There’s nothing like a good solidly-positive headline to make the day start out right.

Today’s was, “Mitchell, Netanyahu fail to agree on settlement halt.”

That’s unmitigated good news – which was essential to balance off the totally depressing headline down the page, “Hillary Clinton to visit Israel.”

Please. Just stay home. Leave us alone.

I’m not happy with Bibi’s partial or temporary -- or whatever it is today –“settlement freeze”, but he did say something that made sense. As you know, the Arabs in the form of Abu Mazen -- who, when he doffs the terrorist robes calls himself “Mahmoud Abbas” – continue to insist that they won’t sit down for “negotiations” until Israel imposes a total “settlement freeze”, including in Jerusalem.

So Bibi, in speaking to his cabinet said, “In any case, I will not agree to enter into talks whose results are defined and known in advance. That’s what negotiations are for and we are willing to begin right away.”

Right! The Arabs have gotten into the bad habit of demanding everything they want as a precondition to negotiations. “We won’t sit down to negotiate until Israel does x, y, and z”.

That’s hardly rational. Why would Israel agree to anything like that? Once Israel satisfies their growing list of pre-negotiation demands, what’s the point of negotiating anything else? It’s over – except as a man I was interviewing yesterday said, “All that would remain to be determined is who turns off the lights on the way out.”

The Community Organizer and most of Europe continue with their dangerous preoccupation with a “settlement freeze” which, as they all know, is nothing short of an end-run to bring about Israel’s demise, without having to come right out and say that’s what they want.

So it’s good to see that the mainstream press is finally starting to print a few articles detailing the many and sundry ways the Community Organizer is screwing up the world.

Two such pieces on his Middle East policy appeared in the last couple of days –
In US News and World Report, Mort Zuckerman, ZOA, wrote, “Obama is Fumbling a Chance for Middle East Peace”

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/mzuckerman/2009/09/14/obama-is-fumbling-a-chance-for-middle-east-peace.html

Zuckerman notes that by Obama’s promising the Arabs everything, without making demands for parallel concessions, meant only that the Arabs’ list of demands grew. They believed the Community Organizer would hand them Israel on a silver platter – he’s trying, he’s trying – so they feel no need to do anything to promote peace themselves. In Israel, what results from Obama’s policy is a energized population against him and his policies, of whom only 4% think Obama is good. We then become disinclined to agree to anything Obama wants and are much more willing to elect Israeli governments that will stand up to him.

The Arab response to Obama’s policies is to become more and more intransigent, unwilling to agree to anything, because they still believe victory (“victory” to the Arabs is the end of Israel, not an end to hostilities) will be handed to them without concessions on their part. Why compromise, when they’ll get it all anyway?

So exactly the opposite of what Obama intended – if you assume his drive for “peace” was the cessation of hostilities, as compared to the end of pesky little Israel – has happened.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens wrote, “Obama Is Pushing Israel toward War”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052970203917304574410672271269390.html

In short, because it’s now completely obvious that the Community Organizer has no intention whatever of stopping Iran, we’ll be forced to do it ourselves. We don’t have any choice – so we’ll have to go it alone.

That’s dangerous to the world, of course, because we don’t have the resources – let alone the clout – to do it as well as the US does. But if the US prefers to court the Iranian madman and believe his lies, then we’ll have to go it alone.

That’s what Israel is for: to allow us to choose our own destiny, not to be herded into the ovens and crematoria like last time.

In short, as Daniel Pipes wrote today, “The Obama administration has established an alarmingly naïve and dangerous record on Arab-Israeli issues, leading me to worry about spectacular policy failures ahead,”

Another headline also caught my eye: “Americans losing faith in Obama” – it recounts how American voters are increasingly disappointed in Obama, because they voted for him, believing he’d bring “change”, and they aren’t getting it.

That’s not true, of course. They wanted “change” – they got it.

All during the campaign, we were warning people, “Not all change is for the better.”

As the old adage goes, you have to be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Never let it be said that Israel isn’t the land of contradictions.

