Bombs in Beirut

The Iranian Embassy in Beirut was bombed this morning, about the time I was making myself toast and coffee in my apartment in Jerusalem.  Over 23 people were killed, countless injured, and no one as yet has claimed responsibility.  

Meanwhile, traffic in Jerusalem has been inordinately Los Angeles-like since Sunday, when President Hollande of France arrived (amid much pomp and circumstance and...motorcade) in order to discuss strategy re Iran with the Israeli government.  I noticed something was up when I walked past a half-dozen armed Israeli soldiers in order to get to choir rehearsal on Sunday night -- Hollande is staying at the King David Hotel, which is directly across from the YMCA where we practice (incidentally, the Y is one the most beautiful buildings in Jerusalem).  Midway through practice we trouped down the stairs to perform Bruckner's "Locus iste" in the lobby of the Y, just in case the wind was in the right direction and would carry our voices over to the King David and smack into Hollande's face.  I'm not sure he heard us after all that, but the acoustics down in the lobby were nice anyway.

Then yesterday it took the bus 45 minutes (instead of the usual 5) to go from one end of Givat Ram to the other end where campus is, because of heightened security around the Knesset -- the Israeli parliament, whose building you can see from my office window, and which for several days will play host to the aforementioned foreign dignitary as he tries to convince Netanyahu to "loosen up" on Iran. Which is interesting, but maybe not 40-extra-minutes of my workday interesting.

Last night I happened to eat dinner next to an elderly pair of charming Parisians, and got their inside opinion about these recent diplomatic maneuvers.  I hadn't interacted with them until partway through our respective dinners, I made a fatefully vigorous stab at my chicken which sent the targeted chicken-part into my lap and the fork on a quasi-parabolic trajectory towards the feet of the French.  After they finished laughing at me ("Ah hahn hahn!"), I asked what they thought of Hollande's visit.  Turns out most of the French people are heavily pro-Palestine, and that has meant traditionally a rather strained relationship between the two countries. So now Hollande's snuggling up to the Israelis (and, I note, away from the US) on the crucial issue of Iran's progress towards nuclear armament has won le Président no great affection at home.  At no time during our conversation did the actual question of whether or not Iran should be aided in its endeavor to build nuclear weapons come up.  The locus of conversation was entirely political shindiggery among the US, France and Israel.  I found this indifference towards the prosepct of Iran's having a nuclear arsenal almost as alarming as the prospect itself.

Of course you can read all this in today's New York Times.  But it's different when I remember, for instance, that a mere 127 miles north-northwest of me sits a smoking Beirut, and 136 miles to the north-northeast, a beleaguered Damascus.  I go now to enjoy a quiet lunch break on a sprawling green lawn (populated, as usual, primarily by scrappy kittens) in one of precious few peaceful capital cities in this entire region. And that's just something reading the newspaper reports can't quite capture.