1. Tomorrow Bob Dylan turns 60. Well, let me rephrase that for those of you who read Tikkun: Tomorrow is Rabbi Bob’s birthday.

2. Well, Israel under Ariel Sharon seems determined not to tell the US State Department whither it can shove the report of the Mitchell Commission. Sharon has already announced a unilateral ceasefire, and in gratitude for this the PLO will continue to bomb, shoot, and shell Jews and the State Department will have little to say except maybe express some "regret".

   The Mitchell Commission investigated the causes of the 2000-01 intifada, and of course found none other than Israeli misbehavior and settlements.

   The bottom line is that the Commission seeks to allow the PLO to gain a great propaganda and strategic victory from 8 months of violence by linking the violence to settlements and by conditioning ending the PLO atrocities on Israel freezing settlements.

   As you know, my own position is that Israel should never have let Mitchell and his boys in at all.

   However, given that they were let in and given that their Report links settlements with PLO violence, I think that, under the circumstances, Israel should take this linkage and put it to good use. Israel should simply announce that it accepts the linkage of settlement building with PLO atrocities without reservation. Accordingly, from this moment on, every time the PLO initiates or sponsors violence (or closes its eyes to Hamas terror originating under its noses) Israel will respond with SETTLEMENTS!!

   The PLO fires at an Israeli patrol? Israel build a new settlement. The PLO injures a civilian? Israel expands a settlement. The PLO kills a Jewish child? Israel constructs a whole new town in the West Bank or Gaza. The PLO shells a Jewish area? Israel demolishes a Palestinian town and erects a settlement in its place.

   And if anyone complains, Israel can say it is simply applying the Mitchell Commission linkage.

3. Meanwhile, the Sharon government continues to do contortions to try to apologize. for having shelled the home of Jibril Rajoub, head of the PLO’s Gestapo. In fact, Sharon at the bidding of the Left is considering the creation of free-fire zones around the homes of leading PLO officials, from which the PLO can freely fire at Jews but Israel cannot respond cause they might hit the homes of those leaders.

   Not even Avigdor Lieberman, the most militant and outspoken member of Sharon’s cabinet, has the guts to say what is obvious and true and needs to be said, namely, that Israel should fire at Rajoub’s home EVEN WHEN the fire directed at Jews by the PLO is NOT coming from the vicinity of the Rajoub abode. (Ditto for Arafat’s nest.)

4. This week’s nomination for wackiest professor on campus goes to Prof. Moshe Shoked, a sociologist from Tel Aviv University. Writing in Haaretz May 22, 01, he proposes that Israeli Jews begin to celebrate Naqba Day or "Catastrophe Day", the day Arab fascists mourn the creation of Israel in 1948.

   This is part of a wider trend among Israel’s chattering classes to get the Jews out to help the Arabs mourn Israel’s existence. For several years the campus Tenured Reds have been joining the Arab fascists in Naqba Day parties. A little matter in Haifa is worth mentioning. For years the main avenue in downtown Haifa was known as UN Boulevard, but back in the 70s when the UN declared Zionism is a form of racism, the City changed the name of the street to Zionism Boulevard. Which it has remained ever since.

   But now in the spirit of ecumenical mourning of the creation of Israel, some local Haifa Arabs aligned with the Stalinist Party have petitioned to have Zionism Boulevard renamed "Jebel" or Mountain Boulevard. The local Post-Zionsists are all humming amens. Finally, in the new spirit of ecumenicalism, the author A.B. Yehoshua proposed as a compromise that only the LOWER segment of the road be renamed Mountain Boulevard, the segment that passes near the homes of hypersensitive Arabs offended by the name Zionism Boulevard, whereas the upper segment that passes thru the Bahai areas can retain the name Zionism Boulevard. (for now?)

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission