1. If you noticed a certain reticence from these quarters in the past few weeks, it was not due to my usual well-known shyness and quietude, but because I was on the road. For those asking if I was the target of the suicide bombing near Haifa this week, in fact I was not in Israel on the day but rather atoning for my many sins by allowing myself to be dragged across Euro-Disney.

2. With the Jewish New Year coming up, the time has come to sit back, take a deep breath and re-evaluate the entire Middle East situation. Such careful inspection and rethinking can only lead to one simple conclusion: the Middle East conflict cannot end until the Occupation ends.

   Of course, the Occupation of which I speak is the occupation of Israeli lands by the PLO. The key to peace in the Middle East is the liberation of these occupied territories from their occupying power. End the Occupation Now! The Occupation Corrupts!!

   Now had you been listening to the Western media in recent years, you might be unaware of the fact that the only "occupied territories" in the West Bank and Gaza these days are those occupied by the PLO. True, each and every atrocity by the PLO and its front groups is greeted in the Jew-bashing media with diatribes about how it is all because Israel refuses to give up its occupation of Palestinian lands. (The BBC ended every single report on the bombing of the Jerusalem pizza place last week by reminding everyone of how all the violence was directly caused by Sharon having strolled on the Temple Mount last year; the BBC, CNN and Economist still routinely justify the shooting into the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem by describing it as an illegal settlement on Palestinian lands.) But Israel long ago gave up its "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza, if that is what is meant by the misnomer "Palestinian Lands". The result was to turn those areas into huge bomb factories and terrorist bases, precisely in the manner predicted by all of us anti-Oslo dissidents many years ago.

   One problem of the Middle East conflict is the basing of so much policy and debate on futurology. When Shimon Peres and his pack of lemmings proposed turning the "occupied territories" over to the PLO to create a Palestinian state, those of us of the non-insane persuasion insisted this would merely result in those territories being used as launch bases for attacks on Israel, including terrorist, mortar and rocket shelling. The Jewish Left guffawed and insisted: "Prove It!". We then recounted the PLO track record. "Nope," they bellowed, "That ain’t no SCIENTIFIC proof at all. No one KNOWS for SURE how the PLO would behave if granted the territories. Gotta give it a chance to see. We are sure they will act peacefully."

   Now the scientific proof such people were demanding could only be provided by first turning the territories over to the PLO and then seeing how it behaves. Until doing so, no one had any "proof". It was all futurology. The entire debate in Israel in the early 1990s was over what would happen in the FUTURE, and by definition no one can "prove" what will happen in the future until it happens. (I usually responded to such arguments with lefties by suggesting that the fact that so many people have died after swallowing arsenic does not PROVE it would be poison for YOU.)

   Well, now thanks to Shimon Peres and the Jewish Left, we have the proof. Peres, by the by, has yet to learn anything and is this very week - in between the suicide bombings - proposing his own new plan to forcibly evict all the Jews from the Gaza Strip under the slogan "Gaza First (for evicting "settlers")!". Peres is also attacking all those who rule out conducting negotiations with the PLO "under fire", and insist that the PLO’s blowing up school children is no reason not to appease it with further concessions.

   Meanwhile, it should be patently obvious to all with eyes in their heads that sooner or later Israel will have to retake and re-occupy the entire set of PLO-occupied territories. No, it will not do so because these are sacred Jewish lands and no it will not do so because of any particular desire to rule Palestinians. It will do so because as long as a single acre of land is under PLO rule it will be used for nothing other than as a base to murder Jews. The only way to end the atrocities by the PLO is to sieze and rule the West Bank and Gaza. All of it. Yes, including Gaza City and Jericho.

   In other words, there is one and ONLY one viable way to create stability and peace in the Middle East. That is the R&D plan. The R&D plan stands for Re-Occupy and Denazify. Israel must conquer militarily ALL of the West Bank and Gaza, impose martial law there, and then conduct a policy over decades of Denazification, partially based on the policies imposed on Germany and Japan by the Allies after World War II, partially original.

