Letters From Abroad: Middle East

Thank G-d for CSPAN.

This morning I sat at my computer in Beersheba, Israel, and watched – live – Sarah Palin accept the nomination for Vice President of the United States. I love Ronald Reagan, but I have to tell you,   watching Sarah Palin this morning gave me the biggest political thrill I’ve had since 1964.

In 1963, as a student at the University of North Dakota, I was elected state chairman of the North Dakota College Young Republicans, which earned me an appointment to a (barely) paying job at the Republican National Nominating Convention. In 1964, the GOP convention was held in San Francisco at the Cow Palace – which ultimately brought me to California as a permanent resident, too. It would have been impossible to not leave your heart in San Francisco in those days.

But at the convention, I served as “doorkeeper”, with the assigned duties of checking each and every person’s credentials as they passed unto the convention floor.  Being seriously partisan even then – and a die-hard Goldwater Girl – I had one single chance for a bit of mischief. 

David Brinkley was one of the people who came charging through my door. Even then, he was the king of the media, but not with me. I didn’t think he was treating my candidate, Barry Goldwater, with sufficient respect. So when Brinkley and his entourage of cameramen and microphones tried to walk through my door without stopping or showing me their floor passes, I stopped them.

“Where’s your floor pass?” I asked.

Brinkley obviously believed he wasn’t bound by such technicalities, but he duly patted his pockets, looked to his staff, but finally admitted he didn’t have one.  

So he tried something else. “Don’t you know who I am?” 

“I know who you look like,” I said. “Without a floor pass, I have no idea who you are.”

We dickered a bit, but when Brinkley realized I really wasn’t going to let him through, he turned around and led his entourage through another door, where apparently the doorkeeper wasn’t nearly as persnickety.

While impeding David Brinkley’s entry unto the convention floor for a few minutes was fun, the highlight of that convention was Barry Goldwater’s acceptance speech. For the kid from North Dakota, just to be there, in that historic convention hall, where – unbeknownst to us at the time – we were paving the way for Ronald Reagan later, was the consummate thrill.  I’ll never forget how it felt to be a part of that passionate, cheering crowd, when our candidate announced his intention to change the direction America was heading. At the time, I thought life would offer no greater moments.

But at 5 am this morning, sitting all alone at my computer in Israel, watching the Governor of Alaska accept the nomination for Vice President, this moment topped that one.  By a big margin.

Over the last several days I’ve tried to come up with the one specific thing that I like most about Sarah Palin, the one overriding reason why I think she’s just about the best thing to hit American politics in my generation, but I can’t. There’s not one thing – there are dozens.  For this time, for this moment in history, Sarah Palin is perfect.

As I’ve said, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a feminist. I would never vote for or against anyone based on chromosome count. But up to now, the only women who have been nominated for high office are people whose values I don’t share. Hillary Clinton? Good grief – don’t get me started.  Geraldine Ferraro? As a liberal lawyer, a Washington insider, an environmentalist with whom I disagreed on virtually everything, I would never have supported her, even if the Republican candidate in 1984 hadn’t been my all-time hero, Ronald Reagan.

But Sarah Palin? I support her 100%, for everything she is, for everything she believes, for everything she represents about the America I, too, know and believe in. For this moment in history, political candidates just don’t get any better than that.   

That’s it for now – there will be more to say about this whole subject. But permit me one little observation: Did you notice? Sarah Palin wears skirts!  Here’s a woman running for office who doesn’t think she needs to wear pants! 

What an idea! Could it be that Sarah Palin doesn’t think women don’t have to act – or dress – like men in order to succeed?

Amazing.

You go, girl! Finally, there’s someone who’s speaking for the real women of America.

If you watched the speech, too, I’d love to hear what you thought.  Did she hit that ball out of the park as far as I think she did? 

]

The more I watch the US presidential race, the more the two candidates remind me of my daughter’s dogs.

No disrespect intended. It’s just an interesting comparison.

JJ and her husband Titus live in Rocklin, and they have two gorgeous, lovable dogs.  There’s Sophie, who’s the biggest and oldest by a little over a year.  Sophie is a beautiful, mature, smart, relatively calm mixed breed. Then there’s the puppy Samson, who’s just 12 weeks old, a Rottweiler mix, and just about the cutest thing on earth.  Ultimately Samson will be bigger than Sophie, but at the moment, he’s still a little guy.

