index. Introduced in 1986, this indicator compares purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald\u2019s Big Mac, using the United States as the benchmark. While a Big Mac in the States costs $6.22, it costs $7.67 in Israel, making Israel the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world. Switzerland is the priciest at a whopping (no reference to Wendy\u2019s) $9.04. The cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia, at only $2.38. Canada ranked 22nd of the 54 countries considered, at $5.85. Parity, shmarity, I\u2019m going for my Big Mac fix after I finish writing this muse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 12<\/strong>: Bravo, Boy George. We certainly will dance again! And what better way than to his new reggae tune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The musician is dealing with a backlash against his just stand for Israel. He\u2019s withdrawn from London\u2019s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar<\/em>, where he was going to play \u2026 guess it. King Herod.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Never a big Culture Club fan, I am \u2013 as a sign of support \u2013 going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library. And I\u2019m hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should he perform in Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Boy George\u2019s \u201cWe Will Dance Again\u201d reminds me of Bob Dylan\u2019s 1983 song \u201cNeighbourhood Bully,\u201d also in defence of Israel. I\u2019m going to download that song as well, although I don\u2019t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now. Sign of the times, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 8<\/strong>: Here we go again. Another round of negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living, with the way things are going, if I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire \u2013 The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition<\/em> by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal<\/em> by the Mullahs of Iran, with a special forward by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps \u2013 I would choose the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 3<\/strong>: Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, liberal Yesh Atid MK, and Mansour Abbas, United Arab Ra\u2019am MK and party head, for breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less than a political earthquake in my little shtetl, which could significantly impact coalition bloc arithmetic and strategy in the elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Ra\u2019am can be considered a legitimate \u201cZionist\u201d partner when forming coalitions and potentially push the centrist bloc over the 60-seat majority threshold in our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about 14!!) proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel\u2019s political system is the best, except for all other forms of working democracies. It will be Israel\u2019s 26th national election \u2013 five of them held since 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aug. 1<\/strong>: Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy, neither really trusts the other, and American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night \u2013 it\u2019s a nervous habit lately \u2013 that the dynamic duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! I am prompted, at 2:30 a.m., to dash around the house stocking my safe room: bottled water, canned food, medicines, documents\u2026. The beat goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If it\u2019s crazy here, it\u2019s insane in Italy, with a recent online \u201cJew hunt\u201d in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged people to report Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The Global Sumud Flotilla \u2013 yes, the one coordinating \u201cpeace and humanitarian\u201d flotillas to Gaza \u2013 was somehow connected, although they deny this. The deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and neo-colonization in Italy. I\u2019ll stick with stocking the saferoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n July 31<\/strong>: As for yesterday\u2019s Trump-Netanyahu meeting, our embattled prime minister can\u2019t win. If Trump attacks without victory, it\u2019s because of Netanyahu. If Trump attacks with victory, it\u2019s because of Trump. In Israel, if Trump doesn\u2019t attack \u2013 victory or not \u2013 Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with the US president. If Trump does attack \u2013 victory or not \u2013 half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Yes, I know. There needs to be a definition of victory for this musing to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here in my little shtetl, we go to sleep unsure if there will be a Code Red in the night. If there isn\u2019t, we wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bruce Brown<\/strong> is a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah \u2026 a long time ago. He works in Israel\u2019s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is a two-time winner of the AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire<\/em> An Israeli is\u2026. Brown reflects on life in Israel \u2013 political, social, economic and personal. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well into a forever ceasefire of sorts in the Persian Gulf, Israel finds itself in a strangely familiar place. Militarily confident. Economically resilient. Politically fractured. Wondering if the rest of the world \u2013 or much of it \u2013 has lost its bearings. Herein, my musings from my shtetl\u2019s streets this summer. Aug. 24: How principled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":49619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[25021,3200,6342,24736,4330,3597,2945,5080],"class_list":["post-49770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-boy-george","tag-economics","tag-geopolitics","tag-iran-war","tag-israel","tag-politics","tag-security","tag-trump"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49772,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49770\/revisions\/49772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sep-04-Israel.04.Bruce-Brown-musings-summer-2026_deterrence_ChatGPT-image.png\")
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