Please forgive if I can't stay on topic this morning. There's so much going on. Can't focus.
Everything is Moishe Kapoyr, or topsy-turvy.
Bob Dylan, our master against the Establishment since the 1960s, is doing TV commercials for girlie underwear. This means anything goes. Guess he feels he's not selling out, only selling. Plus, now that it's getting warm, people, like my neighbors, take to the swimming pool and run out hysterically when a few raindrops fall. I don't get this. Water is water.
Also, ever since I phoned that federal hotline to stop nuisance telemarketing phone calls, the amount has doubled and some days tripled.
Then there's this: You wake up cheering the news that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for uprooting Jews has gone down to humiliating defeat, and next minute, or almost the same minute, comes news that another Jewish Israeli family has been wiped out. How are you supposed to feel? Dreadful, that's how you feel, as nothing can replace the loss of these precious lives.
But you see my point. It's all upside down. A few moments ago, I read this headline: "Palestinians Mourn [arch-terrorist] Ahmed Yassin."
Still? He's been gone several months now, and besides, isn't this good? It's good for us, but even better for them, since, after all, it's all about martyrdom and being embraced by those 72 black-eyed virgins. That's the pitch they give their young before sending them off with explosives. Die for Jihad and find eternal paradise. So what's the problem?
They should be celebrating, not mourning. One quick question. How come they're still virgins? They've had maybe a thousand Jihad visitors and virgins they remain, those 72.
Perhaps we're being told that Arab terrorism only attracts "men" who are neutered.
Almost along the same vein, the United Nations's Kofi Annan, the European Union's Javier Solana and Britain's Jack Straw can't find their tongues to express outrage against Arab bloodshed. Suddenly, they too are neutered, or "fixed" as we say in horse racing. The news media have pretty much skipped over the murder of a mother and her children and have gone straight to Dennis Ross for his observations about Sharon's political defeat - as if Israel is about politics and not about men, women and children.
However, when Israel surrounds Yasser Arafat's compound, the UN immediately swings into action, the US State Department calls for restraint? and here comes Geraldo, the BBC, CNN, NPR, followed by Adam Shapiro and a thousand members of the International Solidarity Movement. The UN condemns. Jack Straw deplores.
Something's wrong with all that, and with this, which comes from the mouth of Israeli cabinet minister Gideon Ezra, a friend of Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, as he commented on the murder of Tali Hatuel and her four daughters: "Our soldiers can't be in every car that moves in the Gaza Strip."
Memo to Minister Ezra: "Our soldiers can't be in every car that moves" in Tel Aviv, either, or Netanya, or Jerusalem, or the 50 other places "inside" Israel where terrorist savages have struck a thousand times. By your reasoning, Minister Ezra, "Attention, all Jews leave the pool at once." (Yes, it's raining terrorism all over the Land of Israel.)
Why did I just use the word "savages" when I promised myself to write calmly? Well, here's what happened. There's been a friendly email dispute between a reader and a writer, with me, as Sholem Aleichem liked to say, right in the middle. Miss X wrote me that she sides with writer Miss Y, except that Miss Y is too politically incorrect, such as when Miss Y uses the word "savages" to describe savages? I mean Jihad Arabs.
So, even before the murder of Israeli Tali Hatuel, who was eight months pregnant, and the murder of her four gorgeous daughters, who will never be seen again, I checked my Thesaurus and, sorry, but that's the word - savages. There are no other words. Well, there are, but they're not fit to print.
Now, that quote from Minister Ezra comes from the Jerusalem Post, I believe, and the Post has a fine reputation, even internationally, and it is well-deserved. For on-the-spot news and commentary direct from Israel, we read the Post all over the United States, almost as much as IsraelNationalNews.com (Arutz Sheva). We find the Post fair and balanced, if occasionally too balanced.
I was surprised by the Post's recent editorial that favored Sharon's disengagement plan (that went down in flames) and even more surprised by this line in connection to the murder of Tali Hatuel and most of her family: "Neither side in the bitter political battle should invoke their memory."
Obviously, I have taken this quote out of context, and obviously the Post means that Israel should keep its eye on the larger fight, the big picture.
But still, a line like that doesn't fit a time like this. I read that line 15 times to make sure I had it right and it always came back the same, and gave me the willies. The wording here is insensitive and troublesome. I even checked to make sure that I hadn't accidentally stumbled upon Haaretz.
Surely, the Jerusalem Post has wiser minds than mine, but for me, it's all about invoking that memory. That is the big picture, all condensed into one family, one incident. That family is Israel! That's us. Meaning, also America and the rest of the world that's suffering from the deluge of Islamic terror. (The Almighty kept His word that there'd never be another Flood, but made no promise about this cloudburst of terror.)