So watch the two dogs:  Sophie is a grown up lady. Aside from a passionate attachment to chasing tennis balls, she has a relatively realistic understanding of how her family lives and works, knowing what kind of conduct will get her what she wants. She knows night means sleep, and all the places it’s forbidden for her to do her thing. She knows when dinner will be served, and what times are the best for getting a walk or some attention. She wouldn’t even think of trying to jump into your lap while you’re holding your lunch plate.

And then there’s the baby Samson. He hasn’t acquired much practical knowledge yet. He wakes up at odd hours and hasn’t completely mastered his personal habits.  His enthusiasm knows no bounds – turn your head for a split second, and he’ll tip over your coffee, trying to get a taste. Or he’ll put his paws on the end table, trying to sample whatever’s there – and tip over the table.

Sophie – like everyone else – loves watching Samson. He runs around, cute as can be, chases his tail, goes gaga over visitors, smothering them with affection. A leaf blowing in the wind is as likely to get Samson to bark as is a – heaven forbid – burglar. He just hasn’t learned yet.

So look at John McCain and Barack Obama. There’s McCain – an old dog if there ever was one, a senior statesman in the world of politics, a veteran of all kinds of wars, including those that involve live ammunition. In terms of an interesting life, there isn’t much McCain hasn’t experienced. Having been there, done that, he’s got a solidly-grounded understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Obviously, he’s not immune from mistakes, but because of his maturity, years in public service and his time under fire in the military, he has a better idea where the pitfalls are, and how best to avoid them. His ability to assess situations, personal and political, was acquired in the real world. It’s not something he read in a book.

And then there’s Barack Obama – an awesomely likable puppy, and very immature, politically speaking. His range of experience hovers at just about nil. He’s barely completed half of his first term in the US senate. He’s never run a business, never governed a state. He spent seven years as a minor figure in the Illinois legislature, where he never authored even a single piece of legislation. He worked as a professor – but in twelve years, he never published a single article. (Even so, he somehow managed to acquire tenure. There must be a story there.)  Obama didn’t author any legislation in his three years in the US Senate, either.  In fact, he’s most famous for rarely showing up at any of the committees to which he was appointed.

Obama means well, obviously. He’s as sincere as heck about everything he says – at the time he says it. The problem is, he doesn’t seem to grasp the notion that when he says something, people expect him to mean it.  When you’re in a race for president of the United States, there aren’t any mulligans.  You better be prepared to say what you mean the first time.

My closest-to-the-heart example was Obama’s flip-flop on the status of Jerusalem – first asserting to cheering Jewish crowds that Jerusalem should be the capitol of Israel forever. But when he walked off the stage and had to face angry Arabs, he decided to take it back, saying that what he really meant was that Jerusalem shouldn’t be divided again by barbed wire.  Good grief.

A statesman, of course, would have said what he meant, the first time – and if someone disagreed, well, that’s too bad. Which is precisely what McCain did, by the way.

But even a canny politician, someone who’s been around the block in elective politics a few times, wouldn’t have fallen into the trap Obama did. He’d have known that a question regarding the status of Jerusalem would come up early in the campaign. The issue has been kicking around since 1967 – it’s been part of the standard litany of questions for candidates ever since. And while it’s obviously not the most important issue in the race, it’s still one that matters to a huge segment of the voting public, Jews and Christians alike. It’s a litmus question – his answer to that reveals a lot about his positions on other issues.

For Obama not to have formulated an answer beforehand – come up with something he could say, and then stick to, for the duration – shows incredible naivety.

Only a neophyte would have flubbed that one. Only a cockeyed optimist would think he could make everyone happy by holding two opposing positions at the same time.

So what do I think? Obama is great fun to watch. But when it’s a question of who’s qualified to lead the free world into the future at this horrendously dangerous time, I think voters are going to realize that for peace of mind, if nothing else, there’s nothing like having an experienced older dog around to do the job.

That way you can relax, without having to worry about what kind of a mess the puppy’s going to get himself into next.

Condoleezza Rice, United States Secretary of State, arrives in Israel this week for the 20th time.  She and President Bush – not to mention any number of previous administrations – are trying to bring peace to the region by carving out of the sovereign state of Israel a 22^nd Arab state.

How much do you know about the historical facts about Israel’s establishment?  Test your knowledge – the answers are at the end.

Palestine is a country.

__True __False

There has never been a sovereign Arab state in Palestine.

__True __False

The “Mandate for Palestine” defined where Jews are permitted to settle.

__True __False

The U.S. government and the President supported Jewish settlements in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

__True __ False

Palestinian Arabs were granted political rights in Palestine.

__True __ False

1947 Partition Plan replaced the “Mandate for Palestine.”

__True __ False

51 Countries, the entire League of Nations approved the “Mandate for Palestine.”

__True __ False

Jews are in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.

__True __ False

Jews are illegal occupants in Palestine.

__True __ False

The “Mandate for Palestine” encourages Jews to expand their settlements and occupation in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza.

__True __ False

Under International law, Jewish settlement in the whole of Palestine is legal.

__True __ False

Answers:

1) False – It is a geographic designation, not the name of any country, past or present.

2) True 3) True 4) True 5) False – Political rights in Palestine were granted to Jews only. 6) False – The “Mandate” is a trust and is valid to this day 7) True True 9) False – The League of Nations permitted and encouraged Jewish settlement in Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea 10) True 11) True

How’d you do?

Do you think Condi Rice could pass this test?  How about Barack Obama?

The quiz was based on ‘This Land is My Land’:  the Mandate for Palestine: The Legal Aspects of Jewish Rights by Eli E. Hertz, www.MythsandFacts.org.  Reprinted by permission from the author and from the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Hollywood, CA, August 27, 2008.

Want the whole book? Amazon has it: http://www.amazon.com/This-Land-My-Eli-Hertz/dp/0974180424/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219898401&sr=1-6

I went to see ‘Mamma Mia’ last night – it was an other-worldly experience.  Literally. 

In a way, it reminded me of the time my daughter JJ and I went to see “The Bridges of Madison County” in Black Duck, Minnesota.  It was an odd situation – if you remember, there was a time when that was the movie to see. Everyone was talking about it – and we hadn’t seen it.  But there we were, lurking and prowling among Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes, and  there was the movie, playing at a specified time and place. True, I wasn’t sure exactly where “Black Duck” was, but it seemed like a good thing to do on an evening…..

The drive from where we were took the better part of an hour, and meandered into some very strange territory.  We finally found the theater – not really a ‘theater’, just a medium-sized room with a film screen in front – you remember the kind, you’d roll it out, and then it would stand on a metal tripod. The seats were metal folding chairs, maybe two dozen of them.  The tickets were cheap – in the $2 range, as I recall.  Obviously they weren’t making much money – there were maybe ten people, total. But it wasn’t until the movie was almost ready to begin that I realized how seriously out of place we were.  I don’t know if Native American tribes have a parallel concept of ‘shiksa‘, but if they do, we were it.  We clearly didn’t belong there.

In that setting, “Bridges” was other-worldly, too. The contrast between where we were, watching the film about a lonely woman in rural Iowa, and the real world outside was just too great. 

But even that wasn’t like watching ‘Mamma Mia’ in Beersheba, Israel.

True, the fantastic ‘Momma Mia’ was filmed in Greece, which is just a hop, skip and jump from here.  The water in the glorious sea that served as backdrop for so many scenes may well have mingled with the same water I see here, every time I travel 20 miles west. But the film was so American!

For 90 minutes, I was back in America. The music was from an era I remember very well, to the point that for some of the songs, I could remember where I was, what I was doing, when that song was playing. Meryl Streep and her two buddies were quintessentially American, in their goofing off, their dressing up, their lively running around, laughing, singing and speaking a kind of English I don’t get to hear very often. The beach scenes where people were drinking fancy bright red cocktails out of martini glasses blew me away – I’m sure that somewhere in this country, you can find a place that serve drinks like that. The truth is, you can find just about anything you want here, if you’re prepared to pay for it.  There’s probably some place in Tel Aviv, maybe even near the beach, that serves that sort of thing.  But it’s not something you’d see in Beersheba.

