Please, no more plans for the Jews
Please don’t send me your plans for the Jews. There have been enough plans. I know all about plans. I was once part of a plan. So was my sister. So was my entire family. So were millions of families. People always had plans for us and still do. Spare me your bright ideas.
I know all about plans. I was once part of a plan. So was my sister. So was my entire family. So were millions of families.
Like the one that came this morning, from Montreal, full of bells and whistles.
He is Jewish, this writer. He writes for a somewhat pro-Israel newspaper; I mean he is generally on my side. So he had a brainstorm and he wrote about it and would I please give my opinion. It was about the “West Bank” and how to redistribute Area’s A, B and C. Or maybe just Area C.
I never got to read it, this plan, because every week someone has a plan and this week’s plan is always better than last week’s plan.
On top of that here comes Dennis Ross along with Facebook friend David Makovsky to boost their latest plan “to revive the peace process.” Would I please read their not-to-be missed big idea as revealed in The Washington Post? No thanks…and you must be kidding when you say not enough attention has been paid to the conflict.
Seriously, wasn’t it two weeks ago when you two guys teamed up for the same newspaper with another plan, or was it the same plan but with a cherry on top? Or am I thinking of Tom Friedman over there at the Times and his plan of the week? Every Tom, Dick and Harry has a plan of the week for the Jews.
They come from the left. The come from the right. But as I warned in this book every plan is a metaphor that ends in a trap for the Jewish State.
Something happens to me when I hear about plans for the Jews. It gets worse when I hear plans for Areas, or Zones, like A, B, C, or D or X, Y, Z. Immediately my mind shifts to the Berlin suburb of Wannsee where, January 20, 1942, Hitler’s highest officials gathered for the Wannsee Conference.
They had a plan.
The man in charge was Reinhard Heydrich of the SS, no one you’d want to know, and there were more like him gathered around a big table and there was no talk of murdering the Jews. No, it was all quite civil on the topic for a “final solution to the Jewish question.”
Notice the code. Notice the metaphor. Today we know what “final solution” really means. Back then it was simply business.
The business was how to “distribute” the Jews. They had in mind 11 million of us. The atmosphere was entirely business-like. There was scant mention or no mention of death camps, gas chambers, crematoriums, or Zyclon B. Mostly these were plans to round up the Jews.
The conference was about transferring Jews from here to there, from this Area to that Area, from Area A to Area B to Area C and on up to Area Z.
Think of your local Zoning Board.
Mostly it was about train schedules…”transports” and train schedules.
The meeting was so professional that you have to read the transcripts very carefully to find any derogatory remarks about the Jews.
There was hardly a note of anti-Semitism in the room.
The men were being entirely methodical about their final solution to the Jewish question. Methodically, much of what they said was done.
Six million Jews were methodically slaughtered according to plan.
Now I am not saying that today’s men and women with a plan have the same plan in mind. Many Arabs do. Many Europeans have it in mind.
The BDS crowds surely have it in mind. That’s what their movement is all about.
My Jewish friends with a plan SURELY mean well. But it still means “transporting” the Jews and “distributing” the Jews, even within their own homeland.
Foolishly, I assumed that once the Jewish State became sovereign there’d be no more plans, other than Biblical proprietorship over the entire Land.
To me, a plan still means code, still means metaphor, still means a final solution to the Jewish question…and it gives me the creeps.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the international classic “Indecent Proposal” now followed by the prophetic thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com