This is one of those days in which you wish you’d done everything your enemies accuse you of doing.

Hamas terrorists are accusing Israel of having put aphrodisiacs into chewing gum, and then passing it out to the young people of Aza.

"We have discovered two types of stimulants that were introduced into the Gaza Strip from Israeli border crossings," Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan said, according to an AFP story. "The first type is presented in the form of chewing gum and the second in the form of drops."

Hamas terrorists “detained” members of a local Arab gang who helped bring in the products, and during the questioning – you can imagine what fun “questioning” by Hamas must be – the gang members accused “Zionist intelligence services" of being behind the plot.

One suspect told how he’d been given the gum by an Israeli at a cut-rate price, saying that the Israeli didn’t want money, he just “wanted the products distributed among the young people.”

"The Zionists are aiming to corrupt the young generation by distributing these products among students," Shahwan said.

I don’t know about ‘corrupting’ the terrorist youth. Seems to me they’re doing just fine on that score without our help. But it is, nonetheless, an interesting idea.

Maybe we can inspire them to make love, not war.

In any event, the IDF declined to comment, although one staffer called the allegation "absurd."

Up to now, I’d never really considered the linkage between love and chewing gum, although this did bring to mind a real incident, also involving chewing gum. It made me remember a shy young boy named Lynn Soholt who was in my high school graduating class.

Lynn was quiet and unassuming. He transferred in to our class -- 40 kids, total -- in our junior year, but no one paid much attention to him until some school event came along -- I don’t even remember what it was – and Lynn picked up his guitar and started to sing.

Here was one of the catchy country tunes he sang that night:

“Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight
If your mother says don't chew it
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils?
Can you heave it left and right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?

“Here comes a blushing bride
The groom is by her side
Up to the altar
Just as steady as Gibraltar
Why, the groom has got the ring
And it's such a pretty thing
But as he slips it on her finger
The choir begins to sing:

“Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight”

Now thanks to Google, I see that the lyrics are attributed to someone named Lonnie Donegan, but it’s still Lynn I remember, this boy we really didn’t know, standing on the stage all by himself and sounding pretty darn good.

With that little ditty, we suddenly realized how cute Lynn was. In an instant, he became a high school heart-throb. Pretty hot stuff.

This story even has a dramatic teenage ending: Lynn was one of the first of our class to pass away. I was long gone by then, somewhere in California, but I do remember how sad I was to hear the news.

Standing on the school stage that night with his battered guitar, singing that funny little country song, Lynn became one of those unforgettable high school moments, the kind of thing you remember long after you’ve forgotten what a gerund is, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, or why either one makes any difference at all.

So aphrodisiacs in chewing gum? Not a bad idea, guys. I think we outta give it a try.

Having not thought about rhubarb for eons before finding some in a supermarket here a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see that today a related plant – “Desert Rhubarb” – is making the local news.

“Desert Rhubarb” -- Rumex hymenosepalus – pictured above, grows only here in the Negev. It's just been discovered that it's a water-harvesting plant.

Get that? It actually collects water and funnels it to its own roots. The plant has created its own natural irrigation system.

Glory be.

Researchers at the University of Haifa began studying the plant when they saw it wasn’t constructed like most desert plants. Most leafy plants that thrive here have tiny leaves, in order to reduce transpiration of precious moisture.

But not Desert Rhubarb – it has enormous waxy leaves that measure over two feet across, each one with a network of grooves. Each leaf grows on a ridged stem, so the way it works is that the leaves collect whatever rainwater – or dew – falls, then channels it via the ridges in the leaves and stems to the plant’s base to irrigate it. The researchers said that its natural irrigation system allow it to collect 16 times more water than it would get if it relied on surface water.

"When the annual rainfall is three inches, they see something like 17 inches of rainfall," said Simcha Lev-Yadun, one of the researchers. “Compared to the one inch of rain captured by other nearby desert plants, desert rhubarb captures between 16 and 17 times more water. This ‘leaf-made mini oasis’ creates a Mediterranean climate for the plant in the middle of the desert.”

