Is Israel a nation or a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States?
Is Israel just a tenant in the building owned and operated by the US Department of State?
Is Israel the maid? Does it do windows? Does it shine shoes for the Man?
Does Israel go running at the first snap of two fingers? Does Israel need to be petted? You bet it does.
Where else but in Israel would the headlines read, "American actor Chris Noth to Visit."
Is Israel on a "Going Out Of Business" binge because it is the last falafel stand on the corner and can't take the heat from McDonald's?
Is Bush better than Kerry, if it's true what I'm hearing, that next time around the Bush Administration will act much tougher toward Israel? I can't vote for Kerry. I think he's a fraud from beginning to end, and we already know what people he's going to bring along if he gets in.
But how much worse can he be if it's true that this Administration, today's Administration, demands that Israel return to Auschwitz borders?
The Israelis (along with Americans) are the sweetest, most glorious, most courageous, most literate, most industrious, most liberty-loving, most open-hearted people on this earth. Israel is indeed a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Israel is indeed a light unto the (blinded) nations.
I knew it when the toughest commander of the toughest unit of the toughest brigade invited me to his home and reminded me to kiss the mezuza on the way in.
I knew it when, on the military base in Haifa, all the (even non-religious) cadets gasped and everything came to a halt in the mess hall when I unknowingly picked up a milk spoon for meat. I knew it when one Friday night I was invited to dinner in Netanya at the home of the most glattnon-kosher family in Israel, and when I asked the mother why she was lighting Shabbat candles, she was shocked and offended. "This is Israel, after all," she said.
I knew it when the manager of that bank in Haifa tried so hard to confound tongues (my English, her Hebrew) until I asked her if she spoke Yiddish.
Then she smiled, and nearly wept: "Nu, I am Yiddish daughter."
So how did these people, this nation, get so cursed, cursed with such idiots who run their country?
Every Monday and Thursday, yet another minister says more territory will have to be given up.
Will there be anything left? Is all of Israel just one big bargaining chip? Is nothing sacred? Is there no territorial sovereignty?
Are there no Zionists left in Zion? (Among the leaders, I mean.)
Where else is this done? What other (self-respecting) nation gifts its land? Name one.
This was supposed to be a humor column, but I have forgotten the joke. Maybe it is a joke. Maybe I wasn't kidding after all when I once suggested that Israel's leaders must be the descendants of Chelm, the legendary home of nitwit Jews. How else to explain? Here's the army chief saying he's ready to give up the Golan Heights and adding, "The army could defend Israel's borders wherever they are."
Hello? Defending? What defending? On your watch, more than a thousand Israeli Jews have been left dead, and you talk about defending? Too late to say defending.
That was Monday. On Thursday we got word that "in a largely symbolic gesture, four settlements in the northern West Bank also would be dismantled." Yes, that was the prime minister's mouthpiece talking, and yes, Gaza is just for starters, and these four settlements? Also just for starters.
Where does it end?
Who cares about land? Who cares about the Israelis living on the land? Anybody? In the Knesset, in the Cabinet, wherever decisions are made? Is anybody home?
For the Jews of Europe, Israel is the mother ship. Do they have to hear this, that so much relinquishing is going on?
Repeat after me - "The Holy City of Jerusalem."
This was where I intended to be humorous, how, taking a cue from Israel, the US was giving back Texas. You know, symbolic gesture. We don't need Texas and we don't need Texans. We don't need California. We're giving that back, too. As the top Israeli general said about the Golan, "From the point of view of military requirements, we could reach an agreement with Mexico by giving up Texas and California."
But humor escapes me when, as an American, I find my country lording it over its only true friend in the Middle East, and then this friend goes ahead and does Stepin Fetchit.
"Yezzuh Mastah!"
No pride? Was there no Moses? No Joshua? No King David? Was there no Rachel? From today's leaders, is there no love of the land, no affection for the people? Is there no sense of heritage? Are there no Torah promises to keep? About those of us sitting here, and who go back before 1948, do you, in Israel, know how our hearts leaped when the flag of Israel came across our television screens at the Olympics?
Do the leaders of Israel know what they have and what they're selling out?
Do they know the trust of the past, the present and the future that's been invested in them?
I don't think they do.
Are they really that stupid to believe that giving up land is the answer? Where was the world's embrace after Israel gave up Sinai?
Egypt itself is itching for another go. Egypt's press is the most anti-Semitic anywhere? even after "peace" and after Sinai.
I speak as an American grateful to be an American. There is no paradox in faulting my country for going hard on Israel when it goes soft on that other world that brought on 9/11. (Saudi Arabia, for example.) Lincoln wrote and spoke in the measures and cadences of Moses, and our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution is an abridgment of Israel's Torah. We owe. We owe the Israelis more than that snarl they're getting from us.
"The United States is virtually our only friend. But even the US supports retreat to almost the 1967 borders."
Thus spoke the prime minister of Israel's mouthpiece, and that is very sad. That is deplorable on the part of the United States and on the part of Israel: That Israel should allow itself to be so maneuverable, so easily manipulated, so readily duped. So gullible! Anti-Semites hate us because we're so smart? If they only knew. Oh, but they do.
In his (1960s) anti-Establishment anthem "Masters of War", Bob Dylan lamented, Stop? "You're playing with my world."
Exactly that. So say the good and wise people of Israel. "You're playing with my land."
Will the leaders hearken? Or is there a curse (of leadership) that dates back to something else we once did?
Moses spoke of blessings and curses. The curses we know. The blessings, when do they begin?