For the record, the victims whose memory should always be invoked are Tali, 34 and eight-months pregnant, and her four beautiful daughters: Hila, 11; Hadar, nine; Roni, seven; Merav, aged two. The men who killed them stepped up and pulled their triggers point-blank, murdering each, one by one, execution style. That's them.
Contrary to editorialists and world opinion, let the memory of the Hatuels be a constant reminder that Israel belongs to Israel. Even as Tommy Lapid and Ehud Olmert and Sharon himself crunch numbers to show that their defeat was actually a victory, the blood of the Hatuel family cries up and demands that no part of the Land be forfeited to those who have no pity for women and children. These Palestinian Arabs have relinquished any claim to live with Israel as neighbors. No Gaza for them, no Judea, no Samaria, no Jerusalem, nothing but goodbye. That's the legacy of Tali and her daughters. So let it be invoked.
Late word has it that throughout the Palestinian Arab world the murderers of this woman and her babies are being hailed as "heroes." There is dancing in the Arab Street.
In a minute I will check my Thesaurus again to see if "savages" still applies.
Meanwhile, as Sharon persists in disengaging Israel from Israel, the New York Times persists in disengaging the United States from Sharon. Last week, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote that President Bush must "disentangle himself from Ariel Sharon, that bloodstained figure."
Well, it must be remembered that the New York Times hid the Holocaust in its back pages even while the Holocaust was happening. Even today, Times insiders admit, "We missed the story." Also, it's worth remembering that during Stalin's purges, Times reporter Walter Duranty (not as funny as Jimmy Durante) kept forgetting to mention the mass murders.
Duranty was quoted as saying, "I put my money on Stalin." Duranty didn't win a Nobel, but he did win a Pulitzer. Through some oversight, Stalin never won a Nobel Prize for Peace, as did Yasser Arafat years later. I don't read much of Kristof (who needs Kristof when you've got Tom Friedman?), but he obviously puts his money on Arafat.
We must not blame the Times for getting it all backwards. Their reporters, columnists and editors are only adhering to tradition.
I almost forgot. During Holocaust Remembrance Week, a Rutgers University "entertainment" newspaper ran a "knock a Jew in the oven" cartoon. Even some Jewish students defended this in the name of fun. In some parts of Rutgers, maybe, you'll find those 72 virgins and the eunuchs who keep trying, but failing.
Okay, I just checked my Thesaurus again for a round-up of what's going on in this topsy-turvy world of ours, and yes, "savages" remains correct.
Everything is Moishe Kapoyr, or topsy-turvy.
Bob Dylan, our master against the Establishment since the 1960s, is doing TV commercials for girlie underwear. This means anything goes. Guess he feels he's not selling out, only selling. Plus, now that it's getting warm, people, like my neighbors, take to the swimming pool and run out hysterically when a few raindrops fall. I don't get this. Water is water.
Also, ever since I phoned that federal hotline to stop nuisance telemarketing phone calls, the amount has doubled and some days tripled.
Then there's this: You wake up cheering the news that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for uprooting Jews has gone down to humiliating defeat, and next minute, or almost the same minute, comes news that another Jewish Israeli family has been wiped out. How are you supposed to feel? Dreadful, that's how you feel, as nothing can replace the loss of these precious lives.
But you see my point. It's all upside down. A few moments ago, I read this headline: "Palestinians Mourn [arch-terrorist] Ahmed Yassin."
Still? He's been gone several months now, and besides, isn't this good? It's good for us, but even better for them, since, after all, it's all about martyrdom and being embraced by those 72 black-eyed virgins. That's the pitch they give their young before sending them off with explosives. Die for Jihad and find eternal paradise. So what's the problem?
They should be celebrating, not mourning. One quick question. How come they're still virgins? They've had maybe a thousand Jihad visitors and virgins they remain, those 72.
Perhaps we're being told that Arab terrorism only attracts "men" who are neutered.
Almost along the same vein, the United Nations's Kofi Annan, the European Union's Javier Solana and Britain's Jack Straw can't find their tongues to express outrage against Arab bloodshed. Suddenly, they too are neutered, or "fixed" as we say in horse racing. The news media have pretty much skipped over the murder of a mother and her children and have gone straight to Dennis Ross for his observations about Sharon's political defeat - as if Israel is about politics and not about men, women and children.
However, when Israel surrounds Yasser Arafat's compound, the UN immediately swings into action, the US State Department calls for restraint? and here comes Geraldo, the BBC, CNN, NPR, followed by Adam Shapiro and a thousand members of the International Solidarity Movement. The UN condemns. Jack Straw deplores.
Something's wrong with all that, and with this, which comes from the mouth of Israeli cabinet minister Gideon Ezra, a friend of Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, as he commented on the murder of Tali Hatuel and her four daughters: "Our soldiers can't be in every car that moves in the Gaza Strip."
