Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect

Lately I’ve noticed something new on city buses and taxi vans: flat-screen monitors with rotating news updates. I guess that just proves the old saying that we Israelis can’t go too long without our news fix.

Recently I rode in a taxi van in the south. The van had a news screen, and I decided to see whether I would be able to photograph it. Turns out I was successful, but the really interesting item I discovered was the proximity between the following two headlines.

The screen below reads: “Palestinian Minister of the Interior: Organizations agreed to stop Kassam rocket fire”

(The word “organizations” in the headline refers to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.)

Here is the next screen in the rotation: “Anti-anxiety workshops in bomb shelters: [Moshav] Netiv ha-Asara tries to cope with Kassam rockets and sonic booms by holding workshops in bomb shelters”

I can’t help asking: if there really is an agreement to stop the Kassam rocket fire, then why should the residents of Netiv ha-Asara need these workshops?

(Just in case you were wondering, that’s a rhetorical question.)