I’m struggling to find a way to define it, but there’s a difference between the way American-Americans act, and the way Israelis act, too. I’m a firm believer in the notion that land dictates culture, that the physical characteristics of the land mass where you live shapes and defines character. The wide-open spaces of America tend to form people who are expansive, who take up a lot of space, somehow. People who live larger than we do here, in some almost indefinable way.  In tiny, dense, Israel, you don’t see that kind of unrestrained openness. Or not very often, anyway.

The film was in English, of course, with Hebrew subtitles. Every now and then, I’d watch the subtitles to see how it would translate into Hebrew – bottom line, not very well. Well, the words themselves were accurate enough, but of course the idiom wasn’t conveyed very well.

It reminded me of seeing ‘Borat’ here – a film that didn’t go over well at all, here.  There were probably only a dozen people in the theater – ‘Borat’ was not a hit in Israel – and I was the only one laughing. And not just laughing – I was desperately trying not to make a fool of myself, because I think everyone else in the theater was looking at me, trying to figure out what it was that I thought was so darn funny. I finally resorted to biting my tongue to keep from howling and rolling on the floor.  I loved that film – I was the only one in the theater who did.

That wasn’t the case with “Momma Mia’.  It attracted a predictable audience – mostly women, mostly women of a certain age. Most of us were probably curious about how Meryl Streep managed to look so good, to move so well, so seem so full of life and energy. Walking out, though, everyone was smiling – I guess the music, and the obvious fun the cast was having making that film, transcended the cultural barrier. They loved this film almost as much as I did.

But for me, it was special. It was a glorious, I loved every minute, I wanted it to go on, forever.  It was a really cheap way to enjoy 90 minutes of America without buying a plane ticket.

Every commercial block in every city in Israel sports at least one open-air bakery.  Israelis are passionate about eating only fresh bread — anything left from yesterday is thrown out.

Which, to me – the child of a mother who grew up in the Depression – seems like an incredible waste. But hey, they didn’t ask for my opinion.

So all of these bakeries sell the basics — on Fridays, the braided egg-bread called ‘Challah’, baguettes of various lengths, pitot of exquisite still-hot freshness, and  a flaky pastry called ‘borakes’, which in other parts of the world they might call a ‘knish’, except that these are usually folded in triangles, and filled with anything from apples and cinnamon to mashed potatoes and onion.

The most amazing thing is, all of these bakeries are busy. No matter what time of day, or what street you find yourself on, you almost always have to stand in line, at least for a few minutes.

Which is what I found myself doing last Friday, when everything is especially busy because people are loading up on everything they’ll need for Shabbat, Saturday, when businesses are all closed. 

This particular bakery was located in a busy little neighborhood shopping center. There’s a bit of everything in there — a medium-sized grocery, a barbershop, newsstand, several home-gadget places, a couple of small dress shops, a toy store, a bank and of course the center courtyard where people, especially the more senior of the citizens, could sit, enjoy the shade, and pass the time of day.  Needless to say, there was traffic.  The allotted parking places for this little shopping center probably constituted half of what they needed, so there was a steady flow of cars, coming and going.

Just as I was about at the front of the line, I heard a serious CRASH, just a few feet from me on the street.  It took only an instant to see what had happened — a fender-bender. One car had been trying to edge out of a parking slot, and another had been hurrying to get in, trying to reach another parking place, unaware that one closer was actually opening up. Anyway, the twain met with a crash, resulting in a dent or two, but apparently no physical injuries to either party.

A driver emerged from each car, each beginning the vocal rant before he was out the door. All this was accompanied by vigorous Middle Eastern arm waving, which soon escalated into a much louder discussion of who did what to whom, and who should have done what, when, and under what circumstances.

What blew me away was how similar the two drivers were — they could have been twins.  Each was in the mid-50’s,  dressed in white shirts, sleeves rolled up on beefy forearms. Each wore dark pants, stretched up over comfortable paunches. Both had short white hair, topped with a knitted kippa — which, as anyone in Israel can tell you — reveals almost everything you need to know about the man’s philosophy, both religious and political.

So the two approached each other, stood — almost belly-to-belly, because Middle Easterners tend to stand closer to each other than Americans do — waving their respective right arms towards the empty cars, which still nestled together in the slam, bang place they’d come to rest.  In other words, ALL traffic was now being blocked, which didn’t seem to bother the two drivers at all. They continued to wave their arms and carry on –  until some magic moment, when both, simultaneously, stopped.

