There have been two incidents in my life that took me nearly fifty years each to resolve. The first incident happened around the year 1950 or 1951. We were in Djibouti at the time, a place at the Horn of Africa that was then inhabited by only 25,000 people. We had everything that was considered modern at the time in that place, including electricity. But there was very little of that compared to what you might see today, for example in a big metropolitan center. I was not ten years old and one thing I liked to do in the evening was to sit outside the house and gaze at the Milky Way which I could see as vividly as a glass of milk you spill on a black table.
One night, after everyone else had gone inside the house and I was sitting alone, I heard a thunderous cracking even though the sky was without a speck of cloud. Something strange then followed: the Milky Way started to fade from the sky till it disappeared completely. It took it two or three seconds to turn itself out after which another phenomenon happened, the color of the sky slowly turned from pitch black to reddish. For several decades, I could not figure out what happened that night and I never talked to anyone about it.
Then, one evening in the year 1996 or 1997, I was standing on the balcony of my apartment in Montreal, looking not at a sky that cannot be seen due to the abundance of artificial light coming from below, but looking at the various sources of that light: blinking signs, car headlights and buildings that are illuminated with an outside source shining on them as if to compete with the light that is coming from the inside through glass windows. And then I heard a thunderous cracking that sounded almost the same as the one I heard in Djibouti nearly half a century earlier though I did not make the connection between the two incidents. I did not look to the sky to see if the Milky Way was there turning itself off or if the sky was turning reddish in color.
By way of explanation as to the source of the sound I just heard, well I thought to myself that Montreal is a big city, I live close to the downtown area where all sorts of sounds are made even though this one was different from what I am used to hearing. But the building is not exactly a quiet sort of residency, and a neighbor could have done something different from the norm. I left it at that for a few hours then sat down to watch the news. This is when I learned that a meteor had fallen near Montreal generating a sonic boom that was heard all over the city and beyond. And this was the moment I finally resolved the mystery of Djibouti. What happened then was that a meteor had entered the atmosphere and made the sound I heard. It must have broken up into tiny particles of dust that saturated the atmosphere and masked the Milky Way from my view. And it was this layer of dust that reflected the little light coming from below to give the sky the reddish color that so puzzled me as a child and so intrigued me well into my adult years.
The other incident I was able to resolve lately is something that happened either in 1964 or 1965, having been in the country only a few weeks at the time. It remained a source of puzzlement to me ever since, as I am sure it must be to every newcomer to this Continent. The thing is that I could never figure out how someone can do what someone else was telling him to do which was: “Go f...k yourself.” Well, thanks to the Wall Street Journal and to a guy called Elhanan Miller, I know now how it can be done. It is that Miller does it to himself in an article titled: “Bibi Said What?” which the Journal published on February 24, 2012 and gave it the subtitle: “Newsflash: The Israeli prime minister did not declare on Facebook that he wishes death to 355 million civilians.”
To me, Elhanan Miller is not a name that rings the bell, which is a good thing because it gives me the opportunity to judge his article on its merit and not by any idea I might have formed about the writer from previous exposure to his work. The Journal says he is the Arab affairs reporter for the Times of Israel and a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King's College in London. And this is where begins the lesson which, in my mind, shows how someone can do it to himself. You read the article and you understand that he wants to say the Arabs have been radicalized but in fact, he only manages to demonstrate how radical Judaism tried to contaminate the Arab mind but failed miserably. And you realize how someone can do it to himself as this one does royally at King's College.
The newsflash mentioned in the subtitle is about a road accident in which a number of Palestinian children died and many more injured when an Israeli truck slammed into their school bus. This is how Miller tells us about it: “...Netanyahu expressed condolences to the victims' families on his official Facebook page. 'I've expressed sorrow at the death[s]...' he wrote in Hebrew … hours after the accident.” What? Miller is saying that Netanyahu expressed condolences to the victims' families who are Arabs by addressing them in the third person on his Facebook page; doing it in Hebrew and doing it several hours after the accident?
Then as a result of the accident and of Netanyahu's posting, says Miller: “An incredible chain of events … played out in the Middle East...” But before telling you what triggered those incredible events, he expresses an opinion about them by editorializing on the subject like this: “...demonstrating the lengths to which opinion-shapers and politicians in the Arab world will go to demonize Israel.” Oh, those bad Arabs. What did they do now? you ask. Well, are you ready for the bombshell, my dear reader? Brace yourself for, here it comes: “...a number of Israelis responded to his post expressing relief at news that the victims were not Jewish or Israeli. Some were even happy that innocent Palestinians were harmed. One commenter went so far as to ask: 'Can we send another truck?” Now, my friend, you see how good the Jews are, how bad the Arabs are and how Miller just f...ked himself by editorializing before telling you what he is editorializing about. So very Jewish, so very Jewish.
Having done this, he now wants to build on it to show how the Arabs go about demonizing Israel and, more importantly, why they do it. Here is how he goes about completing this task: “The vile comments were … removed from Netanyahu's page and the … incident … criticized in Israeli media.” Notice that Netanyahu did not criticize and that Miller does not give a sense of the criticism that was leveled by the media. Despite this, he wants you to know that: “...none of this prevented a … Jordanian daily … from misattributing the Facebook comments to Netanyahu himself … Citing an article in Israeli daily Haaretz, which reported that 'racist comments appeared on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Facebook Page.'” Miller goes on to say: “The story was picked up by news agencies in Jordan and across the Arab world, who rushed to condemn the prime minister...” Ah, those bad Arabs! If only they would bother to learn how the media conduct themselves say, in Britain and in America, they could have a press that is always accurate, never sensationalistic and staying away from citing the likes of Haaretz.
But you don't get a sense that Miller wishes to blame the Arab media themselves as much as he wants to blame other institutions and individuals. That tendency is shown in this passage: “One may have expected the media brouhaha to die down within a day or two, as it has in the past.” But something else happened, he says, which seems to bother him: “...the Arab League … convened … to lambaste Netanyahu…” That's bad enough if you're one of those who admire Netanyahu. But notice that the Arab League did not say it was about to take measures where all options would be on the table. Still, the absence of a threat did not satisfy Miller who went on to complain that: “In comments, … league official Mohammad Subeih declared that '...Netanyahu posted these remarks on his facebook page then tried to deny them.” Well, given all that happened – most of which being the fault of Netanyahu and the Israeli media – you cannot blame a minor official to feel the way that he did. Maybe so, but that's not the only thing, says Miller, because the same Arab League official looked at the “vile” comments that were posted by members of the Israeli public, and he expressed the opinion that: “showed how grave the Israeli racism against the Palestinian people was.” That does it in the eyes of Miller because it is one thing for a Jew to call those comments vile; it is another thing for an Arab to opine that they prove racism. Look how bad the Arabs are, how good the Jews are and how easily a Miller can do it to himself.
There is a trail here, says the author, and it “illustrates how prone senior opinion-shapers in the Arab world are to believe the most implausible stories about Israel.” He laments loudly about that, doing it in the form of a question he poses: “Did they … think ...that Netanyahu … would post … racist comments on a website?” Wait a minute mister, wait a minute -- wait, wait, wait. The Arabs lambasted Netanyahu but they only characterized as racist the comments that were made by the people who responded to the post like those who expressed happiness at the fact that Palestinian children were killed, and the one that suggested Israel should send another truck. Still, having posed a question, Miller answers it in the affirmative. He then goes on to do something so Jewish, you may classify it as intellectual syphilism of the kind that only a Jew can ejaculate. What he does is stand on what he believes is the brilliant victory he just scored to fight battles that were killed and buried in the past by the people who pushed against them. To this end, he loads the dead arguments onto the coattail of a victory that never was in the hope that the corpses will come back to life and reenter the debate. He'll have to do it alone because I am not participating.
But this is not the only syphilitic ejaculation you see Miller do. As always, when these people convince themselves they just gave a good argument, they don't stop here and let you digest it but ask for a payment right away. Miller shows he is no exception, not only in immediately asking for a payment but in asking for it by insulting someone. What can be more Jewish than that!
Here is how he does it. He writes: “Many Arabs' capacity to think the worst of Israel is … the product of … deep ignorance. Even [with] … Egypt and Jordan … relations have been [at] arms-length at best. While … Israelis have … acquaintance with Muslim culture, their counterparts in Cairo and Amman, to say nothing of Riyadh, have no firsthand knowledge of practicing Jews and … no access to Israel art, music and literature.”
What he is saying here is that the Arabs are so ignorant, they need to do something to remedy the situation. To this end, they should visit Israel as tourists and start buying Israeli arts, music and books. Where Miller is doing it to himself is in demonstrating how little he knows of what he is talking about. He based his presentation on what a Jordanian newspaper wrote, and what an official at the Arab League in Cairo said. These are the two countries that have relations with Israel. By contrast, nothing came from Saudi Arabia whose capital is Riyadh. This says the more you know about the Israeli, the worse you think of them. Yet, he makes it sound that things are worse with Saudi Arabia by using the expression: “to say nothing of Riyadh.” So you ask why does he do it? Good question; easy answer. Egypt benefits greatly from Arab tourism, and the Saudis are the biggest spenders of all. He wants a piece of the action which he believes he can get by insulting the people he is inviting. What can be more Jewish than that! What can be more syphilitic morally than that.
He ends the article like this: “The result is that to … Arabs, [the] Israelis are foreign … in their actions and motivations … [where] even the wildest proposition … sounds reasonable. Until Arabs … attempt to understand Israelis … demonization, conspiracy theories and ignorance will continue to thrive.” Oh, the poor idiot! He has just shown that when it comes to the Israelis and the Jews, ignorance about them is bliss. This is why Amman and Cairo spoke up, and why Riyadh remained mum. And when you look at it on the larger scale of history, this is why the Jews were pogrommed and holocausted by the Europeans who knew them, not the Chinese or the Japanese who still know very little about them.
Like the saying goes: be careful what you wish for because you may get it. What Miller and those like him are aiming for is a star that will shine bright in the firmament of nations. What they will get, instead, if they stay on the present trajectory is a meteor on a collision course whose end will be to burn out and turn into dust perhaps for the last time.