As noted in my last blog, the head of BGU's Department of Politics and Government Neve Gordon recently called on the world to boycott Israel, calling it “an apartheid state”, saying that it order for Israel to save itself, “all foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens (must) suspend cooperation with Israel”.

That was fine and dandy, as far as most officials were concerned – oh, sure, some BGU donors are howling, threatening to stop donating. Several traditional Zionists have come out forcefully against Gordon’s treasonous statements.

But certainly no one in the legal system or the courts, or the police, have suggested -- or even thought, apparently -- that Gordon should be arrested for his world-wide publication of treason, the granting of aid and comfort to those who would destroy Israel.

But then there’s another man, Noam Federman, who lives in Hebron. That's Noam and his wife Elishiva pictured above. While Neve Gordon (a self-hating Jew if there ever was one) has spent his life on an endless anti-Semitic, hate-Israel rant, Noam Federman of Hebron/Kiryat Arba has been a life-long defender of Israel. And darn near every time Federman opens his mouth, he’s endlessly and ceaselessly punished for his love of country.

The police couldn’t wait to arrest Noam Federman. He’s just been sentenced to four months of public service for his latest outburst.

What did Federman say? On Israel’s TV Channel 2 – the government channel – Federman was being interviewed. He said, "There are strange people who say we can live with the Arabs in coexistence. There are strange people who say I can coexist with cancer.”

Wham! For Federman, that’s four months of public service for “incitement to racism.”

So tell me, friends: When Neve Gordon publishes a plea in the Los Angeles Times, begging the world to punish Jews and the Jewish state, the Israeli legal system says that’s his right. We have free speech in Israel, they’d all chime in -- if anyone had asked for their opinion, which no one did, because it apparently never occured to anyone.

But let Noam Federman -- who’s probably spent more time in courts and prisons in his lifetime than in his own bed – suggest that co-existence with the people who refuse to even sit down to negotiate with Israel until Israel accomplishes most of what would be needed to kill the Jewish state? Ah, well, for that, you get prison.

So here's the deal: As long as you’re inciting hatred of Jews, that’s fine. That’s not a problem.

But heaven help you, if you “incite” against Arabs. Then it’s off to prison.

As I say, I sometimes think we’re getting just too civilized to survive.

TWIN PIQUES

It’s been an interesting summer.

I’ve watched as two completely different groups of people arise from their slumber, take to the streets – and microphones, meeting halls, private conference centers not to mention internet sites – to protest something they find despicable.

Normally these two groups of people probably wouldn’t have much in common. Some of their issues might overlap, but it’s not a natural affiliation – and indeed they aren’t working in tandem. It “just happened” that they both came to life to demonstrate their power at the same time.

That said, I’m not much of a believer in coincidence. Usually there’s some common thread tying one thing to the other. One didn’t cause the other – don’t get me wrong. They’re just happening at the same time – and both are burning brighter by the day.

The first are the “Tea Party" people, the FreedomWorks folks – supported by former Rep. Dick Armey. (See my blog of August 16 http://bagelnosher.blogspot.com/2009/08/hoo-boy-now-its-gonna-get-interesting.html)

Yesterday the truly massive demonstration at the Capitol did my heart good – over 2 million people turned out to demonstrate against almost everything the Community Organizer has done, is doing, and still promises/threatens to do – in spite of the fact that it’s obvious he no longer enjoys the support of the American people, let alone those who vote.

I told you how I hate August – but this year something fun was happening. I spent many evenings lurking and prowling on the Internet, watching the Town Hall Meetings American voters all across the country were having with their elected representatives. The demonstrations were powerful – totally amazing, as so many off-the-street citizens proved to their befuddled elected officials that they knew more about a Congressional bill than the people who were supposed to vote on it. And that they didn’t like it one bit.

I suspect many of us share a favorite YouTube segment – those unforgettable few lines spoken by former Marine David Hedick at Cong. Brian Baird’s Town Hall meeting. (Semper fi, David!) I’m sure you remember it – he began by noting that he was a Marine vet, adding that he had sworn to defend his country “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” – with just a slight emphasis on “domestic”. That brought a round of applause from the crowd.

Then he made his first point: “You stay away from my kids.”

That line had me standing and clapping every time, all by myself, especially as I thought of the clever speech the Community Organizer had planned to give to school children on the first day of school. (Not the speech he gave – the one he intended to give, the one he circulated, before the wave of protests forced him to change his strategy. That first speech was accompanied by teaching materials that asked the schoolchildren to list the things the President had done for them. And to list the things they could do to help “The President” – not help the country. Help the President.)

“You stay away from my kids,” Marine David Hedick said. You bet.

That was followed by Hedick saying that he had heard that Rep. Baird had called the town hall meeting protestors “brownshirts” and “Nazis”. Baird interrupted with “I didn’t say that”, leading to the conclusion that he had indeed said something similar.

“So I will speak to those who did (say that),” Hedick said, and proceeded to offer a profound and delightfully succinct lesson in history. “The Nazis were called the National Socialist Party,” he said. “They took over the country’s finances. They took over the car industry. They took over health care.”

“If Nancy Pelosi wonders where the swastikas are, I suggest she look at the sleeve of her own shirt.”

Whoa! What a speech! The applause went on and on, while Baird, the Congressman up there on the stage, looking down at the “little people” -- the vast unwashed, those who depended on him, the Great Brian Baird, to tell them how to live their lives – stood there with a grim look on his face. Look at the insufferable ignorance a Congressman has to put up with, his look said. ‘I don’t think they pay me enough to do this.’

The YouTube clip shows that Hedick finished his two-minute statement – most of the time was taken up by cheers and applause, then walked off to kiss his wife and child who were standing in the rear of the auditorium. Now there’s a Good American. (Watch it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRE5UK6NQU)

Hedrick gave the world a classic demonstration of where the real power in America is vested – with We, the People.

So in the States, people are upset with the Community Organizer’s plan to supplant capitalism and freedom with socialism and bondage. But there’s another group of people in the US – mostly in Southern California – who are equally upset about a very different issue. These are people, wealthy Jews for the most part, who in the past have been big donors to Ben Gurion University of the Negev, a huge institution – one of Israel’s seven Universities – right here in my hometown, Beersheba. They’re also mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

The focus of their anger is the University’s insistence that a pod of Israel haters and “post-Zionists” – better known as the Department of Politics and Government – is allowed to flourish, unimpeded and with University support, within the University structure.

For many, the upheaval began with the head of that department, a serial-anti-Zionist and proven enemy of Israel named Neve Gordon, published an op-ed in the LA Times in which he called Israel an “apartheid country” and called for an international boycott of the very state that not only protects him, but also pays his salary.

Gordon called for “foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel”.

He did so under the guise of what he – and the University powers that be – calls “academic freedom”. To them, that means that any faculty member of any University can say absolutely anything at all, advocate any scheme, express support for anything or anyone, teach their students anything that comes into their minds – and still remain aloof from criticism, let alone any threat of losing their teaching positions. And their hefty salaries.

None of this is new for Neve Gordon. He’s been an Israel hater for years and years – you might even remember a classic photo of him and arch terrorist Yasser Arafat that appeared on the front pages of many publications, including in the US. It was taken in 2002, back when Arafat’s terrorist suicide bombers were blowing up Israeli cafes, buses and wedding celebrations. It showed Gordon and Arafat, hands joined and raised in solidarity, standing in Arafat’s blockaded compound there in Ramallah. Here’s a small clip.




Needless to say, Neve Gordon violated Israeli law in several ways – treason is still against the law in Israel, although it’s sometimes hard to believe it. And by going into Arafat’s terrorist compound, which was – and is – off limits to Israeli Jews, he violated the law again. Still – in spite of the fact that violating the law is grounds for termination of tenure – Gordon continues to teach and spread his venomous hatred of Israel.

Since then, Gordon went on to become a regular columnist in Algazeera.com, the media apologist for the terrorist Hamas, from which he regularly rants and raves against Israel, saying Israel is opposed to peace and is plotting to steal Arab lands.

