Here’s your chance to vote

In America, there is a weekly magazine called, Sports Illustrated. Each issue has had a box on one page near the front cover labelled, “Signs the Apocalypse is upon us”—or, something like that. In that box, under that heading, would be a quote or incident (which appears incredibly stupid) from the week’s sports world. It was a sign of the Apocalypse because the people described were usually highly paid sports professionals, and the assumption of the title is that if the world was paying people this stupid millions of dollars a year then, surely, the end of civilized life had to be near.

The quotes and/or incidents were often funny; they represented a little bit of humour mocking humanity’s depravity or stupidity—or both.

I don’t know if Israel has a local version of Sports Illustrated. But if we had such a magazine, it should be for politics, not sports. It would be easy to find ‘signs of the Apocalypse’.  True, Jews don’t have an ‘Apocalypse’.  But we do have a Final Redemption scenario that allows us to look around and exclaim, ‘The Redemption is a lot closer than you think!’  Look at what happened last week, June 7 -13, 2012. During these seven days, there were almost too many examples that appear to point to the ‘end’.  Here’s a sampling; in fact, since Mr Netanyahu apparently doesn’t want you to vote this year, consider this to be your year’s voting opportunity.  Vote below for your favourite examples. Just remember, since a weekly magazine only publishes, mostly, four times a month, you can choose only four favourites:

-a Muslim cleric happily announces in Egypt that, when his favourite Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate wins the upcoming Egyptian election (scheduled for the week of June 16), the capital of Egypt will no longer be Cairo; it will be Jerusalem;

-The IDF highlights for the world a picture it suggests it is proud of: two presumably gay IDF soldiers—in uniform-- walking in Tel Aviv, holding hands;

-a Jewish MK (married to a non-Jew) is appointed to head a Knesset committee which, it seems, may be responsible for overseeing Jewish education in Israel;

-caravan homes promised to Gush Katif Jews--who had been expelled from their homes in 2005 and who were mostly still homeless-- are taken from them; the government says it needs them for another Jewish expulsion, in Ulpana;

-a senior official in the Defense Ministry allegedly tells an Ulpana resident that, “there is no way to implement Netanyahu’s promise to build 10 units for every one” torn down in Ulpana, a promise that had just the week before been given by Netanyahu to convince Ministers to vote against Ulpana in an important Knesset vote; this statement is repeated to Israel National News; some suggest this is another example of the Prime Minister lying to Jews;

-Israel is reported to be close to signing a secret agreement to give The Tomb of David to the Vatican;

-International specialists gather in Jerusalem for an important reason--to study the legal status of Jerusalem;

-The US ousts Israel from an international counterterrorism forum because Arabs object to Israel’s presence;

-The European Union announces that  neither Iran’s aggressive nuclear ambitions nor the horrific civilian massacres in Syria are the Middle East’s most urgent problem; the most urgent issue is Jews building homes;

-Arab Muslims claim the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity is in ‘the country of Palestine’;

-The Chief of the Home Front Command for metropolitan Tel Aviv announced that, if unconventional missiles struck Tel Aviv, the entire city would have to be evacuated;

-‘Certain’ government offices, including the Tax authority, held drills to practice procedures should an earthquake of 6.9 on the Richter scale strike Israel;

-Jonathan Pollard has now been in an American prison more than 9,700 days;

-A Palestinian Authority NGO, funded by United Nations donations, puts on puppet shows to encourage Arab children to stop smoking by replacing cigarettes with machine guns, to kill Jews;

-Jerusalem puts on an elaborate light show; citizens complain of Christian motifs seen in the Old City;

Finally, a local favourite from some Israelis who think about the end of secular civilization in Israel: a new poll concludes that only 11% of Israelis say they trust their politicians.

Because this poll is Israeli, it adheres to Israeli tradition: it is not scientific. Besides, we couldn’t afford to hire professional pollsters who pay telemarketers to call 200 Israeli Jews and 200 Israeli Arabs in order to publish that 50% of Israelis say Israel should be a Muslim state. We didn’t have the money. That’s one reason there’ll be no winners in this vote. The other reason is, if our Final Redemption in really close, why should you care about winning?

Please use the ‘Comments’ section below to cast your vote.