What you see isn’t always what you get. Recently, I was at a dinner party at the magnificent home of producer Robert Evans. The home and the guests were more than impressive. The crowd was eclectic and I mingled with the likes of astronaut Buzz Aldren, Tony Danza, Suzanne Pleshette, and Christie Brinkley.
But the one I most enjoyed speaking with was the former ambassador to Morocco, Marc Ginsberg. Nice Jewish man, yes? I thought so, anyway, until a few nights ago when I turned on Fox News and listened to him speak about the ‘settlers’ and what an obstacle to peace they are.
Mr. Ginsberg elaborated about how “they” have to move out, and I was thinking, “Move out, and then what? Turn over their homes to the rampaging Arabs who would rape and pilfer everything and everyone in their wake?”
What is it that makes someone like Ginsberg so misinformed – and so vocal? He and others of his ilk fill the airwaves speaking of how the idea of expelling Arabs is racism; however, when it comes to Arabs expelling Jews, total silence.
So don’t be surprised down the line when anti-Semites in one country or another who want to get rid of their Jews begin mouthing the following mantra: “We are only demanding from you Jews what you have demanded from other Jews.”
Liberal Jews of Manhattan, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Greenwich, etc.: You are throwing away the inalienable right of Jews to live anywhere in the world if you insist that Jews give up that right in their own land.
Later, I watched while a man named Stanley Cohen, the lawyer representing the terror group Hamas, spoke in Nazi-like terms about “the Jews.” He played semantic games to separate himself from Hamas, stating that he only “represented the head of Hamas.” Is there a difference?
Frankly, all I can do is shake my head in amazement when I hear people like Marc Ginsberg and Stanley Cohen speak about the need for Israel to appease. Appeasing is what Israel seems to have been doing all along. What’s even more disconcerting to me is how many of the people speaking the loudest against Israel are Jews themselves. Are they just plain stupid or just self-haters?
Woody Allen, a reliable critic of Israel who recently began championing tourism to France, is not stupid. I just find him greedy and evil. Another one who comes to mind is the actor Richard Dreyfuss. As a journalist, I once attended a memorial for the Arabs who were killed by Baruch Goldstein – an event Dreyfuss sponsored at UCLA. I was appalled – and was almost escorted out when I asked for a moment of silence for the victims of Arab terrorism.
And then there are the Ed Asners and Theodore Bikels of the world, who I believe actually think they are friends of Israel but manage to do great harm by their leftist stance.
Amazingly, these articulate and educated men never seem to notice how the Arab world dances and sings at Israel’s pain. Their solution is always that Israel is to blame and Israel must keep on making concession after concession..
These leftist Jews are so caught up in walking around and “feeling the pain” of the enemy that forget who the enemy is. Eventually, they themselves become the enemy by virtue of their self-hatred. Somehow this gives their irrelevant lives meaning.
I think there probably is a special place in hell for the Stanley Cohens of the world who perpetuate the lies. This small but very visible and vocal group – which my dear friend and favorite writer, Jack Engelhard, refers to as ‘Jews for Arafat’ – does great damage because their every word is picked up by the anti-Semites who love to quote them.
Of course, the Israeli government is hardly blameless in all this. Ariel Sharon has opened a Pandora’s Box by not only approving the concept of a “Palestinian” state, but referring to the Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as an “occupation.” (Call me radical, but I think these so-called “Jewish settlers” are the modern-day pioneers of Israel.)
The people of Israel went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly for the promises and the platform of Likud. What they have, however, are the pieties and policies of Peace Now. What you see isn’t always what you get.
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