I have no idea what happened, or who said what to whom, but in an instant, they stopped shouting,  reached toward each other at the same moment and warmly shook hands.  Smiles followed, as did mutual pats on the back. Again, as if choreographed, each reached into a back pocket, pulled out a wallet, and an exchange of business cards followed.  The meeting concluded with yet another handshake, whereupon each got into his respective car and drove away.

By this time, I had long-since lost my place in line at the bakery, but I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d just seen.  Had one indeed convinced the other he was at fault?  Could be, but I doubt it.

If I had to guess, it would be that they recognized each other — maybe they were neighbors and didn’t realize it at first.  Maybe they were brothers!

Or maybe they were just Israelis. These little disputes are worked out differently here in Israel.  There won’t be any lawyers involved, that’s for sure. Most likely the two realized that they had friends or family in common, and decided to give the other the benefit of the doubt.  After all, it was Friday, Shabbat was coming, and anyone can make a mistake.

Would that all disputes, everywhere in the world, could be resolved so easily. 

It frequently occurs to me that Israel continues to survive, not because of the wisdom of our leaders, but because of the stupidity of our enemies.

Israel’s feckless Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is at it again, trying to give away hunks of Israel to either find a way to remain in office, or to establish a legacy – or both.

This time he offered the Arabs 93% of Judea and Samaria, plus additional land in the Negev to make up the missing 7% of what the Arabs are officially demanding. Unofficially, of course, they’re demanding the whole thing.

Anyway, Olmert also offered to guarantee free passage between those areas and terrorist-controlled Gaza, with no security checks. What fun that would be!

What would Israel get in return? Olmert was much less specific about that — we’d get some “settlement blocs”, presumably, where we would be free to build homes.

Such a deal, huh?  And no one said anything about stopping the terrorism.

The good news is – thank goodness – the Arabs rejected the deal unequivocally, calling it “ridiculous”.  A spokesman for PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Olmert’s plan showed “a lack of seriousness”, and said it was “a waste of time.” 

Whew.   

In all the world, there’s nothing more dangerous than a political leader in search of a legacy.

There’s something about the Olympics that brings out stories of heartbreak – the young athletes who overcame unbelievable obstacles, who battled their enemies, their own countries or common ordinary prejudice to win the right to compete.

I have to admit I like to read those stories. It’s a kind of ‘Profiles in Courage’ – live and in color. This year, one of the saddest stories hit close to home.

Alon Mandel, a 20-year old Israeli swimmer who trains at the University of Michigan, is a butterfly specialist and member of the Israeli swim team. Alon made it to the Olympics by a fluke – he’d ended the European Championships in 13^th place, when only 12 would qualify – even though his record time was just two-hundredths of a second slower than the 12^thplace swimmer. But when European gold medal winner Ioannis Drymonakos was disqualified for testing positive in a drug test, Alon was in.

The Mandel family lives in the seacoast city of Netanya, in Israel’s far north.  When Alon qualified to go to the Olympics in Beijing, his father, Kostya – also his coach and his biggest supporter — wanted to hang a banner on the family home, honoring his son’s Olympic participation.  He hand-printed a huge banner that read, “How do you say ’semifinals’ in Chinese?”  Tragedy struck: As he was hanging the sign, the 51-year old Kostya fell off the ladder, sustained head injuries, and passed away.

The family worried about how to tell Alon, who was in Beijing.  His mother, Rina, insisted on waiting two hours, to allow her son to get as much sleep as possible, even though they worried he would hear the terrible news some other way.  They finally called him, and his older sister, Maya, decided to go to Beijing to be with her 20-year old brother.

The most terrible question was whether or not Alon would return home to Israel, or remain in Beijing to compete.  On a television newscast, Rina Mandel said she told Alon, “You must stay there and be strong. You know your father waited for this moment. Your parents waited for this. We will be among 42 sets of parents watching,” she said, referring to Israel’s biggest-ever Olympic delegation of 42 athletes.

Alon decided to stay. “My mother and father were ideal parents and I’m only here thanks to them,” he said. “I would very much like to return home, but my heart tells me to stay.”  He told a television reporter that he will imagine his father sitting in the audience, cheering him on along with the rest of his family and the State of Israel. “I intend to muster all my strength and compete.”

