“They should stay till this thing is absolutely over.”
Jerusalem, January 16 – A running enthusiast whose performance can never quite match that of the elite athletes who always finish Jerusalem’s annual 42.2-kilometer race before him voiced his excitement for this year’s contest, with anticipation that the ongoing military conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip – and, he notes with relish, quite possibly Hezbollah in Lebanon soon enough – will take place in the absence of competitors from abroad – deterred by the war – and of Israelis called up to serve in the military during the operations, thus clearing the way for him to finish in the top echelon, if not to win the race outright.
“I have such a good chance this year, but only if the war keeps up,” observed Shai Goldman, 35. “I train my butt off for this thing every year, but never have a cracked even the top thirty finishers. I’m not going to call it unfair, but it feels wrong to have the winner be some Kenyan guy every single time. Well, now, thanks to the war, tourism is way down. Those foreign runners won’t be here to get in my way. I’m ready to take it all.”
“Also the reserve guys – they’re doing important work, don’t get me wrong,” he continued. “In fact it’s so important, they should stay till this thing is absolutely over. No need to rush back. We on the home front have got this side of things covered. They should keep hunting down Hamas and deterring Hezbollah, which I’m told will take as long as a year, the rooting out of Hamas. They don’t need to worry that the marathon won’t happen without them. Especially not the twenty-nine people who finished ahead of me last time and are now serving in Gaza.”
Goldman has expressed analogous sentiments about the queues at entertainment venues and at various government or bureaucratic offices. “I wonder if there’s some additional way for political or military developments to get people out of my way in other areas of life,” he mused. “It would be nice for the vehicle inspection station to be a lot less crowded. I could save hours of waiting. What kind of event would result in fewer other vehicle owners going there when I need to renew my annual registration? It would have to be something that causes only some folks to stay away, and not, for example, like the pandemic, when places shut down for everyone. Can we get Hezbollah or Iran involved somehow? They seem like they’d be game for this.”
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