Desert Rhubarb is different in another way, too. Instead of having very shallow roots, to quickly take up any rainfall on the surface, the Desert Rhubarb has very deep roots. Since it has its own irrigation system, it doesn’t need the shallow roots.

But here’s the question I’m sure you’re all wondering about: can you eat it?
The answer is yes – it sounds as though it’s much like regular rhubarb: Young leaves can be cooked in several changes of water to remove the bitter tannin. The stems are “crisp and tart” – no kidding –and are used in pies, cooked with sugar or baked. You can even eat the flowers, boiling them to make a drink.

“Children eat it raw in the early spring,” it says at the ‘Plants for the Future’ database. http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Rumex+hymenosepalus

Which children might be a logical question…. Only those who would eat crabapples, I presume. And no child will willingly eat a crabapple, either, unless it’s recently been liberated from a neighbor’s tree. Goodness knows there’s no other reason to eat the bitter little things.

Water -- and the conservation thereof – is on a lot of people’s minds in Israel. Draconian new water usage rates were originally scheduled to take effect starting today, but have been postponed for a week. Use more than your allotted share, and you’ll be charged one shekel for every liter over – a liter is about two pints, for you US readers. A shekel is worth about 25 cents. That could get real expensive really fast.

I’ve always used the bucket-in-the-shower routine to water plants, but several months ago I set up a Gunga Din Water Toting System (me) to collect wash and rinse water from the washing machine and ferry it to the roots of my precious trees. I wouldn’t put in on potted plants, but the in-ground trees seem to be thriving on it.

Now that I think of it, it might be simpler to just hire some Desert Rhubarb plants to harvest some water for me. Now that's an idea.

One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingies....

“Good morning. This is the Barak Hussein Obama Family Assistance Center. How may I direct your call?”

“Shalom. I don’t really know who to talk to. Do you have someone who knows about, ah, babies?”

“Of course. The President’s Family Assistance Center works tirelessly to help all people live their lives in a manner that’s pleasing to the President. So, babies, yes? Well for babies and children, the School Lunch Monitoring Project might be able to help. Or the Dim the Lights Program, which requires the use of florescent light bulbs to save the planet, so the world will still exist when they grow up. Or of course any of the agencies working to see that every one of the 300 million Americans will have access to free health care for everything from the sniffles to brain death.….”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m calling from Israel. From Judea, as a matter of fact. And I’m wondering if the President is offering anything to help us stop having babies.”

“Oh, you’re Jewish? Why didn’t you say so? I’m sure the President will do everything he possibly can to prevent you from having babies. But where did you say you live again?”

“In Judea. Just north of Jerusalem.” “

So which Congressional District is that? I’m checking my Blue State guide, here, and I don’t see that any of the areas that supported the President are named Judea. We may not have anything for you, but you’re free to move to a Red State, of course.”

“No, I’m calling you from Israel. You know, that country in the Middle East that the President frets about, morning, noon and night?”

“Oh, ISRAEL! You mean you’re calling from the Occupied Territories!”

“Ah, well, that’s not how we see it, of course. But yes. From Israel, the 10,000 square miles west of Jordan.”

“I’m checking my map, here, and according to what I see, for the area in which you live, a Direct Presidential Edict has been issued, which – honestly -- makes it a little complicated. In the case of Direct Presidential Edicts, the Congress chose not to facilitate the President’s dream, and so therefore no established rules or regulations were ever debated or imposed. So I may not have as much detail as you might wish.”

“Well, does it say anything about babies at all?”

“Just that in your area, babies are absolutely forbidden. You are not permitted to have babies at all. Not even one. In fact, the President doesn’t want to see a single baby carriage anywhere in Judea or Samaria. He’s put an embargo on diaper imports and outlawed teething biscuits. Do you understand how serious he is about this?”

“Yes, I understand that’s what he wants. But what I don’t understand is how we’re supposed to do that.”

“Excuse me, sir! You Jews seem to have no problem at all figuring out how to have babies – surely you can figure out now NOT to have them!”

“In theory, yes. But it’s just that Shabbat starts tonight, and things gets a little complicated. What we usually do on Friday nights is that we have the whole family over for a nice, long relaxing dinner. Then, when the children are asleep, the table is cleared and the dishes stacked, my wife and I usually go sit on the porch where there’s a nice cool breeze. We talk about our own hopes and dreams. We have another glass of wine, and – well, you know. One thing usually leads to another…..”

“And you want the President of the United States to help you?”

“I understand it’s not a problem that he, personally, has ever faced. I mean, you take one look at Michelle and you can see that she’s your basic cajones-crusher, up on her hind feet, walking around. I mean, she’s one formidable toots. Ole Barry baby probably performs on command, and at no other time. But that’s not how it works, here.”

“So, excuse me. What exactly it is you want, sir?”

“The President has forbidden us to have any babies. I’m wondering if he’s arranged an appropriation or something that might help us get through this tough situation. ”

“Not that I know of, sir. You’ll just have to rely on will power. The President never said it was going to be easy. He told you that the change he envisions for the world would sometimes be painful….”

“Just one thing I was wondering about, though. Just a couple kilometers away from us there’s an Arab village. Arab men have multiple wives, and frequently father several families with 30 or more children. One Arab I work with sees it as his sacred duty to have at least two of his three wives pregnant at all times. Does the President have a plan to forbid Arabs in Judea from having babies, too?”

“Goodness no! What do you think we are, anyway? That would be racist! Why would the President want to prevent more little Muslim babies from coming into the world? We would never think of meddling in a culture like that! I’m shocked you would even suggest such a thing!”

“But you’re forbidding Jews to have babies. I just thought…”

“It’s clear you don’t have a solid grasp of history, sir. The Palestinian people have been oppressed for thousands of years. You Jews have robbed them, tormented them, starved them and denied them basic human rights. You stole their land and killed them at every opportunity. The obligation of the United States, as the President sees it, is to help these struggling, peace loving people regain their lost country and reassume their leadership role in the Middle East. In order to do that, we have to help them repopulate, rebuild their population base by replacing all the Arabs you Jews have killed.”

“So you don’t see a ‘two state solution’ here?”

“In the beginning, perhaps. But our goal is, obviously, to have one single state for all its citizens, under the direct control of Allah.”


“Well, okay then. I just thought I’d ask.”

“It was a stupid question, anyway. Just two days ago, Vice President Biden made it clear you Jews can’t expect any help from us. Didn’t you hear what he said? “Israel is a sovereign nation,” the Vice President told the world. “They can do whatever is in their best interest. We would never dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do…”

“Oh! So we’re really free to do as we wish? Have as many babies as we want?”

“No, of course not. The Vice President wasn’t talking about babies. He was talking about Iran. But I’m getting tired of this conversation. We have nothing to offer you, except this admonition: Every nooky-free night you Jews all over the world observe will be one more step in helping the President of the United States bring about his dream of world peace.”

ME? I'm a threat to world peace?

Ah! Thank goodness! Now we know.

The Community Organizer has been frothing at the mouth over the “settlements”, which is what he calls parts of Israel known as Judea and Samaria. He wants those parts of Israel to be Judenrein, free of all Jews.

To get that ball rolling, he insists that now, even before negotiations begin, Israel must “freeze” all “growth and construction”, that Israeli families be forbidden from building extra rooms on their existing homes, and certainly not be allowed to build any new ones.

He even insists on no “natural growth” in all these communities, which equals about half the size of the territory that constitutes the State of Israel.

But what does that mean? Any idea? To say that a community – any community – not be allowed to “grow naturally”, is a bit vague, wouldn’t you say?

So at a press conference in late June, some reporters quizzed George Mitchell, Hussein Obama’s Arab envoy to the Middle East.

Here’s how the question and answer session went:

QUESTION: . . . can you give us just a definition of what the United States considers natural growth? What does that phrase mean in your mind?

MR. MITCHELL: There’s been no change in our policy. And there have been - there have been discussions on every aspect of the issue.

QUESTION: Well, what does natural growth mean? I mean, can you just use it in…

MR. MITCHELL: I’m constantly asked by editors, you know, please give a plain explanation of what natural growth is.

QUESTION: If it’s for your editor. (Laughter.)

MR. MITCHELL: Well, of course, one of the issues is that there is no universally used and accepted definition. The most common definition is by the number of births, but there are many variations of that. I’ve had numerous discussions with many Israeli and other officials, and there are almost as many definitions as there are people speaking. But I think the most commonly used measure is the number of births.

So let’s get this straight. When the Community Organizer says “no natural growth”, he means they can’t have babies? That even if they were willing to let the baby sleep in a closet or in the bathroom, they still aren’t permitted to have a child?

Does it occur to you that this is an awesome dictate for a foreign leader to make to a -- previously, anyway -- democratic ally? No babies?

Does it occur to you that the whole crowd in Washington is completely nuts?

I’m beginning to think that the proper response to anything the Community Organizer says is laughter. He's either let his megalomania reach the point of insanity, or else he's kidding. He can’t seriously think he can dictate a "no babies" policy to some other country.

Can he?

(Thanks to Doris Wise Montrose of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors for the quote www.cjhsla.com )

My computer’s photo editing program has a feature called “enhance”. Click on it, and the image is improved. The darks become darker, the lights lighter, the edges more pronounced. Everything looks a little clearer.

I’m starting to think there’s a human tendency to use an “enhance” feature on our memories, too. We tell stories of how it was when we were young – and then, just to make the point, we enhance it a little -- we make the edges a little sharper, just to make sure the story is clear.

I remember tales my parents told me about prairie life in North Dakota where my father, z”l was born, and northern Minnesota which was my mother’s home. My father was born in 1910, my mother in 1916, so I have no doubt at all that things in those years were not only primitive but downright grim.

When I was very little, I accepted without question the tales of their walking “three miles” to school every day, through snow drifts so high they could hardly see over them. But when I got a little older, I knew very well where my father’s house was, where he grew up. It was a mile, exactly, outside of town. So where did the “three miles” come from?

Or I’d hear my mother’s tales about how they’d carry hot baked potatoes in their pockets when they left to walk to school in the icy pre-dawn, using the potatoes to keep their hands warm on the long walk. Fair enough. But once they got to school, what happened to all those potatoes? Surely in those times of scarcity and frugality, they wouldn’t have thrown them away? Two potatoes for every kid every morning would pretty quickly add up. Then, too, what did they use to keep their fingers warm on the way home?

The one question that really stumped me was, how could it possibly have been uphill in both directions?

There was a little “enhancement” going on – memories being clarified, edges made sharper, just to make sure the point was made: “Times were tough. We had horses not cars, because cars would have been useless in those kinds of winters. You’re lucky you only have to walk five blocks to school. Don’t even think of asking for a ride.”

I’m not beyond a bit of enhancement myself – in fact, in that blog on Rhubarb, I slathered it on a little thick about how visually unappealing Scandinavian foods are. It isn’t really quite that bad – but to make the point, I used what my father would have called ‘exaggeration for emphasis.’ With good intentions, of course.

This morning on the local community email list – ‘Anglobeersheba’, which is a Yahoo group where all (or many) of the English speakers in Beersheba come to ask questions or give advice – I ran across some awesome ‘enhancement’.

It started when a lady still living in the States wrote to the list, asking for advice about moving to Beersheba. Should they come? she was wondering. How do you think we’d adjust in Beersheba?

In answering her question, some of us laid it on a little thick about how difficult life is here.

One said, “Aliyah to anywhere in Israel is not easy, let alone to a place in the middle of the desert where nobody speaks English.”

WHAT??

For the record, Beersheba isn’t “in the middle of the desert.” At best, it’s at the northern edge of the Negev. But more importantly, Beersheba is an hour-plus train ride from Tel Aviv, or a little longer bus ride to Jerusalem.

Beyond that, Beersheba now has over 200,000 people – it’s a fully-stocked, modern, all-amenities-available metropolitan enclave. To suggest that we’re barely clinging to life “in the middle of the desert” is enhancement, pure and simple.

But it’s the line “where nobody speaks English” that threw me for a loop. First of all, remember that English is one of three legal languages in Israel, in addition to Hebrew and Arabic. Many government websites have an “English” option. It’s perfectly fine to speak English in Israel. Millions of Israelis do.

To suggest that in Beersheba “nobody speaks English” verges on the silly – if nothing else, all high school students study English and have to pass an English test. Do all of Beersheba’s high school students flunk that course? Nonsense.

The truth is, of course, that an awful lot -- most, maybe – of Beersheba’s residents speak some English, and a reasonable number are completely fluent, probably because they enjoy US movies and television.

What the person who posted that was probably trying to say is, ‘You might find it harder to move to Beersheba than to the population center of the country, because on a comparative basis, more English speakers decide to live in the center than in Beersheba.”

So this plea is directed to my fellow Anglo immigrants in Beersheba: I think we have to be careful about how we portray life here. ‘Enhancing’ the difficulties makes us feel good – we did it, after all. We overcame the hardships. It’s only human to want proper respect for that achievement. So we exaggerate a bit about how tough it really is.

That’s a dangerous thing to do. Just a couple of weeks ago, we read Parashat Shelach (Numbers, Chapter 13) in which Moses, as the Israelites approached the Promised Land, sent a dozen “spies” ahead to see how conditions were. Ten came back with terrifying stories – all about giants who lived here, tales of a land that killed its inhabitants. Unfortunately, the Israelite nation believed these horrifying reports – and as a result, was forced to wander for 40 years, enough time to allow that generation to die out before entering the Promised Land.

Those of us who live in Israel today are just like the ‘spies’. We’re telling everyone behind us, those who are thinking of coming, what it’s like. We have to be very careful. Obviously we shouldn’t be assuring anyone that moving to Israel is no different than moving to Monsey or Pico-Robertson, but we can’t allow ourselves to exaggerate how hard it is, either.

What we olim hadashim and vatakim (new and old immigrants) need to do is encourage people to come, in every way we can. Of course moving anywhere is tough -- moving ranks right up there with the death of a spouse in terms of the level of stress. But no one thinks of moving to Israel without knowing that it will be very different, in many ways, than living in whatever community they are, right now.

What we can’t afford to do is to validate all their fears – to increase their anxiety. To set false standards, making it seem that it’s much more difficult than it really is. That’s profoundly wrong.

As a community, we need to be more encouraging. After all, if we did it, then there’s no reason they can’t, too.

Of course not all stories are “enhancement”.

For a long time, I didn’t believe the one my mother told, about how, every year in the fall, her father would string a rope between the house and the barn. During winter snowstorms, they’d need the rope, she said, so they could make their way safely to and from the barn. Without it, and with visibility at absolute zero, they could easily become disoriented in the blowing snow, get lost and freeze to death.

I thought that was a tall tale too, until one September when I saw my grandfather stringing that rope himself. “It could storm any day now,” he said.

How about that?! Not an ‘enhancement’ at all!

 July 2, BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted “concessions” from Israel are needed on the issue of “settlements”. “I am convinced that there must be a stop to this, otherwise we will not arrive at a two-state solution that we need urgently,” she said.

 June 25, PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a "total freeze" on Jewish settlements.

 Endlessly, WASHINGTON: “… (U)nder Annapolis there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements, that settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult thing to recognize, but it’s an important one. And it has to be addressed.” Hussein Obama


And what does Israel say? In the manner of Bartleby the Scrivener, we're saying thanks anyway, but we prefer not to.

That was more or less what Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu said at the beginning.

As the demands to “freeze settlements” continued, however, he got a little more pointed, saying that the Community Organizer was wasting everyone’s time. "I think that the more we spend time arguing about this, the more we waste time instead of moving towards peace," Bibi said, adding that Jerusalem would remain the undivided capital of the Jewish nation forever.

Yesterday the final answer came from thank-goodness-for-loose cannons Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman, who couldn’t mince a word even if he wanted to.

“People love us when we make concessions,” Lieberman said. “But past Israeli concessions in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority have not had positive results.

"North Korea is firing missiles and we are continuing to deal with that little house in Judea and Samaria?" Lieberman asked. "Against the backdrop of events in Tehran, should this be the top priority of the global community?"

So no, he said. Israel will not “smother the normal lives of Jews living in Judea and Samaria.” We will not freeze construction.

Interestingly enough, there’s one group of our neighbors who side with Lieberman and Bibi completely on this issue of Jewish building in Judea and Samaria. Who? ‘Palestinian’ Arabs.

You read that right. Who doesn’t want the building in Judea and Samaria halted? The 12,000 Israeli Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria and who work in the construction business.

"We come here (to Judea and Samaria) because our Palestinian and Arab governments haven't done anything to provide us with better jobs,” one Arab construction worker told the Jerusalem Post.

According to the report, Arabs employed by Israeli companies earn almost three times what they would earn working for Arab companies.

Never a dull moment around here. Never a day without interesting developments.

Happy July 4th, America! Israel is staying home

US Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham is throwing the US’s annual 4th of July celebration at his home in Herzliya, one of Israel’s most elite communities.

Traditionally, Israeli politicians vie for invitations to this shindig – the food is great, the atmosphere rank with power and it’s a prime chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers.

But not this year. This year, most Israeli politicians are turning down the invite.
“There’s a certain mood and style in Washington that makes it hard to go and celebrate,” said Likud MK Danny Danon, who called on his fellow Members of the Knesset to boycott the event.




“American independence is the model for western nations, including for Israel,” Danon said.”As the Americans would rise up against any attempt of outside involvement in their internal affairs, so too will Israel ignore all types of involvement on the part of America and others."

In other words, Israel is getting more than a little iicked off with the constant meddling of the Community Organizer and his henchmen.

What specifically is sticking in our craw? Danon’s list includes:

First, America’s attempt to force Israel to stop building in Judea and Samaria. It is highly objectionable for the US to attempt to dictate housing restrictions to a sovereign nation, let alone a democracy who for many decades has been a stalwart ally of the US. “America is trying to call into question the State of Israel's independence,” he says.

Second, US Envoy George Mitchell’s nasty remark, that Israeli 'doesn't stop lying', seriously damages Israel’s honor,” Danon says. Although we should hardly be surprised. Mitchell is, after all, an Arab. And that’s been their line for generations.

Third, the publication of that totally non-essential, gratuitously offensive, picture of President Obama with his shoes up on the table while he spoke with the prime minister. That one picture spoke volumes about what the Community Organizer thinks about Israel.

Danon, who’s both an effective and respected member of Likud, was one of the more outspoken critics of the Community Organizer’s Cairo speech. “The president has crossed all lines. His implied comparison between the Israeli government and the Nazi regime said everything. He has made a covenant with the Arab world and rewarded it for more than 60 years of aggression.”

So Danon set out to organize a boycott of America’s Independence Day celebration. “I call upon MKs to boycott the event at the ambassador's house, to deliver to the American administration a clear message - that the State of Israel is independent and not President Obama's pet."

The party is being held tonight, Wednesday, because July 4th falls on Shabbat this year. As of this morning, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu will attend the event, but according to Danon, “the majority of coalition members will not attend."

Danon said he was certain most of his fellow Likud members would be absent, as would representatives from Shas. A number of MKs from his own party, he said, already approached him in the hours after the letter was sent to tell him they would not attend.

Personally, I’d be delighted to hear that a solid majority of Israel’s elected officials would indeed stay away. But I know the political beast too well. Whether they’re Israeli or American politicians, the compulsion to be there, to be seen at events attended by power brokers, frequently proves too strong for mere mortals to withstand.

It is without question, in any event, that the Community Organizer has seriously damaged US – Israeli ties. Whether Israeli politicians do boycott this social event or not, the breach is clear.

That may be for the good – Israel is indeed a sovereign nation, and it’s time we started acting like one. The unseemly pandering of Israeli politicians to US interests over the last several years hasn’t done us any good at all. In fact, we’ve suffered from trying to carry far too much of the US’s burden in the Middle East, as each succeeding American President comes into office and decides that he will be the one to finally create “peace” in these parts.

I’d be perfectly happy if the rest of the world would just ignore us for awhile. Let us get on with it, coping with our murderous neighbors as we see fit.

And if that means that Ambassador Cunningham is going to have a lot of food left his little party, so be it.