No word yet from Charles Manson, Idi Amin or Osama bin Laden, but Yasser Arafat sends his condolences to both the US and Israel. What a relief!
Forgive the use of a hero and a villain in the same sentence, but one thing's for sure, Ilan Ramon and Yasser Arafat are proof that America and Israel are in this together. We share a dream. We share a destiny. We are linked by the same friends, the same enemies, and by our same love of liberty, as expressed by the prophet Micah: "And each man shall sit under the shade of his vine and fig tree, and none shall make him afraid."
We are in the same boat, thanks to the counterfeit good wishes of our enemies... and we are in the same rocket, forevermore, through the grace of our astronaut heroes.
Ramon wanted to connect Israel (and all Jews) with the United States. He succeeded. Six Americans and one Israeli are now joined forever in our history and in our hearts. Perhaps it took a tragedy like this to bring us closer. Today, the world weeps for both our nations.
Bet the mortgage that in a week or so the world will be back to the old, normal Israel-bashing and America-hating.
Round up the usual suspects and you?ll find the world?s news media all taking a breather. They send condolences. Nary a discouraging word. For Israel in particular, this is a first.
Do you love hypocrisy? Newsprint and airwaves are full of praise, but, like 9/11, we are in a Before and After scenario.
Here's Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy's resentful approach Before: "The festival surrounding the launch of Colonel Ilan Ramon into space only demonstrated acutely the gap... ignoring the Palestinians' suffering... Tel Aviv cafes are crowded... Jenin is dying..."
More from Levy? "The Palestinians will increase the terror attacks, Israel will increase its bullying and no blue-and-white astronaut will be able to distract -- for long -- attention from the bloody results."
Ha'aretz, After: "For Israelis, the last flight of a quiet hero..." and so on. Before, Ramon was ridiculed, caricatured, and, some might say, even jinxed by Levy and other members of the Ha'aretz staff. But now he's a hero.
Why single out an Israeli newspaper? Because we expect derision from among "them" -- not from among us.
By "us" I mean both the United States and Israel. Israel must take it on the chin, because of its numbers, or rather lack of numbers. Good thing we're big and strong here in America, so that frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn. But more and more, anti-Americanism is beginning to look a lot like anti-Semitism.
Sometimes (and of course we're talking about Before) it's hard to tell which one of us is being jeered. Nelson Mandela accuses a certain country of having committed the world's worst atrocities. Who's this? America. But that's an echo regularly heard against the Jewish state. Kofi Annan says, "The whole world can't be wrong." Who's that? Israel, as Annan deplores Israel's right to defend itself. But the same is being said about America.
Pushy, greedy, blood-thirsty, arrogant, a loose cannon -- guess who's coming to dinner? Could be either President Bush or Prime Minister Sharon.
Germany's Schroeder is swept into office on a platform of America-bashing. Israel-bashing would have yielded the same triumph.
Remember, much of why the world "hates America" is because of "America's policies in the Middle East."
In Chirac's France, to be a Jew or to be an American is exactly the same thing -- someone to be despised.
"Too smart, too powerful." Take your pick as to who's the target of those slanders. "They want to control the world." Sound familiar?
The insults, even the blood libels, have stopped for the moment, but give it time and it will all resume; as when the world jumped on America for "mistreating" Taliban terrorist detainees at ?Gitmo?. And when the same world jumped on Israel for a "massacre" that never happened in Jenin. We were in the same boat then, not yet the same rocket.
One headline says world leaders send sympathies and regrets to America and Israel. Thank you, but let's see how this works out after Israel retaliates from the next homicide bombing, or when America pushes forward upon Iraq.
In connection with Iraq, Mandela charges President Bush with provoking a "holocaust." How slick, the use of a word that belongs singularly to the Jewish tragedy. Between the blessings and the curses, between our friends and our enemies, we do indeed share the same boat, the same rocket.
But it's that rocket, and the heroes who sacrificed themselves for humanity within, that permits us to sit under the prophet's shade of liberty, together.
--------------------------------------------------------
Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller Indecent Proposal and is a former radio and newspaper editor covering the Mideast, as well as a former American volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces. His columns can be read online at http://www.comteqcom.com/jackcolumn.php and he can be reached at JackEngelhard@ComteQcom.com.