Is Israel just a tenant in the building owned and operated by the US Department of State?
Is Israel the maid? Does it do windows? Does it shine shoes for the Man?
Does Israel go running at the first snap of two fingers? Does Israel need to be petted? You bet it does.
Where else but in Israel would the headlines read, "American actor Chris Noth to Visit."
Is Israel on a "Going Out Of Business" binge because it is the last falafel stand on the corner and can't take the heat from McDonald's?
Is Bush better than Kerry, if it's true what I'm hearing, that next time around the Bush Administration will act much tougher toward Israel? I can't vote for Kerry. I think he's a fraud from beginning to end, and we already know what people he's going to bring along if he gets in.
But how much worse can he be if it's true that this Administration, today's Administration, demands that Israel return to Auschwitz borders?
The Israelis (along with Americans) are the sweetest, most glorious, most courageous, most literate, most industrious, most liberty-loving, most open-hearted people on this earth. Israel is indeed a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Israel is indeed a light unto the (blinded) nations.
I knew it when the toughest commander of the toughest unit of the toughest brigade invited me to his home and reminded me to kiss the mezuza on the way in.
I knew it when, on the military base in Haifa, all the (even non-religious) cadets gasped and everything came to a halt in the mess hall when I unknowingly picked up a milk spoon for meat. I knew it when one Friday night I was invited to dinner in Netanya at the home of the most glattnon-kosher family in Israel, and when I asked the mother why she was lighting Shabbat candles, she was shocked and offended. "This is Israel, after all," she said.
I knew it when the manager of that bank in Haifa tried so hard to confound tongues (my English, her Hebrew) until I asked her if she spoke Yiddish.
Then she smiled, and nearly wept: "Nu, I am Yiddish daughter."
So how did these people, this nation, get so cursed, cursed with such idiots who run their country?
Every Monday and Thursday, yet another minister says more territory will have to be given up.
Will there be anything left? Is all of Israel just one big bargaining chip? Is nothing sacred? Is there no territorial sovereignty?
Are there no Zionists left in Zion? (Among the leaders, I mean.)
Where else is this done? What other (self-respecting) nation gifts its land? Name one.
This was supposed to be a humor column, but I have forgotten the joke. Maybe it is a joke. Maybe I wasn't kidding after all when I once suggested that Israel's leaders must be the descendants of Chelm, the legendary home of nitwit Jews. How else to explain? Here's the army chief saying he's ready to give up the Golan Heights and adding, "The army could defend Israel's borders wherever they are."
Hello? Defending? What defending? On your watch, more than a thousand Israeli Jews have been left dead, and you talk about defending? Too late to say defending.
That was Monday. On Thursday we got word that "in a largely symbolic gesture, four settlements in the northern West Bank also would be dismantled." Yes, that was the prime minister's mouthpiece talking, and yes, Gaza is just for starters, and these four settlements? Also just for starters.
Where does it end?
Who cares about land? Who cares about the Israelis living on the land? Anybody? In the Knesset, in the Cabinet, wherever decisions are made? Is anybody home?
For the Jews of Europe, Israel is the mother ship. Do they have to hear this, that so much relinquishing is going on?
Repeat after me - "The Holy City of Jerusalem."
This was where I intended to be humorous, how, taking a cue from Israel, the US was giving back Texas. You know, symbolic gesture. We don't need Texas and we don't need Texans. We don't need California. We're giving that back, too. As the top Israeli general said about the Golan, "From the point of view of military requirements, we could reach an agreement with Mexico by giving up Texas and California."
But humor escapes me when, as an American, I find my country lording it over its only true friend in the Middle East, and then this friend goes ahead and does Stepin Fetchit.
"Yezzuh Mastah!"
No pride? Was there no Moses? No Joshua? No King David? Was there no Rachel? From today's leaders, is there no love of the land, no affection for the people? Is there no sense of heritage? Are there no Torah promises to keep? About those of us sitting here, and who go back before 1948, do you, in Israel, know how our hearts leaped when the flag of Israel came across our television screens at the Olympics?
Do the leaders of Israel know what they have and what they're selling out?
Do they know the trust of the past, the present and the future that's been invested in them?
I don't think they do.
Are they really that stupid to believe that giving up land is the answer? Where was the world's embrace after Israel gave up Sinai?
Egypt itself is itching for another go. Egypt's press is the most anti-Semitic anywhere? even after "peace" and after Sinai.
I speak as an American grateful to be an American. There is no paradox in faulting my country for going hard on Israel when it goes soft on that other world that brought on 9/11. (Saudi Arabia, for example.) Lincoln wrote and spoke in the measures and cadences of Moses, and our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution is an abridgment of Israel's Torah. We owe. We owe the Israelis more than that snarl they're getting from us.
"The United States is virtually our only friend. But even the US supports retreat to almost the 1967 borders."
Thus spoke the prime minister of Israel's mouthpiece, and that is very sad. That is deplorable on the part of the United States and on the part of Israel: That Israel should allow itself to be so maneuverable, so easily manipulated, so readily duped. So gullible! Anti-Semites hate us because we're so smart? If they only knew. Oh, but they do.
In his (1960s) anti-Establishment anthem "Masters of War", Bob Dylan lamented, Stop? "You're playing with my world."
Exactly that. So say the good and wise people of Israel. "You're playing with my land."
Will the leaders hearken? Or is there a curse (of leadership) that dates back to something else we once did?
Moses spoke of blessings and curses. The curses we know. The blessings, when do they begin?