As luck would have it, I was on an Egged bus, en route to my son’s school for a parent-teacher evening, during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress.
Besides the rattling of the bus, and the din of peoples’ conversations, a woman’s voice on the radio was almost simultaneously translating the speech into Hebrew. Olim will relate to the strain on the ears and the difficulty of concentration.
Rather than fight it, I tuned my ears towards the voices around me.
The Prime Minister’s quotes are from a copy of the speech already online, while the other voice was an elderly man I overheard speaking in English during this part of the address:
Sound bites from Egged Bus 15:
The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are vital. But they’re not enough.
What’s this about Abbas visiting his ancestral home in Ireland?
We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians.
You mean Obama’s Irish? I thought he was Muslim.
Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: A Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.
Obama’s lucky. My in-laws’ family lived in Hebron before the [1929] massacre. They lived in an area of Hebron we can’t visit now. But maybe one day . . .
Maybe one day.
© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
