Today I feel compelled to write even though I'm not sure what to write about. As is usual for us Israelis, we take violence like a bitter pill every morning: Can't say we like it, can't not take it.

If the 500 words or so of the entry could have each conveyed a slightly different aspect of the word Banality by using it repeatedly, I would have done so. Because following the news today, nothing seems to say anything different, anything new.

No mention of names is necessary. Reporting who said what is but a miserable tour of duty, and commenting on these statements is even more meaningless.

What a wonderful fantasy it would be to imagine that this banality can allow us all to go about our daily business, have a life of ordinary human beings concerned with working for a living, enjoying the good things life has to offer. But we compare to an entirely different fantasy.

Maybe we are closer to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings' hobbit community than we'd like to think? Living in a remote corner of the world, indulging in our comfortable domesticity, while behind tall mountains forces of evil are at work.

How easily forgotten are the days when dark mercenaries partook of almost daily bloodletting on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Sderot is only getting the edge of the sharp spear. Much more powerful destructive devices are ready to be launched, and it is only with brutality and ingenuous destruction that we know how to prevent it from crossing the border.

I don't want to take the Lord of the Rings analogy too far, mainly because our conflict is not about the clash of dark and light powers. We live a much more complex, perplexing story.

But we definitely COULD use a wise, time-honoured wizard that would lead us out of this mess. Where art thou, oh Gandalf?

Another fatal attack on Sderot yesterday, the shocking loss of a loved-one. Only the winter gales cool the missiles on the wings of fighter jets and helicopters. I shudder to think what will follow, not because it's horrible but because it has become horribly banal.

And nothing will change. Why?

Because what is so conveniently described as a Clash of Civilisations is really a clash of two national behavioural systems – those of chaos and order.

What is an ordered national behavioural system? It's a system that is outlined and run by a central government with legislation, court system and law enforcement authorities. In military conflicts, the ordered system has a regular army that can engage in battle with enemy regular armies. The obvious examples are the United States and Israel.

In a chaotic system the central government is replaced by factional, militant groups that fight one another and/or a foreign enemy. Inevitably, they are embedded in civilian populations and act from civilian areas. The Palestinians and the Iraqis come to mind in this context.

What is less obvious in this division, is that the so-called ordered system is far-less orderly than what its leaders would have you believe. The system keeps working at its order, but the need of order means that it has to suppress the chaos that underlies it.

That is why a chaotic system is perceived as such a menacing threat – it provides the ordered system a live example of what can happen if it fails. The chaotic system can also pose a genuine threat on the population of the neighbouring ordered system, as in our case of Gaza and Sderot.

This seemingly detached theorising has very real implications. If an ordered state like Israel has to engage in conflict with a chaotic society such as the Palestinians, it has no effective means to rein in the chaos.

Since it can only try to enforce order by military means it will wreak havoc, kill and destroy and never secure stability. So long as the members of the chaos society will have no genuine incentive to cooperate with the might of military order, chaos will prevail.

So when the IDF is bracing for yet another ground operation in the Gaza Strip, and we are licking our wounds once again in the face of the random carnage of Qassam fire, we must stop and think not of the strike that would put an end to all of this. We have no choice but think of the incentive that would motivate the Palestinians to turn their backs on chaos and opt for an order of their own, for which they will be responsible and reap the benefit of.

Inundation. We are inundated with information, most of it so horribly vile that we defer to absorb it. In taking upon myself to comment about some of the events that flood our consciousness, I opted for naming drops of water. A useless, impossible task.

What I have not yet done is try to confront this powerful stream, and this is not done with empty words. It is done with deeds.

Can words also be counted as deeds? Most people would say they can't. I say sometimes.

One such time was eight days ago, when David Grossman spoke to tens of thousands at Rabin Square, including myself.

As he was speaking, I asked myself if what he said meant anything beyond the act of speaking. Why all those people came here and wouldn't come to rally at the entrance to the Prime Minister's office EVERY SUNDAY, and call for peace talks now.

Why calling our leadership "hollow" is just as hollow an act – sounds that die after being uttered, shapes in black print that get thrown away the week after?

Yet the very next day, I was privileged with the honour of translating this speech on the Haaretz website.

And as I was translating Grossman's words, I felt like I've never ever felt before when translating, even my own words. I felt as though the text was writing me, not vice versa. Every word resounded through my body, reverberating powerfully and quietly, like a Tibetan prayer bell.

Did this speech name the drops in the flood? Some of them, certainly. Did it prevent the water from flowing? No, not directly, but I cannot say that it failed altogether.

Olmert was forced to shrug it off. Lieberman could not help take offence. The media felt compelled to quote a different section every day and highlight its accuracy.

Grossman has given us the first written document that sums up the unprecedented reality Israel now faces. It's what I've been talking about here time and again – a hollow, useless leadership. The absence of a proactive agenda, and the prevalence of a reactive conduct.

Grossman was forced into the flood, and he will remain soaking wet in his grief over the loss of his son, Uri, in Lebanon. At the time, I couldn't even direct my eyes at his eulogy. When I called Grossman's home to thank him for the speech, I neglected to express my sorrow at his loss (although I spoke to his wife, whose grief is just as deep). So I would like to rectify this by simply saying - I share your bereavement, the Grossman family.

To conclude this wet metaphor, I will refrain from offering to construct a dam. The last thing we need is another buffer, another wall. Those will not protect us, but merely cover our eyes for that little bit longer.

I don't know what can be done against this inundation, but I sure would like to try to find out.

There are several topics that circulate in private conversations these days. Should they have allowed Rabin's killer to sleep with his so-called wife, or shouldn't they have? How corrupt IS Olmert, how low can he go before finally reaching an indictment, if ever? How bad IS Lieberman for Israel?

I suppose these and other issues have been exhausted, ground to death in the word mills of individuals, the media, and the ones who need to hide behind their glass ceilings so that none of that actually changes their comofrtable lives. Who's to get them to climb down their tall trees?

But tonight is the night when Tel Aviv will mark the 11th year to Rabin's death. Maybe anniversary is the correct word to use here, but certainly not the apporporiate word.

Rabin is ideal as a symbol, Rabin is ideal as a shield to hide behind. His name has been carried in vain more than it has been used appopriately since his assassination. After watching several documentaries about his life, I became convinced that the day he died marked also they day when the old-guard of Israeli politics died.

With his departure, political leaders here lost their last grain of integrity. No premier would ever again dare contemplate his resignation because of a scandal, small as it might be. No prominent public figure would let their education get the better of them and guide them in striving for the common good, without it necessarily doing as good for themselves.

And yes, I'm talking about Rabin's resignation after the exposure of his wife's U.S. bank account, which was illegal to have back then. And yes, I'm talking about his fifteen years away from power, and in endless mud wrestling with his nemesis, Shimon Peres. And yes, I'm even talking about the gruesome, sickening order to soldiers in the first Intifada to "break their bones." Words had a corresponding action, for better or worse.

I'm working very hard here not to fall into cliches. There's nothing worse for a dead person to become cliched, especially if he or she were very direct, wholesome people of action. It's horrible to be dead and defenceless against the wheels of cheap propaganda.

I suppose the most appropriate way to mark Rabin's assassination then, is to be sad and know exactly why.