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April
5, 2002 8:30 a.m. |
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hen the United
States sends delegations, envoys, secretaries of state to the Middle East,
it can only mean one thing: pressure on Israel. Only Israel responds to
U.S. calls, sometimes agreeably, sometimes grudgingly and angrily. Historically,
and certainly recently, Arabs have used U.S. envoys only as propaganda
tools and props.
But the sending of such people allows U.S. administrations to say that they are “doing something.” You know, “Don’t just stand there, do something” — even though the “doing something” may make the situation worse. Action is seen as noble — as at least “trying” — even if that action is futile or worse.
I have a suggestion that might save our government a little money: Just give your orders that Israel “stand down” by telephone, and forget the charade of dispatching envoys to influence “both sides.”
For many years now — most of my life — I have been flabbergasted at how Arabs, and Palestinians in particular, can turn any stunt or horror into a propaganda victory. Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen and terrorists flee into the Christian church at Bethlehem, and Israeli forces, naturally, surround the church. This allows Yasser Arafat to say, “My God, the Israelis are assaulting the church!” — and the world, stupid world, responds.
Palestinians send their murderers to Israeli communities via ambulance. Nice, huh? So Israeli authorities stop them, of course, and Arafat then cries, “My God, the Israelis are stopping our ambulances” — and the world, stupid world, responds.
George W. Bush has now asked — no, demanded, because he is U.S. president, which means that he is Israel’s boss — that Israel ensure that Palestinians are “free from humiliation at checkpoints.” Well, that’s just super — such a nice talking point. But to hell with humiliation: Israel needs to ensure that Palestinians are free from explosives, meant to slaughter yet more Israelis by the hundreds, at checkpoints.
And do you know what? We Americans — including my own sainted mother — aren’t “free of humiliation” at checkpoints, in our airports. I could relate many a humiliating moment, and others, particularly women, I would say, could relate more. For heaven’s sake, a veteran U.S. congressman — John Dingell of Michigan — was forced to take his pants down at National Airport. In Arizona, a creaky Medal of Honor winner was forced to hand over his medal. But we understand, I guess. Can’t the administration understand a little Israeli, er, nervousness about what Palestinians are bringing into Israel, seeing that a fair number of them are bringing their “explosives belts”?
Speaking of those lovely belts: On Thursday, Israel seized 40 of them in a factory located in the West Bank town of Salfit. But, of course, President Bush demands that Israel cease its “incursions.” So, no more explosives belts will be seized. Instead, they will be strapped onto young people, who will use them to murder more Israelis.
Will we then say that we have a certain responsibility for Israeli blood? Should we?
The country’s number-one Republican, Congressman Tom DeLay of Texas, said the following at Westminster College:
During four decades of terrorism, Yasser Arafat has proven his total contempt for human life. We should support the Israelis as they dismantle the Palestinian leadership that foments violence and fosters hate. . . . [Arafat] has no credible role to play in solving the crisis. . . . No one should expect the people of Israel to negotiate with groups pursuing the fundamental goal of destroying them. We should begin by rejecting the idea that the United States should somehow be a disinterested party mediating between two good-natured nations earnestly striving for peace. The time has come to drop the empty pretense that we can serve the region as a mere broker. The defense of freedom demands more from us than a value-neutral brokerage. It is time for us to stand squarely against the terrorist organizations that systematically attack Israel.”
I was about to say, “DeLay for President!,” but that’s too easy. Let’s just say that DeLay is right — which is quite enough.
In
recent months, Impromptus-ites and I have spoken of “lexical feats”
in politics — feats such as “pro-choice” and “tax
giveaway.” A reader has the following to say about Middle East policy:
“How about the use of the word ‘restraint’ in discussions of the terrorist war on Israel? The word seems so neutral in tone. But when you stop to think about it — about what ‘restraint’ means and why Israel should practice restraint — the sheer enormity of using the word becomes clear. Why is Israel being asked to ‘restrain’ itself? Why should it need to do so? Of course, it’s not ‘restraint’ that’s being called for when the Bush administration and others demand that Israel ‘restrain’ itself. It’s submission: submission and inaction in the face of unrestrained terrorism and war.”
Another
reader writes, “Quick question: These ‘peace activists’
who are volunteering as ‘human shields’ to protect Yasser Arafat
and the Palestinians: Where were they when Janet Reno stormed the house
where Elian Gonzalez was holed up? Where were they when the ATF had the
Branch Davidian compound under siege? For that matter, where were they
when NATO was bombing Slobo and the gang?”
Naturally, these aren’t “peace activists”: They’re supporters of the Palestinian war on Israel, who want the war to succeed. Only Israel, with U.S. cooperation, can see to it that that war not succeed.
