Va En Shalom?

Man of Peace - Leonard Baskin, 1952

Last month a Lebanese/Swedish man with links to Hezbollah was arrested in Bangkok after discovery of a warehouse containing 8800 lbs. of ammonium nitrate and other bomb making components. Iran denied any involvement in the affair.

An Israeli diplomat's wife was injured in a car bombing in New Delhi on Monday this week. Concurrently on the same day, a bomb plot was discovered and thwarted in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia. Both bombings involved crude sheet magnets. Monday happened to be the first anniversary of the death of noted Hezbollah terror plotter Imad Mugniyeh.

In Bangkok on Tuesday the Iranians ran into a bit of bad luck when the roof blew off their safe house, due to a blast from the munitions they were storing inside. Mohammed Karzai and Saeid Moradi left the house soon after the explosion. A small crowd gathered around them in the densely populated Sukhumvit Road district of the Thai capitol. They hailed a taxi but the driver wouldn't let them get in the cab so they threw a grenade at him.

Moradi got scared and pulled out another grenade to throw at police when they showed up. It hit something, perhaps a signpost and was deflected back at him, blowing off one of his legs entirely. A third suspect, Iranian national Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, managed to catch a plane to Malaysia on his way back to Teheran.  He was intercepted in Kuala Lumpur. Thai investigators say that a fourth Iranian, Leila Rohani, rented the house for the trio but managed to get back to Iran. Thai police say that two homemade "sticky" bombs found at the blast site Tuesday matched the devices planted on Israeli diplomatic cars in India and Georgia.

Iran of course, denies involvement with any of the attacks, blaming the usual suspect Israel for the perfidious misdirection play. Teheran accused Israel of attacking its own embassies and diplomats as part of a "psychological war" against Iran. Typical Zionist plot, right down to the Iranian passports.

I couldn't sleep last night and did quite a bit of reading regarding the incidents and it amazes me how many people agree with the Iranians. Big Mossad operation, just like the twin towers. Or the Israeli's had it coming, what did they expect after killing five of Iran's top nuclear physicists?

Iran of course has been crowing this week about its ability to hit soft targets of the Zionist/American alliance around the world. Lets hope that any other similar acts are conducted in an equally sloppy fashion.

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Several things bother me about this new escalation of violence. In Azerbaijan, the targets last month were not Israeli but a jewish school in Baku with 400 students. Three Iranians were arrested in the plot to murder jewish students, a rabbi and teachers at the Or Avner School and Israeli Ambassador to Baku, Michael Lotem. The suspects were identified as Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov. According to reports, they received instructions from Balagardash Dadashov, who was in contact with Iranian intelligence and received a sniper rifle, pistols and explosive devices to attack Chabad emissaries operating in Baku.

Iran has of course long been linked to the synagogue bombing in Argentina and other mayhem against jewish targets in South America, with its new BFF Hugo Chavez. A red line has been crossed. It is no longer a fight against the zionist oppressor but a full fledged religious war against jews everywhere.

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Of course, the left is silent about the bombings. Openly hostile to Israel, they are quick to point out that they are not anti-semitic, merely anti zionist. Anything to thwart the neocon war machine intent on invading the peaceful Iranian regime. The same regime that has promised to annihilate Israel, and now in the final stages of its "peaceful" nuclear enrichment program.

I was reading Joshua Holland's rather puerile piece on AlterNet last night, Dear Israel Lobby, we give up, please give us an acceptable way of insulting you. When I am in the mood to read some really fine leftist Israel Bashing, AlterNet is always my go to source. The Blame Israel first crowd. Such objectivity? Because when omniscient young jews take a few wacks at the Israeli piñata, you know that you can trust them. Here are a couple lines from the article:

The problem stems from the objective fact that there are a group of Americans – disproportionately represented among right-wing Christian evangelicals and older generations of Jewish-Americans – who ally themselves with the Israeli government. They do so regardless of its ideological bent at the moment and deny that the Palestinians have legitimate grievances (sometimes going so far as to deny their existence). They wish away the cruelty of the occupation, pretend that there are only rejectionists on the Palestinian side and Israel only wants peace, claim Israel has never violated international law or trampled on human rights, insist that Israeli Arabs don't face hostility and discrimination and go around calling everyone who disagrees anti-Semites and terror supporters. 

Now I applaud young Mr. Holland, first time that I have seen the agist argument. The problem isn't just with the damn right wing christians, it's those "old" jews as well. Bravo. I wouldn't dare suggest that you read the whole article, the typical anti Israel, self loathing sheit that AlterNet is so famous for. Permit me one or two comments. As a graying jew, I think that I might have a bit more historical perspective about the old tribe than these oh so brilliant young yids whose links to eretz yisrael is merely conceptual at best and whose judaism never strayed much from the whitefish platter at their Bar Mitzvah.

Don't even consider the state of relations between the arab and islamic factions themselves, Shia, sunni, kurd, wahab, all at each others throats in a bloody internecine conflict that threatens the Syrian masses today but whose torch has seared practically every country. No, focus on the jews, the people that they thought they were rid of 1500 years ago, who had the nerve to try to reclaim a piece of their ancestral homeland and birthplace. When there was literally no where else to go.

The Zion so reviled by the left and the muslims was not born in a vacuum. My paternal grandmother Pesa Szkarlat was one of two sisters that escaped the ovens from a family of nine. Practically all of our family shtetl perished at Auschwitz. My grandfather Israel Sommer had to actually kill a russian officer to escape dire persecution in World War I, finally making it to Antwerp and then the young Palestine.

My mother's family came from Yedinitz, in Moldava. Yedinitz is near Kishinev, the site of two of the worst pogroms ever, events that claimed thousands of jewish lives. My grandfather was finally allowed to leave in the early 1920's but only after writing a letter promising never to return to Romania. Jews were of course only allowed to live in a very narrow strip called the Pale. It was also forbidden for a jew to set foot in Moscow. And Europe was embarking on what was to be a final solution.

If you read LaPierre and Collins' magnificent book "O' Jerusalem" you get a great idea of the cost of the War of Independence on both sides of the conflict. And you will see that many survivors of the nazis ended up dying on the shores of their ancestral homeland. Because there was simply no where else to go. Not everyone was lucky enough to end up in Shaker Heights or Boyle Heights. There were quotas. Those lovable french sent 125,00 back to the Nazis on the trains.

I was lucky enough to talk with my grandparents, at least on my father's side. I want to honor their memory. I don't agree with Netanyahu's settlement policy. I support an equitable solution for all. But I am not foolish enough to disbelieve those that have vowed to destroy the land where my father was born. Because Israel won't get a second chance at surviving. They have to take their enemies at their word. A red line is being drawn, seemingly all over the world. Jews are now being targeted everywhere they live. Where is the righteous indignation now? And to my leftist friends I say, you can be on one side or the other, but unfortunately not on both. I know that I am in a distinct minority, especially amongst "progressives." People are sick of Israel and most will not shed a tear if it gets blown away. The jews are pretty much on their own these days.

I thank Israel's friends, especially the christians who have steadfastly stood by them and also admit to have nothing but revulsion for its own children who have forsaken her and pity for the forebears who gave birth to their dishonor.

In the City of Slaughter (Kishinev)

...the heirs

Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,

Concealed and cowering—the sons of the Maccabees!

The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!

Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of their shame,

So sanctified My name!

It was the flight of mice they fled,

The scurrying of roaches was their flight;

They died like dogs, and they were dead!

Chaim Bialik