1. The Israeli Left has been leading a battle for months AGAINST the policy of the Sharon government to refuse to conduct "talks" with the PLO "under fire", that is, as long as the PLO and its affiliates conduct daily atrocities. The role model for the Israeli Left is the Judenrat. You will recall that in the 1940s, in the ghettos and concentration camps, some self-appointed Jewish leaders set up their own councils, called Judenrat, to conduct "talks" with the Nazis. In many cases, the "talks" were about how the Judenrat leaders would collaborate with the Germans in keeping everyone calm and orderly while the Jews were being deported to Auschwitz and similar places. In exchange, the Judenrat leaders hoped to save their own skins and those of their families.

   The Judenrat has long been the role model for Israel’s Caring Leftists. And this is why they are so determined to force the Israeli government to conduct negotiations with the PLO in the very same days when suicide bombers blow up groups of Jewish children, when mortars are fired into Jewish civilian homes, when Jews are shot every day by the PLO Einsatzgruppen. Among those demanding that they be permitted to serve as the official Judenrat for conducting the talks with the stormtroopers have been Avram Burg, the Laborite Speaker of the Knesset, and of course Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin.

   And for most of the same period, Sharon has insisted that under his government there will be no Judenrat.

   Until this weekend. Over the weekend, Ariel Sharon decided to serve as his OWN Judenrat. He met with reps from the PLO to negotiate --- under fire. His Kojak-clone son Omri has long been holding similar talks with the PLO’s Gestapo.

   And so the cycle is complete and Ariel Sharon is now the official Bibi the Second. His policy is Olso Lite, by which Israel negotiates its own destruction while the PLO continues to murder Jews. Where the reaction to the murders of groups of twenty Jewish children is to shoot a missile at an empty PLO building and then make more concessions and goodwill measures. Where the only defense permissible by Israel is to ask Arafat nicely to arrest the terrorists. Where Israel collaborates with the anti-Semites of the world who pretend that Arafat is really trying to stop the violence and wants a settlement. And where Israel deals with murderous terrorists by playing games with them and with their leaders. All the while trying to please Israel’s anti-Jewish Left.

2. Oh, among the Judenrat Wannabes is your old friend and mine Neve Gordon. Gordon is a fanatic anti-Semite from the monochromatic (Red) Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University, whose entire "academic" record consists of writing for the Marxist Z Magazine in the US and similar rags, who led the Physicians for Human Rights even though he is not a physician, and who has devoted his crayon to turning out Op-Eds celebrating Norman Finkelstein, the world’s leading Jewish Holocaust Denier (now at De Paul University in Chicago). Well, Comrade Neve made pilgrimage yesterday to his guru Yassir Arafat and his photo is in Haaretz today, male-bonding with His Ugliness, and showing how if the Mountain will not come to Mohammed because Israel has him walled up in Ramallah, then the Chomsky-Wannabe will go to the Mountain.

   You might want to mention the antics of Comrade Neve to anyone you know who is considering making a donation to Ben Gurion University.

3. Israel yesterday saw caravans of cars travelling the shabbat roads with banners reading "The Democratic Rainbow Supports the Right of Return".

   But no all is not as it seems. No it is not the expected and natural extension of the ideology of the Israeli Left into open support for the Palestinian "Right of Return" and the consequent destruction of Israel and herding of Jews into concentration camps.

   What it is - is a PR stunt by the kibbutz special interests lobby. You see, the government of Ariel Sharon wants to enrich the kibbutz Leftists by granting them jillions worth of lands they do not own and letting them sell those lands and keep the cash. This has upset a rival Far-Left Judenrat-Wannabe group called the Democratic Rainbow, purportedly a group of a handful of Marxist Sephardic profs who want the land gifts denied the kibbutz plutocrats and instead given to development towns. Kind of a catfight within the Leftist Camp. The Rainbow commissars have upset the Kibbutz plutocrats by campaigning against the giveaway, and the banners on the roads were the response by the kibbutzim. Either way, you can be the Israeli taxpayer will be left holding the bill..

Steven Plaut

You can e-mail your comments to Steven at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il

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