We
have delighted, many, many times, in the language — and the leadership,
too, but I like to concentrate on the language (which is very much related)
— of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Earlier in the week, a top al Qaeda operative was delivered into our hands, one Abu Zubaydah. He will have many useful things to tell us, and he should be made to do so. The information he has will surely save lives, almost surely lots of them. In connection with Zubaydah, some have mentioned “truth serums”; others have even used the T-word, torture.
And what does Rumsfeld have to say? “There is no question but that having an opportunity to visit with him is helpful.”
That has to go down as a classic in understatement, or perhaps sarcasm, or a mixture of the two: “an opportunity to visit with him” — just as though we were talking about Aunt Sadie, for a glass of iced tea.
Bryant
Gumbel, that personification of what we rustics, paranoids, and boobs
call media bias, is set to step down from his latest network morning show,
CBS’s The Early Show. Highlights from Gumbel’s oeuvre
are endless, but I will relate only one, which I came across when preparing
a piece on John Ashcroft. As you recall, one of the sticking points in
Ashcroft’s nomination was his handling of the case of Judge Ronnie
White, a Missourian who was denied a Senate confirmation thanks largely
to the opposition of Ashcroft.
Gumbel questioned his guest, Judge White, as follows: “What do you think Senator Ashcroft’s distortion of your record and tarnishing of your good name says about his character?”
That’s our Bryant. That’s our press. But let no man call it media bias. (Gumbel, bear in mind, is not an opinion commentator, à la Bob Novak, but a network-news anchorman and host. Those are jobs that only left-liberals get, to judge from watching and listening to them.)
In
related news, Phil Donahue is returning to television — but at least
there’s an acknowledged opinion commentator, with no pretense
that he’s a straight newsman. And, oh, did we all love That Girl,
whom he, of all men, married.
I
wonder whether you spotted an intriguing news item related to Hungary.
A leading politician, Laszlo Kover, was speaking to a crowd, and he blasted
those Hungarians who opposed a bid to host the 2012 Olympics: “If
we are such an incapable people, then it’s not worth living, and
we should all go down into the cellar and hang ourselves.”
Well, his opponents twisted this statement, making it seem as though Kover had said that all those who differed with government policy should hang themselves. A demonstration was duly organized, at which protesters wore nooses around their necks, in mockery of Kover.
But I rather liked what he said — liked the spirit of it. It’s about time that Hungary, one of the great European civilizations — not least musically — got back on the world stage.
It’s
hard to make fun of the European Union — we’ve all tried, but
they keep outdoing us. A few years ago, we had some laughs over the EU’s
edict on condoms: They had to be a particular size, Europe-wide, no variations.
But what about the relative endowments of Frenchmen, Germans, Swedes,
Italians (or northern Italians and southern Italians), Bulgarians, Laplanders,
and so on? Surely the euro-condom would be too snug for some, too roomy
for others? But socialism can’t think of such things. Socialism decides
in offices, regardless of the realities among people.
Then the EU issued a decree on the curvature of bananas (pardon the relation): We kid you not. Our David Pryce-Jones used this as a jumping-off point for a lengthy and excellent article on the bullying, Orwellian, and demented nature of the European Union.
The problem is, as I mentioned, that you can’t make up stuff about the EU, can scarcely joke about it. A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times’s brilliant music critic, Bernard Holland, had a piece on Europe’s crackdown on noise, including the sounds made in concert halls. The EU is threatening to impose a “workplace decibel limit of 85 without earplugs, 87 with them.” This limit does not go far enough for some, who favor 83.
As a result, “European musicians are not happy,” as Holland (the critic, not the country) says. The director of the Association of British Orchestras protests, “It will virtually stop us playing any loud repertoire whatsoever.” But musical considerations leave Brussels unmoved. Said one of its “health and safety” spokesmen, “Noise is noise. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Tchaikovsky or a power drill.”
It’s both chilling and flattering that more and more Europeans, if they want to live and work in something like freedom, have to come here, to the United States (French techies in Silicon Valley, for example).
And
now for a little Cuban news, never good. A headline from the Christian
Solidarity Network says, “Blind Christian Human Rights Activist Beaten
and Imprisoned in Cuba.” Can’t do worse than that, can you —
I mean, beating up and imprisoning blind Christian human-rights activists?
(The full story is found here
.)
Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, President of both the Cuban Human Rights Foundation and the Brotherhood of Independent Blind People in Cuba, was arrested along with several other human rights activists on March 5 in Ciego de Avila.