Calling Israel an “apartheid” state wasn’t a new element in his bag of tricks – he’s done that all along, just as he regularly calls for the “one state” – Final – solution, where Israel would become a non-Jewish “state for all its peoples”, which is to say, another Arab state.

Through all of this, the University authorities, the President, Rivka Carmi, apparently with the support of her Board of Directors – not to mention the support of the entire rotten Department of Politics and Government – has defended Gordon, praised his scholarship and even promoted him, deflecting all criticism. Their mantra, repeated again and again, is that since Gordon has tenure, he is free to say, and preach, anything he likes. They insist that he -- and all University professors in general – enjoy absolute freedom of speech. The unlimited right to advocate anything they wish.

(I’ve often wondered what would happen if an Israeli University professor were to teach that abortion is murder, or that Arabs were related to apes, that a prerequisite for accepting a salary from the Jewish state was that one had to live an Orthodox lifestyle, or that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was the greatest human to ever walk the earth. My guess is that the alleged absolute “freedom of speech” wouldn’t extend quite that far.)

So just like the Tea Party people marching against the Community Organizer, so the Big Bucks donors to BGU, the university decided to take action.

Neve Gordon – with the administrative approval from BGU – wants to boycott Israel? Fine. The donors – to their endless credit -- have decided to boycott the University. No more donations will be forthcoming.

This will be interesting. Watch this blog for updates on what happens, because BGU – like so many Israeli institutions of all kinds – absolutely needs and depends on cash flowing in from wealthy supporters around the world. Without outside cash infusions, they can’t build, they can’t support their research projects, they can’t expand. Cut out enough donors, and they can't pay salaries to existing employees. Now wouldn't that be interesting?

Who’ll blink first? The University? Or the donors – who simply refuse to support an anti-Israel teaching program at a University named for Israel’s Number One Zionist, David Ben Gurion?

As Drudge says, developing……

It’s not only “regular” school that starting in Israel, but “Ulpan” – Hebrew school –classes for new immigrants have also kicked into gear.

At this time of the year, it’s common to hear some of the recently-arrived newcomers in Israel – olim – talk about their struggles with ulpan. For those of us who’ve been here awhile, it’s a trip down memory lane.

Ulpan, for new immigrants, is a rite of passage. Ulpan isn’t exactly required of new immigrants, but it’s strongly urged. The objective is not just to make sure that everyone speaks the local language, but – as someone else recently said – to make sure that newcomers learn to communicate with the rest of the country. Sometimes that takes more than mere language. So this week, all over the country, in cities, towns, villages and kibbutzim, ulpanim are welcoming newcomers.

Every Israeli remembers his first ulpan teacher. How could you forget? That’s the woman – invariably – who gave you the keys to the kingdom, the first lessons in how to survive over here. Love her or hate her, no one ever forgets her.

Everybody has ulpan stories -- I probably could write a book about what happened during my five or six months in ulpan. (Ulpan lasts, technically, six months, but because of the High Holidays in the fall, or Pesach in the spring, the actual period of instruction is closer to five months.)

In Beersheba, there really are only two ulpanim, one for “academics” – anyone with a college degree in anything – and the other for those without college degrees. Within each, there are innumerable classes, all held in a huge concrete-block building that looks very much like the kind of slightly-run-down school building you’d see anywhere.

When I arrived in July 2002, I was lucky enough to get into a “pre-ulpan” that started in early August. It was designed to give a few of us who were already here a little head start for when the real ulpan started in September.

So one extraordinarily hot August day, I found myself sitting in a classroom that looked very much like the one pictured above.

Because it was 2002, the height of the Intifada, when buses and cafes were regularly being blown up by our cousins, there were hardly any other Anglo, English-speaking, immigrants. People still came from the FSU, and people from South America poured in because of their economic crash -- just about exactly the same economic crisis the US is experiencing right now. There were many French and several couples from Cuba, who turned out to be my favorite ethnic group. The Cuban men wore white Stetsons, like cowboys – I loved it.

The only other English speakers I ever encountered in ulpan were people from India – and of course not all of them spoke English, either.

It started at 8:00 am, Israeli time, which means it started about 8:30. Our first teacher was “Shosh”, a pretty, motherly-looking woman in her 40's who sometimes spoke so softly it was hard to hear her.

We students, “academics” all, came from all over the world, so there were women dressed in saris, there were high-heeled, elegantly dressed ladies from Europe (European women always seem dressed up), the Cubans with their Stetsons, some people in extremely short shorts or slacks, Russians resplendent with their gold teeth. The age range was universal – some 20-somethings, all the way up to 60’s, with most probably in their mid-30’s or 40’s.

All of us were both nervous and excited. Some of us brought our own paper and pens, others hadn’t, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing like that was provided for those who didn’t have, nor were there any books or handouts. The total equipment consisted of a blackboard and chalk.

“Ani Shosh”, the teacher said, pointing to herself. “I am Shosh”. When we’d absorbed that bit of wisdom, Shosh turned to the blackboard and wrote the first letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet – “aleph” – on the blackboard.

“Aleph”, she said. “Aleph”, we repeated.

She went on, writing and pronouncing: “Bet” “Gimmel”. We dutifully repeated each letter.

Silly me, I was feeling extraordinarily confident. I could already read Hebrew – which is to say, I knew the letters and I could sound out the words. I didn’t have a clue as to what any of the words meant, of course, but at least I wasn’t struggling to distinguish between an “aleph” and a “hey”.

At about 10:00, we’d already gone through the aleph-bet and Shosh had taken to holding up various objects -- a pen, eyeglasses, a tote bag – and pronouncing the Hebrew word for each. It was way beyond exhilarating – I could hardly believe it. We were actually speaking Hebrew!

In my entire six months in ulpan, that was probably my best moment.

Suddenly there was a pounding on the classroom door. Shosh looked a little surprised – who would knock, and not just walk in? She walked over and opened the door.

There stood a whole crowd of people – maybe about 20 – behind some other person who appeared to be another teacher. She and Shosh held a quick discussion – I have no idea what was said – but in just a minute, Shosh stepped back and the 20 new people began to squeeze into the room.

Now understand, the room was already full. There were probably 30 people sitting in chairs already, just about exactly what the room seemed designed to hold. There might have been two or three extra chairs, but no more. It didn’t take long for this deficiency to be noted, and several of the men jumped up, went into a nearby classroom and began cannibalizing it for chairs. The chairs were the old wooden armchair things, with the right arm extended and flattened into a little writing table. Which is to say, the chairs were both big and heavy. Pretty soon there a convoy was in place, chairs being handed one to another until someone decided we had enough.

To this day, I can’t imagine how they got all those chairs into the room, but they did. It was now so packed with chairs and people no one could possibly get out unless someone else did first.

The whole process of absorbing people and chairs probably took 15 minutes, but the loss of time didn’t seem to bother anyone.

Personally, I was a little grateful for the newcomers. Surely now, I thought, she’ll start over again, and I can catch some of those words I’d already forgotten.

But she didn’t. Shosh picked up from exactly where she’d left off – which just totally blew me away. What about the people who just came in? They hadn’t heard or learned the aleph-bet! They hadn’t learned the words for pen, eyeglasses or tote bag! How could they be expected to start in the middle?

I don’t know – but they did. Or at least, no concession was made to the fact that they had just arrived. I suppose the thought was, they’ll pick up something. What else can we do?

Class ended, we all squeezed out, feeling supremely successful. We’d learned Hebrew!

The next morning I was prepared for a totally-packed classroom again, so I came a little early. Miraculously, all the extra chairs had disappeared and the room was back to normal.

People began filing in – but what puzzled me, and troubled me to some extent, was that it wasn’t exactly the same people I’d started with the day before. The one young lady I’d been talking to – from Argentina, in rusty Spanish – wasn’t there. Neither was the memorable elderly Russian man who’d sat ahead of me. They’d disappeared. I didn’t recognize anyone in this new class.

