Mini golf in a war zone?

Life in Israel is full of ups and downs just like anywhere else on our planet. The ups may be the same, but the downs are really scary! Conflict is unfortunately a regular feature around here, but I watch it on the news very much like the rest of the world. There can be missiles coming and going in Gaza and I can be stuck in rush hour traffic 80 kilometers away. My boss would not accept that as a good enough reason to miss work - if it was, I imagine Israelis would be home a lot more! We listen to the news all the time, but we do it work.

My dream is to open a mini golf park in Israel. Can you imagine anything more peaceful than playing mini golf? How many wars have been caused by mini golf rivalries? How many people get clubbed to death every year with a putter? Its just a simple family venue where anyone can come to putt a ball around a pretty course. It's a simple little business right? Not in Israel.

Last month I was talking to investors and getting the ball rolling, so to speak. Just another entrepeneur trying to get his dream afloat. This month the situation has changed so dramatically, that most people (outside of Israel) who hear about what I am trying to do .. think I am totally mad! He's trying to open a mini golf park in Israel? Mini golf in a war zone? He's looking for investors? He must be mad.

Unless you have actually lived in Israel - it is very difficult to explain how things work here, but lets have a try. Israel has been exposed to bombs and attacks for years and has naturally developed systems to deal with each of them. When there is a suicide bombing, there is a rapid response to rescue lives, then the investigators gather evidence, then the clean-up crew collect every speck of human remains they can find (no fire hoses used here), then the construction crews move in. A shop destroyed in a suicide bomb, can be reopened and operating within a month. That may seem cold and ruthless, but from experience it seems the best way to deal with it.

So back to my little dream of a mini golf park. The missiles will stop eventually. They always do. And then I will build my mini golf park and the families will come and play. They will forget about the last war and not think about the next one, because all their energy will be focused on getting a silly little ball into a silly little hole.


Many think I may have lost the plot altogether? There is a war on at present in Gaza .. yet I am sitting here in Israel dreaming about mini golf. I am dreaming of a time when families in Gaza and Israel can come and putt a little ball into an insignificant little hole play in the peaceful