Still, Alon couldn’t stop the tears. On Thursday afternoon, when the Israeli flag was raised and “Hatikva” played at the Olympic Village, tears flowed down his face. His greatest supporter, his father, wasn’t there to see him realize the dream they had shared.

Alon Mandel competes today, Monday.  Please, if you can, send some special good wishes his way.

This wasn’t an easy decision for the Mandel family.  Needless to say, in the world of ‘two Jews, three opinions’, Alon is facing some nasty criticism both at home and abroad.  “You disgrace your father by not returning home,” one Israeli commented.

There’s something to be said about that – Jewish tradition is to spend seven days of serious mourning, with every aspect of the mourner’s conduct specifically set forth, and obviously enough, competing in the Olympics isn’t included. An American suggested that Alon will later regret his decision to compete, realizing how temporary a thrill that is, as compared to the life-long respect he held for his father.

Alon decided to stay. If – G-d forbid – you were in his position, what would you do?   Stay with the team and compete?  Or go home, out of respect for your father?

Headlines around the world — including here — announced the resignation of Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. Some qualify it a bit, noting that he “stated his intention to resign”, while others actually seem to think the worst leader in Israel’s history will really be gone sometime soon. 

That’s not likely. What Olmert said was that he’d resign when his party, Kadima, picks a new leader. That party election is scheduled for September 17. The problem is that following that, the person who wins that primary – the frontrunners are nearly interchangeable and mutually uninteresting career politicians Tzippy Livni and Shaul Mofaz  – then has to create a governing coalition within the Knesset, which hardly anyone believes will be possible, let alone easy or quick. 

During all this time, Olmert will — absent some as yet unknown factor – continue to serve as Prime Minister. It could be 10 months or even more before Olmert finally gets the hook. 

What might be some of the ‘unknown’ factors? Short of Divine Intervention, the only positive one is that Olmert might be indicted – or rather, one or more of the numerous corruption charges against him will be serious enough, sufficiently embarrassing, that his own party might actually force him off the stage. That could happen. That’s been a possibility for months, though, and in spite of all the huffing and puffing, threatening to blow his house down, it hasn’t happened yet. 

On the flip side, a serious attack – by Israel, or against Israel – might occur, never an impossibility in these parts. In the midst of such chaos, a change in government might not be advantageous, so Olmert may decide to stay on – for the good of the country, of course. And his party and the Knesset might let him. 

That’s actually the strategy that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted, when he, too, was about to be indicted.  He scurried to create the “disengagement”, uprooting 10,000 Jews from their homes in order to give the land to the terrorists.  For Sharon, it worked – until the aforementioned Divine Intervention brought about a stroke, which leaves Sharon still lingering in PVS-land. 

On a less dramatic front, one or more of Olmert’s dangerously foolish diplomatic efforts — a deal with terrorist Syria, or something tangible with Israeli Arabs – may take hold, and look like it could succeed.  Surely, in that situation, the Prime Minister would need to stay on, wouldn’t he? For the good of the country. But of course! 

The strange thing about all these possibilities, all this chatter, is that almost all of it is a pundit’s game. The rank and file Israeli isn’t terribly interested.  Not because it’s not important.  It’s extremely important – no one disagrees with that. 

The problem is twofold: first, no matter who succeeds Olmert, he (or in the unlikely case of Geveret Livni being elected, she) isn’t likely to be much better than Olmert was.  Less corrupt, probably – it would be hard to top Olmert’s record there. But not much better in resolving Israel’s numerous problems.  The thing is, with only a few exceptions, all the good people in Israeli politics have quit, not wanting to be tarred with the evils of the current system. Those who remain are mediocre, at best, and downright scary, at worst. 

But the real underlying problem is the system itself, the fact that we Israelis have no real voice in choosing our leaders. We don’t vote for a candidate, here, we vote for a party. 

How would you like that?  Vote for the “republicans”, the “democrats”, the “peace and freedom” folks or the “libertarians” – and then let the bosses of the party getting the most votes decide which actual human will serve as president? Not such a good deal, right?  It sort of takes away your incentive to care, if all you have to choose from are the party platforms….. 

