-Israel is a country surrounded on all sides by enemies, but the people's headaches are caused by the neighbors upstairs.
-Israel is the only country in the world where the coffee is already so good that Starbucks went bankrupt trying to break into the local market.
-Israel is the only country in the world whose soldiers eat three sets of salads a day, none of which contain any lettuce (which is not really a food), and where olives ARE a food and even a main course in a meal, rather than something one tosses into a martini.
-Israel is the only country in the world where one is unlikely to dig a cellar without hitting ancient archaeological artifacts.
-Israel is the only country in the world where the leading writers in the country take buses.
-Israel is the only country in the world that has a National Book Week, during which almost everyone attends a book fair and buys books.
-Israel is a country where the same drivers who cuss you and flip you the bird will immediately pull over and offer you all forms of help if you look like you need it.
-Israel is the only country in the world with bus drivers and taxi drivers who read Spinoza and Maimonides.
-Israel is the only country in the world where no one cares what rules say when an important goal can be achieved by bending them.
-Israel is the only country in the world where reservists are bossed around and commanded by officers, male and female, younger than their own children.
-Israel is the only country in the world where "small talk" consists of loud, angry debate over politics and religion.
-Israel is the only country in the world where bank robbers kiss the mezuzah as they leave with their loot.
-Israel is one of the few countries in the world that truly likes and admires the United States .
-Israel is the only country in the world where everyone on a flight gets to know one another before the plane lands. In many cases, they also get to know the pilot and all about his health or marital problems.
-Israel is the only country in the world where no one has a foreign accent because everyone has a foreign accent.
-Israel is the only country in the world where people cuss using dirty words in Russian or Arabic because Hebrew has never developed them.
-Israel is the only country in the world where patients visiting physicians end up giving the doctor advice.
-Israel is the only country in the world where everyone strikes up conversations while waiting in lines.
-Israel is the only country in the world where people call an attaché case a "James Bond" and the "@" sign is called a "strudel".
-Israel is the only country in the world where people read English, write Hebrew, and joke in Yiddish.
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Neighborhood Bully
By Bob Dylan, 1983 (on “Infidels” album)
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have
thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door gets
kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man,
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel
bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of,
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would
weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under noone’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest of books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into
wealth,
Took disease and sickness and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’ they say. He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the
moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.