He was severely beaten by government security agents and suffered a blow to the head, which required four stitches. Gonzalez and a number of other human rights activists had gathered at a local hospital in an attempt to draw attention to the plight of a journalist who had been admitted there after being attacked by Cuban police.
The group was immediately surrounded by the rapid response unit of the local security forces, who beat them before taking them into custody. . . .
On March 10, security forces raided the Ignacio Agramonte Independent Evangelical Library, set up in Ciego de Avila by Gonzalez. They confiscated a number of books, including materials written in Braille. Gonzalez was also attacked and beaten by police on Christmas Day 2001, at the inauguration of the library.
According to Gonzalez’s wife, Maritza, he is being charged with public disorder and is currently being held in a cell with a violent criminal — a common form of punishment in Cuba. . . .
There has been a general crackdown on all human rights activists since a large number of Cubans sought asylum in the Mexican Embassy in Havana in late February.
And this, from CubaNet: “Police in Candelaria [in Pinar del Rio province], dressed as civilians, descended from two cars and a pick-up truck with tourism license plates and raided a group of peddlers on March 5, beating and arresting them. The peddlers, most selling agricultural produce or homemade foods, were taken to the Candelaria police station. They were fined 500 pesos and their merchandise was confiscated [gee, wonder in whose bellies that went?]. ‘Police came back March 12, in civilian clothes, and suddenly attacked other peddlers, among them a 60-year-old woman,’ said Alberto Hernandez, a local dissident. Peddlers here try to make a few bucks by selling simple foods or produce, but the government calls them illegal because they don’t have licenses. The peddlers themselves and many residents say they supply items that are otherwise unobtainable.”
Okay, I’m working toward a punchline, believe it or not. A friend of mine said this story should have been headlined: “Sixty-year-old Woman Beaten in Apparent Effort to Safeguard Potential U.S. Agriculture Sales”!
The news is not always bad: Several liberal parties in Sweden conferred a democracy prize on the Association of Independent Libraries in Cuba. Hail Sweden (a phrase one doesn’t find oneself writing often, at least not when one is me)! What pains the Castro regime more than anything is any international recognition of dissenting, freedom-loving Cubans. It threatens the picture the regime wishes to paint (but not, sadly, among U.S. elites).
For the amazing and revelatory saga of a Cuban ship held near The Hague, Netherlands, go here.
Finally, I alert you to a couple of recent Cuba-related columns by two of the best columnists in this country, Paul Greenberg and Jeff Jacoby: For a priceless Greenberg, go here; and for a typically sharp Jacoby, go here .
A
column or so ago, we talked about “the homeless” as an extremely
successful euphemism (as so many of the “homeless” are not truly
without shelter, but bums, hobos, derelicts, etc.). A reader wrote in
to say that his favorite term was “urban outdoorsman.”
In
the category of “lexical feats,” a reader proposes an obvious
one, one I’m embarrassed not to have thought of: “the speedy
transition from ‘gun control’ to ‘gun safety.’”
Yes, that was a brilliant, and characteristically underhanded, tactic.
Of course, for many decades, America’s leader in gun safety has been
the NRA. They practically invented gun safety, truly speaking.
In
the previous Impromptus, I told an Al Haig anecdote, touching on his inimitable
use of language, and a reader wrote to say, “I will never forget
the press conference in which Haig said that two Libyan jets that had
fired on our F-14s had been ‘rendered noncombatant.’” Beautiful.
Also
in the previous Impromptus, in celebrating my confrère David Horowitz,
I celebrated Horowitzes generally, including Vladimir and Winona (Ryder,
that is, who was born a Horowitz). Many readers wrote in to say,
“How could you have forgotten Mo, Curly, and Shemp, those Stooges
whose real name was not Howard but Horowitz?” Yes, how could
I have? Remember “I faw down”?
PC
language, we will always have with us, apparently. A correspondent from
greater Washington writes, “I went to an exhibit on public transportation
at the National Building Museum. We were duly informed that one of the
glories of public transportation is that one can listen to one’s
‘walkperson’ while riding.”
Oh, yes. I recall that, when I lived in Michigan, it was perfectly natural for me to refer to the mayor of Detroit as “Coleperson Young.” It was also perfectly natural — it just came out of my mouth — to say, “Well, if that’s not the pot calling the kettle African-American!”
But this takes the cake, from a reader in Colorado: “Years ago, I was driving to work in southern California, listening to KUSC, a classical-music station. The announcer introduced the next piece by saying, ‘Now we will hear the “Fanfare to the Common Person,” by Aaron Copland.’ Couldn’t believe it. I am not a violent person, but I could have hit him.”
Well, we just did, sort of.