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Cuckoo's Nest

Eugene Narrett

Israelis may be spoiling the Arabs, but you can't accuse the so-called Jewish state of bias on that account; Israel is an equal opportunity spoiler. Ready to croak over the "conversion controversy," my hopes were renewed by a November 1 report from Tel Aviv: a brunch table 1.8 km long, laden with 20 tons of cheese and 9 tons of yogurt, has finally landed Israel in the Guinness Book of World Records. Finally, Jews are recorded in a book that matters!

While Rome burned, Nero fiddled; the gentry of the via maris glut themselves on glatt fruitcake while the felaheen scream down from the hills with scythes.

Between the passing of the egg salad and lox, there was a run on gas masks, but only a crank lets that kind of news get in the way of a good nosh.

Not that there wasn't any important business being conducted during pauses in the "Jewish Question" debate. On November 4, a janitor, butler, and maid showed up in Washington representing the ailing Yasser in the current phase of his plan. Clinton's people, who wrote the book on selective sensitivity, noted that the Palestinian Authority delegation "lacked expertise in some areas." This earned a "chilly" response from the regal Mr. Arafat, whose embassy in Iraq is reported to be repository for documents on Saddam's chemical weapons.

The point of Israel's "negotiations" is to produce an air and sea port for the Plishtim in Gaza, and a highway thence across the Jewish corridor to the Arabs' ancestral homeland in Judea. "We do not have a situation where one side demands and the other side must stand at attention and give in to every single demand," Foreign Minister David Levy commented, struggling to keep a straight face and stand at attention. The PA delegation kindly allowed him to recline and say the fier kashas before giving in. Progress, too, can be a way into the Guinness Book.

Each time I tried to read up on the latest diktat of some Arab "spiritual leader," I was distracted by signs of concord like a large bouquet thrown by the Jerusalem Post to Mohammed Bassiouny, Egypt's ambassador in Israel, who "throws lavish banquets with the reputation of being affairs out of Arabian Nights, not just for the sumptuous spread [buffet table syndrome, again--E.N.] but for the entertainment." While Egyptian newspapers daily paint Jews as Nazis, and use Gaza as a transshipment point for guns that will spill Jewish blood, Bassiouny's soirees "command the attendance of anybody who's anybody in Israeli society, from Ezer and Reuma Weizmann, to ministers and Knesset members, to movers and

shakers of business, culture and media." What cold peace? Who said this country isn't prepared to live? That it has no pride? No dignity?

While Reform rabbis from Great Neck to San Bernardino insist that lesbian weddings are halachically sound (and anybody who doubts it is "divisive"), the differently abled Sheikh Ahmed Yassin gave signs that he had been deeply moved by a peace overture from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. "We have one enemy and we will wage war and fight...No to a ceasefire, we will not concede one inch of our land. A nation without jihad cannot exist."

These remarks troubled "thoughtul" leaders who had been encouraged by Yassin's previous offer of a ceasefire in exchange for complete and immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. "Islam permits a temporary truce with the enemy," the holy man acknowledged. "But it is prohibited to make a permanent reconciliation with the enemy," not even if they surrender that Guinness Book brunch in Tel Aviv.

Other Arabs supported Yassin's overture. Khaled Mashal, so recently the object of the world's most tender solicitude, noted: 'Our path is clear: armed struggle until the occupiers have been banished...nobody in the world can change Hamas' strategy." No wonder Hussein was indignant the Israelis would try to harm Mr. Mashal.

A virtual olive branch was proferred by Abdul Rantisi, still glowing from Arafat's buss. "I say today to Jaffa, Haifa, Safed and Tel Aviv, be ready to meet the mujahedeen." There goes the yogurt.

The good news is that American Jews are up in arms about these developments. In a meeting with Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League so vigorously championed King Hussein against the bullies from Mossad that Berger acknowledged the ADL chief as "the Jordanian lobby." Foxman was in Washington to lobby for increased financial aid to Jordan, and while there, met the Jordanian ambassador "to express appreciation" for the King's restraint over the Mashal affair. He was serious, too; dead serious.

The Boston Globe's latest 'Jewish' writer on Middle Eastern matters, was not cheered by this. He wrote an article commenting bitterly on how the Jordanian people had become cynical about their "hollow peace" with the hard-nosed Israelis which had failed to transform their economy. The Jews had failed again, was the consensus, even failed "their best ally in the region." And the attack on Mashal "was devastating to the trust Hussein had built."

In his very last words of blessing to the Jewish people, Moses hailed Israel as a fortunate nation, delivered by the Lord. "Your enemies will try to destroy you," Moses foretold, "but you will trample their haughty ones." Perhaps he meant some other generation.

As for the other book, the Guinness Book, the handshake on the White House lawn has been recorded there since 1993, filed under, "In Our Time, Peace: first as tragedy, then as farce."

Professor Narrett teaches English at Boston University.