Except, Shosh, of course. She came in at her customary 8:30, and without preamble, began teaching. We were learning more words – nouns. No verbs. Then she had us playing a memory game, giving us lists of objects and we’d have to remember them in order or be called out. Everything was going swimmingly until….

You’re not going to believe this, but at right about 10:00 there was a knock on the door. Shosh opened it, and there they were – yet another group of about 20 newcomers. We went through the same “chair convoy” process, everyone got settled in, and Shosh picked up from where she’d left off. No backtracking. Not for anyone. Full steam ahead, understand it or not, learn what you can.

The pre-ulpan classes continued for about four weeks. It wasn’t every day that a group of newcomers arrived, but it happened several times a week. It was always different people, and the following day, the class seemed newly composed. So what happened to those who didn’t return?

Many things, probably. The younger ones were probably moved to kibbutzim, to study in that atmosphere instead. Some of the older ones were moved to a “senior’s” ulpan, which I wasn’t old enough for, at the time. Some probably moved to different cities, and of course some just quit. I don’t think there was any single reason.

As you can tell, I’ve spent some time thinking about the whole process.

The fact is, of course, that over our six decades of our existence here Israel has constantly been absorbing newcomers. From the very day of our founding – when the first of the 800,000 Jews who were running for their lives, fleeing from Arab lands began flooding in – we moved over, welcomed them, found them a place to live – even though at first, many lived in tents, in transit camps.

What I see now is that ulpan is the perfect metaphor for Israel itself.

The country is up and moving, full speed ahead. Newcomers arrive all the time, and when they do, everyone else moves over a little, makes space, squeezes in, finds a place for the newcomers to perch.

Newbies are welcomed, but not coddled. Everyone is expected to jump in, learn what they can as well as they can, and work hard to get themselves into the mainstream, so they can move along just as well as those who were here earlier, who have more background and experience.

As I’ve said so many times, you learn so much in ulpan. Sometimes you even learn a little bit of Hebrew.

Well, I can tell you one thing: here’s one Israeli who’s NOT guilty of the most recent Arab slur.

The newest accusation launched by our cousins is that we’re training attack snakes to go after them. Like the "Palestinian Viper" pictured above.

Hey-hey! Don't worry about me on this one. I have no desire to get close enough to a thing-with-no-shoulders to even SEE the darn thing, let alone train it.

Nevertheless, the ever-creative newspaper of our alleged “peace partner” Fatah, published an account accusing us dastardly Israelis of training snakes to attack “innocent” farmers. (“Innocent” of what, one might ask. Farming, perhaps.)

According to a news report in Fatah’s Bethlehem news rag Ma’an, what happened was this: a snake bit a woman outside the Jewish city of Ariel. Right after inflicting the bite, local Arabs said, the snake "escaped” toward Ariel.

So obviously, any rational Arab would see the truth: the snake – like a homing pigeon – had been trained to go back to its Jewish master.

Left to my imagination, I’d guess that the snake was going home to collect his reward for a job well done. A live mouse, maybe? Some little thing to take the taste of Arab out of its mouth?

But that wasn’t all. It isn’t only snakes we are supposedly inflicting on our nearest neighbors. We are also dumping -- ah, merde – on their soil, to ruin it.

Understand, one of the problems of buying Arab produce is precisely that – we don’t know what they used to fertilize it, but we can guess. But maybe they think that Arab merde is good for growing plants, whereas Jewish merde is harmful? Probably.

Whatever. There’s no more evidence of the merde dumping than there is of the snake training.

Although I must say, they are getting pretty creative over there on the other side of the ideological divide. Not too long ago Hamas accused Israel of lacing bubble gum with aphrodisiacs and giving them to young Arab men “to corrupt them.”

You have to wonder why they would think that Israelis would want to increase the number of Arabs, wouldn’t you?

Then, too, there was the accusation of our having trained attack pigs. That was near Ariel, too, and also reported by the Ma’an newspaper. Our alleged crime then was that we released wild boars into the fields in order to destroy Arab plants and crops.

But understand this: in that area, both Israelis and Arabs are farming. Do they really think we could train wild pigs to eat and crap on Arab fields only?