So don’t say goodbye to Ehud Olmert just yet.  The old trickster surely has some aces up his sleeve. Unfortunately, it’s more than likely he’ll be around to play them for a long time yet.

What I want to know is this: Where’s our Patrick Henry? Where’s the charasmatic leader that could ignite the Israeli populace, convince us that the system could be changed, that we-the-people could make it happen?

There’s no one like that on the scene, yet. Haval! 

I sometimes wonder if I’m getting too cynical in my old age.  And then something happens – and I realize I’m not nearly cynical enough. 

Barak Obama’s recent ‘Kotelgate’ scandal just proved it: I’m way too trusting.

I’m not sure how much the US media covered Barak Obama’s visit to the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth.  As is traditional for many Jews, Senator Obama decided to leave a “note” in the wall, a hand-written prayer, shoved between the massive stones.

When I read about the ‘note’ Obama had left, I have to admit I was curious. What would he write?

Never fear, human nature being what it is, the news soon leaked. Ma’ariv – a Hebrew-language daily – published the contents of Obama’s note – which turned out to be a very pious plea for protection for himself and his family, to be guarded from pride and despair, for wisdom, and that his sins be forgiven, among other things.

Much as I was curious, I have to admit I was horrified to actually see it published. It seemed to have been a hideous violation of his privacy, for someone to have retrieved that note and made public its contents. That shouldn’t have happened, and I was embarrassed for us, for Israel, for having done such a low-down thing as that.

I wasn’t alone in my disgust. People from all over the world denounced the publication, including the Rabbi of the Kotel himself, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz, who said the publication of the note was “sacrilegious” and “deserv(ing) of sharp condemnation”. Rabbi Rabinovitz also added that it was a “desecration of the holy site.”

Well. Now comes the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say.

As public furor descended on Ma’ariv, the newspaper, for publishing what we all assumed to have been a very private prayer, we now learn that wasn’t what happened at all. In fact, the contents of that note were distributed by the Obama campaign itself – before he ever placed the note in the wall!  They followed it up by a slick campaign video — ‘Amazing Grace’ in the background, church scenes and doves, followed – of course! – by the requisite admonition to “Vote!”

So even though Senator Obama stood by and let us take the blame, ‘Kotelgate’ wasn’t a scandal of Israeli malfeasance at all. It was a slick, planned campaign tactic engineered by the Obama legions themselves, a crafty opportunity to let Senator Obama – once again! – both have his cake and eat it too. The note portrayed him as a humble, holy man, begging for help from his Creator – while the public release of his prayer also gave him the opportunity to look like a victim.

Honestly? The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Senator Obama used us – first, he used the holiest place in the world as a cheap campaign backdrop. Then he used our shame over what we saw as our failure, to make himself look good. Tsk, tsk.

Now we know: For Senator Obama, nothing is sacred.

As the 2008 Olympics begin, it’s a great time to remember another Olympics – 1972, when eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage and then murdered by terrorists in their Olympic Village dormitory in Munich.

As it happens, there’s a great book out – newly translated into English – that’s a real page-turner.  “Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response” by Aaron J, Klein.  (And no, I don’t know the author, and have no financial interest in the book – unfortunately, I guess.)

Klein’s recollection of the massacre itself, and his account of the decades Israel spent, tracking down each and every terrorist who played a part in killing Israelis, is utterly fascinating.  One of those odd books where – even though you know perfectly well what happens – you find yourself wanting to skim pages because you just can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

It also makes you long for the glory days of Israel, when leaders like Golda Meir and Menachem Begin were making the decisions.

How odd it seems – back then, Israel would ruthlessly track down any terrorist who killed Israelis, and destroy them. Now?  The current sets of leaders apparently prefer to have Israelis killed than risk offending the terrorists. Both Prime Ministers Sharon and Olmert directed more of their resources to prosecuting Israelis who were trying to protect themselves and their families from terrorists, than they did trying to eliminate the terrorists. Shameful, that’s what it is. And obviously no good came from it.

The book contains some great commentary from Golda Meir about the way to deal with terrorists, too – how to dissuade them from committing their deadly missions.  Even American presidents would do well to pay heed to what she says. Golda Meir — what a woman!

If we had a few more like her, now……… well!  The whole world would be a safer place.