Forgive the use of a hero and a villain in the same sentence, but one thing's for sure, Ilan Ramon and Yasser Arafat are proof that America and Israel are in this together. We share a dream. We share a destiny. We are linked by the same friends, the same enemies, and by our same love of liberty, as expressed by the prophet Micah: "And each man shall sit under the shade of his vine and fig tree, and none shall make him afraid."
We are in the same boat, thanks to the counterfeit good wishes of our enemies... and we are in the same rocket, forevermore, through the grace of our astronaut heroes.
Ramon wanted to connect Israel (and all Jews) with the United States. He succeeded. Six Americans and one Israeli are now joined forever in our history and in our hearts. Perhaps it took a tragedy like this to bring us closer. Today, the world weeps for both our nations.
Bet the mortgage that in a week or so the world will be back to the old, normal Israel-bashing and America-hating.
Round up the usual suspects and you?ll find the world?s news media all taking a breather. They send condolences. Nary a discouraging word. For Israel in particular, this is a first.
Do you love hypocrisy? Newsprint and airwaves are full of praise, but, like 9/11, we are in a Before and After scenario.
Here's Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy's resentful approach Before: "The festival surrounding the launch of Colonel Ilan Ramon into space only demonstrated acutely the gap... ignoring the Palestinians' suffering... Tel Aviv cafes are crowded... Jenin is dying..."
More from Levy? "The Palestinians will increase the terror attacks, Israel will increase its bullying and no blue-and-white astronaut will be able to distract -- for long -- attention from the bloody results."
Ha'aretz, After: "For Israelis, the last flight of a quiet hero..." and so on. Before, Ramon was ridiculed, caricatured, and, some might say, even jinxed by Levy and other members of the Ha'aretz staff. But now he's a hero.
Why single out an Israeli newspaper? Because we expect derision from among "them" -- not from among us.
By "us" I mean both the United States and Israel. Israel must take it on the chin, because of its numbers, or rather lack of numbers. Good thing we're big and strong here in America, so that frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn. But more and more, anti-Americanism is beginning to look a lot like anti-Semitism.
Sometimes (and of course we're talking about Before) it's hard to tell which one of us is being jeered. Nelson Mandela accuses a certain country of having committed the world's worst atrocities. Who's this? America. But that's an echo regularly heard against the Jewish state. Kofi Annan says, "The whole world can't be wrong." Who's that? Israel, as Annan deplores Israel's right to defend itself. But the same is being said about America.
Pushy, greedy, blood-thirsty, arrogant, a loose cannon -- guess who's coming to dinner? Could be either President Bush or Prime Minister Sharon.
Germany's Schroeder is swept into office on a platform of America-bashing. Israel-bashing would have yielded the same triumph.
Remember, much of why the world "hates America" is because of "America's policies in the Middle East."
In Chirac's France, to be a Jew or to be an American is exactly the same thing -- someone to be despised.
"Too smart, too powerful." Take your pick as to who's the target of those slanders. "They want to control the world." Sound familiar?
The insults, even the blood libels, have stopped for the moment, but give it time and it will all resume; as when the world jumped on America for "mistreating" Taliban terrorist detainees at ?Gitmo?. And when the same world jumped on Israel for a "massacre" that never happened in Jenin. We were in the same boat then, not yet the same rocket.
One headline says world leaders send sympathies and regrets to America and Israel. Thank you, but let's see how this works out after Israel retaliates from the next homicide bombing, or when America pushes forward upon Iraq.
In connection with Iraq, Mandela charges President Bush with provoking a "holocaust." How slick, the use of a word that belongs singularly to the Jewish tragedy. Between the blessings and the curses, between our friends and our enemies, we do indeed share the same boat, the same rocket.
But it's that rocket, and the heroes who sacrificed themselves for humanity within, that permits us to sit under the prophet's shade of liberty, together.
--------------------------------------------------------
Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller Indecent Proposal and is a former radio and newspaper editor covering the Mideast, as well as a former American volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces. His columns can be read online at http://www.comteqcom.com/jackcolumn.php and he can be reached at JackEngelhard@ComteQcom.com.