And then there was last summer’s highlight, when Israelis were supposedly bringing “super rats” into the Old City of Jerusalem. Here’s what Fatah’s newspaper reported back then:

"[Israeli] settlers have been bringing chests filled with rats and releasing them in the Old City's [Arab] neighborhoods; they breed and have become a major curse... the [Arab] residents' efforts to counter this infestation have failed, especially since cats run away from these rats because of their size and ferocity... All of the conventional efforts to kill them have not succeeded, because they seem to be immune to poison and they breed in the sewers. It is known that this female rat gives birth seven times a year, each time giving birth to 20 babies, which compels Jerusalem's [Arabs] today to face the dangers of settlement and the infestation of rats..."

The day before, Al-Ayyam, a different newspaper, had reported:
"Large numbers of [Israeli] settlers have been bringing huge cages full of rats and releasing them onto the streets and alleys of the Old City... in order to turn the [Arab] residents' life into a living hell, forcing them to leave..."

So last summer we were using rats to attack, today it’s snakes. As Israel National News points out – tongue in cheek, I think:

“There is no scientific evidence indicating that rats or snakes can be trained as attack animals, or that either of the species can differentiate between Jews and Arabs.”

Now that I think about it, though, I do remember a certain wild bunny that braved the waters of a lake near Plains, Georgia, to attack then-President Jimmy Carter while he was out on a solo fishing trip.

Renenber? The bunny approached Carter’s boat, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared and making straight “for the President’s rowboat, news accounts said at the time.

Back then, I was pulling for the bunny. And now I guess I’m pulling for our trained snakes, pig, rats or whatever other form of wildlife we can harness.

That was the command, was it not, when we were given this land?

'Be fertile and become many. Fill the land and conquer it. Dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every beast that walks the land.”

We’re doing our best.

There go your dollars again!

In terms of micromanagement, it doesn’t get much worse than this. Micromanagement of Israel, by the Community Organizer, of course!

In furtherance of his intent to carve a “Palestinian” state out of about a third of Israel, the Community Organizer has allocated $20 million of your – our – tax dollars to pay for new road signs in rural Israel. These road signs won’t look like the existing signs, like the one above. The existing signs are written in all of Israel’s three legal languages: Hebrew, English and Arabic.

The new signs will be written only in English and Arabic.

Yup! As I write, the Arabs are out in force in Judea and Samaria, ripping out the existing signs, and replacing them with the US paid-for Hebrew-free version. Thanks to your generosity.

The Community Organizer is perfectly open about his intentions. Howard Sumka, the head of USAID (United States Agency for International Devemopment) a regular and generous contributor to terror organizations around the world, told the Arabic daily newspaper Al-Hayat, that the signs are intended to further “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

It’s really a cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face situation. Probably 99% of the residents and frequent travelers in Judea and Samaria speak Hebrew. A far smaller percentage speaks or read Arabic. Very few speak or read English. So eliminating the Hebrew doesn’t really help anyone – in fact it hurts.

The real impact may be on Hebrew-speaking fire and emergency workers, who might actually need to rely on a road sign to find their destination quickly.

They don’t seem to get it: Road and highway directional signs actually serve a purpose – it’s not just a matter of political policy or “because we can” childish taunts. Israeli road signs are currently printed in three languages in order to offer information to the widest possible audience.

In any event, can you imagine a more internal matter than the language in which a country’s road signs are printed? Why oh why does the Community Organizer think he should be dictating policy to Israel on this?

Can you imagine the furor if the Community Organizer were to order California or Texas to replace all English language road signs with signs in Spanish?

Why does he think he should have the ability to make that decision in Israel? And to force you to pay for it?

Now, is there anyone out there who still wonders why Obama's approval rating in Israel has falled to a previously-unheard of rate of 4%?

Finally! Sherlock Holmes for religious Jews!

Whooda thunk it? For all these years – presumably since 1887 when the first Conan Doyle stories featuring the idiosyncratic detective appeared – haredi Jews have been unable to enjoy them. But now, according to the BBC an American publishing company is releasing a kosher version of the stories “for the religious public.”

