Reference:- Responding to the war between Israel and Iran , the Australian Government has advised against travel in the Middle East .

 Reference :-  Our cousin , Phineas , can't secure a flight home from Israel .  

Cousin Phineas is currently in Israel ,where he now spends much of his time hiding in an underground  shelter  .  Phineas has always nurtured a keen interest in the history of tax deductible bronze age superstitions , and recently crossed a great ambition off his bucket list by flying to Israel , which is the very heartland of bronze age superstitions . 

I more keenly follow current geopolitics , with a particular interest in avoiding the need to inhabit  bomb shelters during major kinetic conflicts.   It occurred to me that Phineas should avoid travel in the Middle East while the whole region looks like the Kooralya showgrounds on Guy Fawkes night .  I hinted at this  to Phineas . 

" It occurs to me that you should avoid travel in the Middle East while the whole region looks like the Kooralya  showgrounds on Guy Fawkes night . " , I said .  

Anyway , I could have saved my breath  . Wailing at Phineas about the risks of traveling to Jerusalem was like talking to a brick wall .   And now , Phineas tells us he is trapped in Israel because flights from Ben Gurion Airport  have been cancelled .    I told him it is because flights are unsafe , due to the rockets  arriving daily from Iran .   But Phineas has a proclivity for paranoia , and he reckons Mr Netanyahu is deliberately keeping  thousands of folk in Israel to serve as human shields . Phineas  reckons that Mr  Netanyahu  wants westerners to be killed by that Ayatollah chap running Iran so that western countries will be more inclined to help him liberate the Iranian people from their dictatorship . And unlike Iraq,  Libya , Afghanistan and Syria , on this occasion Mr Netanyahu expects regime change will succeed . 

We are all worried about Phineas'  awful plight .   I was going to ask him if he had seen many artifacts produced by bronze age superstitions , but told Ken junior that I felt it was not the right time  . 

"  I don't think we should ask cousin Phineas whether he has seen many bronze age artifacts . " , I said . 

"  He is living in one . " , Ken junior said . 

Whatever that means .....

 Your comrade , Ken .