Memo to Minister Ezra: "Our soldiers can't be in every car that moves" in Tel Aviv, either, or Netanya, or Jerusalem, or the 50 other places "inside" Israel where terrorist savages have struck a thousand times. By your reasoning, Minister Ezra, "Attention, all Jews leave the pool at once." (Yes, it's raining terrorism all over the Land of Israel.)
Why did I just use the word "savages" when I promised myself to write calmly? Well, here's what happened. There's been a friendly email dispute between a reader and a writer, with me, as Sholem Aleichem liked to say, right in the middle. Miss X wrote me that she sides with writer Miss Y, except that Miss Y is too politically incorrect, such as when Miss Y uses the word "savages" to describe savages? I mean Jihad Arabs.
So, even before the murder of Israeli Tali Hatuel, who was eight months pregnant, and the murder of her four gorgeous daughters, who will never be seen again, I checked my Thesaurus and, sorry, but that's the word - savages. There are no other words. Well, there are, but they're not fit to print.
Now, that quote from Minister Ezra comes from the Jerusalem Post, I believe, and the Post has a fine reputation, even internationally, and it is well-deserved. For on-the-spot news and commentary direct from Israel, we read the Post all over the United States, almost as much as IsraelNationalNews.com (Arutz Sheva). We find the Post fair and balanced, if occasionally too balanced.
I was surprised by the Post's recent editorial that favored Sharon's disengagement plan (that went down in flames) and even more surprised by this line in connection to the murder of Tali Hatuel and most of her family: "Neither side in the bitter political battle should invoke their memory."
Obviously, I have taken this quote out of context, and obviously the Post means that Israel should keep its eye on the larger fight, the big picture.
But still, a line like that doesn't fit a time like this. I read that line 15 times to make sure I had it right and it always came back the same, and gave me the willies. The wording here is insensitive and troublesome. I even checked to make sure that I hadn't accidentally stumbled upon Haaretz.
Surely, the Jerusalem Post has wiser minds than mine, but for me, it's all about invoking that memory. That is the big picture, all condensed into one family, one incident. That family is Israel! That's us. Meaning, also America and the rest of the world that's suffering from the deluge of Islamic terror. (The Almighty kept His word that there'd never be another Flood, but made no promise about this cloudburst of terror.)
For the record, the victims whose memory should always be invoked are Tali, 34 and eight-months pregnant, and her four beautiful daughters: Hila, 11; Hadar, nine; Roni, seven; Merav, aged two. The men who killed them stepped up and pulled their triggers point-blank, murdering each, one by one, execution style. That's them.
Contrary to editorialists and world opinion, let the memory of the Hatuels be a constant reminder that Israel belongs to Israel. Even as Tommy Lapid and Ehud Olmert and Sharon himself crunch numbers to show that their defeat was actually a victory, the blood of the Hatuel family cries up and demands that no part of the Land be forfeited to those who have no pity for women and children. These Palestinian Arabs have relinquished any claim to live with Israel as neighbors. No Gaza for them, no Judea, no Samaria, no Jerusalem, nothing but goodbye. That's the legacy of Tali and her daughters. So let it be invoked.
Late word has it that throughout the Palestinian Arab world the murderers of this woman and her babies are being hailed as "heroes." There is dancing in the Arab Street.
In a minute I will check my Thesaurus again to see if "savages" still applies.
Meanwhile, as Sharon persists in disengaging Israel from Israel, the New York Times persists in disengaging the United States from Sharon. Last week, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote that President Bush must "disentangle himself from Ariel Sharon, that bloodstained figure."
Well, it must be remembered that the New York Times hid the Holocaust in its back pages even while the Holocaust was happening. Even today, Times insiders admit, "We missed the story." Also, it's worth remembering that during Stalin's purges, Times reporter Walter Duranty (not as funny as Jimmy Durante) kept forgetting to mention the mass murders.
Duranty was quoted as saying, "I put my money on Stalin." Duranty didn't win a Nobel, but he did win a Pulitzer. Through some oversight, Stalin never won a Nobel Prize for Peace, as did Yasser Arafat years later. I don't read much of Kristof (who needs Kristof when you've got Tom Friedman?), but he obviously puts his money on Arafat.
We must not blame the Times for getting it all backwards. Their reporters, columnists and editors are only adhering to tradition.
I almost forgot. During Holocaust Remembrance Week, a Rutgers University "entertainment" newspaper ran a "knock a Jew in the oven" cartoon. Even some Jewish students defended this in the name of fun. In some parts of Rutgers, maybe, you'll find those 72 virgins and the eunuchs who keep trying, but failing.
Okay, I just checked my Thesaurus again for a round-up of what's going on in this topsy-turvy world of ours, and yes, "savages" remains correct.