Publisher Bilson -- www.bilson.co.il – states that haredi-religious rabbis have approved the content saying that now the stories “don’t contradict the spirit of Judaism.”

The books, with an accompanying CD, are written in English, and are intended to help Hebrew speakers “improve and enrich” their English vocabulary.

Well, that’s fine. Good news, no question about that. But here’s what I can’t figure out: What was objectionable about the Sherlock Holmes stories in the first place?

In all, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 stories and four novels about the British "consulting detective", famous for his intellect, his acute observation, deductive reasoning and his ability to solve cases no one else could.

From the first, Holmes, his sidekick and chronicler Dr. Watson, and assorted other characters, like Sherlock’s mysterious brother Mycroft, captivated the public’s imagination. Newsstand copies were snapped up the minute they hit the street, while subscriptions to the magazines that carried them – primarily The Strand -- soared.

For ten years, Doyle wrote Sherlock stories, andwith each, became more and more tired of his own creation. Doyle wanted to write what he considered to be more serious literature, historical novels. He didn’t want to be remembered for such commonplace fodder as his detective. “He (Sherlock) distracts my mind from better things,” Doyle wrote to his mother. He said he intended to end the series, “even if it means I must bury my pocketbook with him."

So Doyle killed off his own creation – or tried to, anyway. In “The Final Problem” he has Holmes and his arch enemy Moriarty fight and then presumably plunge together over Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

When "The Adventure of the Final Problem" appeared in December 1893 in The Strand, people were so upset that over twenty thousand cancelled their magazine subscriptions in protest.

Three years later -- probably with a highly significant monetary inducement from his publisher -- Doyle brought Holmes back. He started with a kind of return. In the ghostly “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Dr. Watson writes it as a post-mortem tale. Holmes was still dead. Watson was just telling a story about something that had happened in the past.

It worked. Subscriptions to The Strand shot up by 30,000 overnight.

Finally, in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House”, the issue is settled. Watson learns that Holmes really is alive, that his death had been a ruse to trick Moriarty.

“I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me, “”Watson” writes. “When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life. Certainly a gray mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his hand.”

Doyle gave up. For the next 25 years, he wrote more Sherlock Holmes tales.

Okay, so what part of the Holmes canon could possibly have been offensive? As the stories go, Holmes certainly didn’t rise from the dead – it was a trick. He hadn’t been killed.

It wasn’t that Holmes was a womanizer. The only woman he took any serious interest in was Irene Adler, in “A Scandal in Bohemia”. Although Adler most probably appears in other stores, after that, Holmes refers to her only as “The Woman.”

Nor is there any real evidence that he was homosexual, although goodness knows, any number of spinoffs have tried to make it appear so. Throughout the entire 56 books and four novels, there’s no evidence of that. What does appear is that Holmes was too busy with other things to pay much attention to women. This caused the happily married Dr. Watson to suggest, "There is something positively inhuman in you at times."

Drugs? When Holmes was between cases and lacking mental stimulation, he did indeed use drugs – cocaine, in the infamous “Seven Percent Solution”, and also morphine. In turn of the century London, none of that was uncommon or illegal. When, in “The Man with the Twisted Lip” he visited an opium den as part of his investigation, he expressed great disapproval.

Language? Hardly. Holmes was the sole of propriety.

Interestingly enough, though, in 1929, the Soviet Union banned “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” as “occult”.

It seems more likely that it wasn’t the Holmes stories themselves that had any “occult” aspects, but rather that Conan Doyle himself was interested in “spiritualism”.

Doyle was a great fan of that Great Jew Harry Houdini, to the extent that while Houdini himself insisted that Spiritualist mediums were frauds and tricksters and worked to expose them, Conan Doyle insisted that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers.

But again, that was Conan Doyle, the author. Not Sherlock Holmes, the fictional character.

So what exactly did the American publishers do to the Sherlock Holmes stories to make sure they could be enjoyed by “the religious public”?

I have no idea. If anyone knows, I’m interested.