1. One of the great motion pictures of all time was a film named "Harvey", starring Jimmy Stewart. The entire film revolved around Stewart’s imaginary friend, a six-foot rabbit named Harvey..

   Now I mention this because it has become clear that Ehud Barak, like Jimmy Stewart, has an imaginary cuddly furry friend named "The Peace". He takes his imaginary pet with him wherever he goes. He buys biscuits and toys for it. He constantly pets "The Peace", known for short as "TP", and talks to it. Indeed, he has even convinced many other Israelis that his imaginary rabbit friend really exists. This is why so many Israelis have bumper stickers on their cars that read "Protect ’The Peace’", or "I TOO Like ’The Peace’", and similar. They too like to cuddle the cute furry little imaginary critter. "I support TP", they say. "We need to Protect TP from the rabbit hunters", they sing, and so on.

   Barak speaks about his imaginary friend all the time. Just take the interview he gave yesterday to the Qatari TV station. There he issued a statement that if Arik Sharon wins the election, Sharon will kill Barak’s pet bunny TP. (Globes Jan 16). And so Barak needs lots of people helping him to protect his friend.

   All of which is a bit ironic because the main places in which roast rabbit is eaten in Israel, along with ham and cheese sandwiches, are in the offices of the leftist Meretz and Shinui parties with which Barak seeks to bond.

   Meanwhile, I have my own suggestion for a politically incorrect bumper sticker:

   VIVESECT ’THE PEACE’ NOW!!

2. Yesterday the PLO’s Fat’h stormtroopers murdered a lone Jewish farmer in the Gaza Strip tending his veggies. It openly took "credit", but later sent out its HAMAS spokesperson to say the HAMAS was responsible.

   Israel’s response to the murder? It announced it would delay for ONE DAY the talks it was planning to hold with the PLO about the new appeasements Little Slobodan (Barak) wishes to offer it, including handing it the Old City of Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives. It would also close the PLO’s air strip in the Gaza Strip, into which the PLO has been smuggling the anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles it has started using, for one day.

   So next time someone asks what a Jewish life is worth, you know the answer: a one-day delay in appeasement talks.

   Meanwhile, Israel has already shown over years that its response to PLO atrocities and murders is always to implement a "closure" for a day or two or so to allow tempers to cool, and then to release it - until the next murder. The PLO does not take these "closures" any more seriously than do you or I, the demands by Haaretz and the Israeli Left to end them altogether notwithstanding.

   Now here is a thought: Why not implement absolute and total closure of all PLO areas PERMANENTLY, not allowing any thing or any person to enter or leave unless it is Palestinians leaving the country altogether. Why has not Little Slobodan done this? Well, you see, he is worried about the effect on the Israeli economy if the Palestinian day workers do not reach their jobs in Israel.

   Only thing is, by my calculations the gain to the Israeli economy (boost in GDP) from having the Palestinian day workers reaching their jobs is less than the economic damage done to the economy from having the same people steal tens of thousands of cars from Israel each year. So if the PLO zones were completely and permanently blockaded, hermetically sealed, Israel would only GAIN economically, not to mention how it would become impossible for the PLO to leave all those nice car bombs lying about in Israel. And besides, there are multitudes of well-behaved Thais, Filipinos and others waiting to come take the places of these Palestinians and be exploited mercilessly by Israeli employers for several times the wages they could earn back home.

3. You all catch the BBC referring to the murderers of the Jewish farmer yesterday as Palestinian "activists"? I suggest that we start referring to those Germans who dropped buzz bombs on London in the blitz as "German activists".

4. Oh, the PLO issued a statement that had the Gaza Jewish farmer been living in a Palestinian state, he never would have been harmed. (Haaretz Jan 16). It was only because Israel is being so mean and because the settlers are "oppressing" the po’ Palestinians that they are being forced to murder Jews.

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission