This past weekend was great weather for hiking up north, and for sitting out on the balcony at the kibbutz guest house. T. and I hiked in the Carmel forest, at Nahal Tavor next to Kibbutz Gazit (above), and walked up the said-to-be-volcanic Karnei-Hittin (of which a photo appears in Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad).

Next to the highway just north of Netanya there's an open field where some people propped up row after row of placards saying "Mitzna is virtuous" (or something like that) with a picture of Mitzna looking virtuous. At Kibbutz Gazit there were signs for Meretz. At the adjacent Arab village (Kafr Mizr?), the popular party was the one with a 2 letter logo that included the Arabic letter that resembles an epsilon.

The kibbutz where we stayed caters to a religious clientele. So instead of regular cable TV, there were Saudi cable channels (eg, Showtime Arabia), that showed airplane versions of Hollywood movies.

When I travel up north I try to stay clear of the Wadi Ara highway, especially at night. There hasn't been much trouble on the road recently, but the area is prone to infiltrations like the one tonight where 3 terrorists entered Moshav Gadish and killed a father of four (report).