   Clearly, Sheriff Sharon is not yet prepared for such a step and instead is still blowing up empty PLO buildings Barak-style and occasionally sending in tanks for a brief excursion. He still has done nothing to relieve Gilo from its siege. His spokesmen spoke about the attack on Jenin this week as stemming from the fact that "too many suicide bombers have been sent out from Jenin," raising the questions in all minds of what a reasonable number of suicide bombers from Jenin would be.

   To his credit, Sharon did seize at long last the PLO’s illegal offices in Orient House (and a few other buildings). This should have been done decades ago. The Israeli Left, especially Haaretz, is wetting itself in anguish over this lest someone suspect Israel has some rights to rule Jerusalem. And yes, the US State Department is blustering.

   Let them. Orient House should be immediately handed over to Jewish "settlers", perhaps erecting a synagogue therein. As second-best solution, should the Americans get too pushy, it should be bulldozed and the ground mined.

   On the other hand, Sharon has NOT shut off the terrorist territories nor taken steps from stopping Palestinians from strolling the Israeli avenues freely while leaving behind bombs. You see, keeping them out might upset Geoge W and Unc Colin.

3. I have insisted from the start that the problem in Israel is not the Arabs, but rather the Jewish Leftists. All of the violence is caused by Jewish Leftists. The West Bank and Gaza are large bomb factories because of Jewish Leftists. Israel has become the Valley of the Shadow of Death thanks to Jewish Leftists.

   Have Jewish Leftists learned anything? Of course not. Leftists never learn anything.

   Last night saw the unctuous Israeli Far-Leftist poet Haim Be’er on TV describing Israeli soldiers as "Nazis." This because of the now-famous story of how some soldiers allegedly prevented a Palestinian woman in labor from reaching Israeli medical facilities inside Israel. A story now repeated so often as to be part of the canon.

   Putting aside the question of why anyone thinks Palestinians should enjoy an automatic entitlement to free medical treatment in Israeli taxpayer-financed facilities, what is the SOURCE of the woman-in-labor story we have by now all heard so often? Well, it turns out it comes from Gideon Levy.

   Levy is one of the most extreme pink flamingoes in the Haaretz aviary. He devotes his column, week in and week out, to bemoaning the plight of some po’ Palestinian family or other, such as one whose father is missing an arm (maybe blew it off while doing his prepping?), or a blind child. What happens in those weeks when Jewish children have their limbs blown off by a PLO bomber? Same thing - Levy weeps crock tears for the po’ Palestinians. Levy is also on record for calling for Israel’s elimination and replacement by a Palestinian state from Jordan to Mediterranean.

   Now Levy is hardly above a bit of "New Journalism" fabrication to serve the cause, and the woman-in-labor- tale has never been confirmed by any other news source or by the army.

4. On the lighter side, for those of you who think nothing good has ever come from the Oslo "peace process", the loud Rock and Roll group "Red Hot Chili Peppers" has just called off its concert in Israel this week due to the carnage.

5. Ah, but perhaps the very best story of the week is the report on the front page of the PLO’s official paper, "Al-Hiat al-Jadida", cited in yesterday’s Yediot.

   You all have seen the US show Xena the Warrior Princess, about this heroic overweight lesbian chopping off heads of the bad guys? Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Meet Xona the Warrior Princess!

   Comrades, the official PLO paper reports that a naked Jewish woman has been roaming the liberated Palestinian zones and murdering intifada youths. Really!! She is a naked IDF soldier who rides atop a tank. She waits for the horny tanziners to step forward for a peep at her equipment and then guns them down mercilessly. SO reports Palestinian reporter Musa Abu-Amro in said paper.

   Now this story is so wonderful I am at a loss to invent some sort of parody here. My only suggestion for improving the method is to use Shulamit Aloni as the siren of Zion. She steps up on the tank and the whole intifada goes blind!!

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission