Israel being a parody of life, it is not
surprising that you can find a saying applying to it that may sound like an
existing saying and that would convey a similar meaning ... or perhaps not.
'All hat and no cattle' is a saying that
applies to people who pretend to be on top of a situation but are not. Some
people believe that this saying applies to Jews more than anyone, if not
exclusively to them. But if you look around, you'll discover that in this era
where success depends on making others believe that the size of the hat you
wear, mirrors the size of the cattle you maintain back home — it is not
surprising to discover that the saying applies to all kinds of people, and not
exclusively to Jews.
There is, however, one saying that applies
exclusively to Jews. It is one that would have to go like this: 'All tea and no
kettle.' It would be an offshoot of the saying that goes: 'This is a case of
the tea calling the kettle black.' It applies to people that cause something
bad to happen to someone, and then chide that someone for what happened to
them. You can see how this applies squarely to the Jews; being the group that
continually robs the Palestinians of their heritage, then chide the
Palestinians for losing their heritage.
The saying applies to the Jews in Israel,
of course; also to their supporters outside of Israel. A case that demonstrates
how these people operate, is furnished by Bret Stephens who wrote a column
under the title: “Time for Netanyahu to Go,” and the subtitle: “Israel's prime
minister increasingly resembles America's 37th president.” The column was
published on March 2, 2019 in the New York Times.
Here is the passage in which Stephens
accuses Netanyahu of being more interested in his own political interests than
he is about the morality of what he does to promote those interests: “Netanyahu
is a man for whom no moral consideration comes before political interest and
whose chief political interest is himself. He is a cynic wrapped in an ideology
inside a scheme … Nor is the blight simply moral”.
Unable to suppress the reality that he is,
himself, as immoral as Netanyahu, and as unaware of his shortcomings as him,
Bret Stephens goes on to say this: “Jews the world over face a swelling and
increasingly deadly tide of anti-Semitism, while Zionism has become a dirty
word … To have the prime minister lend credence to the [saying] that Zionism is
racism by bringing racists into his coalition emboldens the assault on Israel.
It weakens a central element in the defense of Israel and the Jews: moral
self-confidence. Netanyahu's behavior jeopardizes that confidence”.
In other words, Bret Stephens is making
the point that the image of Israel abroad, not morality, is what counts the
most as far as he is concerned. That is, if it wasn't for the fact that
humanity considers Zionism to be as repugnant as racism, he would not be
objecting to Netanyahu bringing Zionist-style racists into his governing
coalition. But the world is watching, laments Bret Stephens, and this reality
requires at least the pretense of morality on the part of the prime minister of
Israel.
Well then, we can only view that stance as
being a case of the tea that is Bret Stephens — having spent his career up to
now in the promotion of Zion's racist causes — accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of
not considering the apparent immorality of his politics. That is, while
Stephens is a bag of tea, he just discovered that Netanyahu is as much a bag of
tea as he is. Well, it seems that searching among the Jews at this time, you’ll
encounter only tea bags and no kettle to speak of. Will Bret Stephens go back
to the embrace of Zion's racism when this episode will be over?
When all will be said and done — and in
the interest of fairness — we must ask another question. It is this: 'What does
Bret Stephens really want?' Well, going through his column, we encounter hints
as to what he hopes will happen in Israel. Here are the relevant passages:
“In matters of policy and execution,
Netanyahu has been effective. On his watch, Israel's enemies have been
humiliated. Thanks to Donald Trump, he brought the American Embassy to
Jerusalem and pursued openings with the Arab world without making irreversible
concessions to the Palestinians. From an Israeli standpoint they are
considerable successes. But Netanyahu's legacy has been tarred by his appeals
to bigotry. Lest it be forgotten, both Gants and Lapid [a rising opposition]
are veterans of Netanyahu's governments”.
So here it is in black and white. While the
idea of humiliating one's enemies may not necessarily point to racism, it is
surely a consideration that looms large in the imagination of the hardcore
racists. As well, robbing the Palestinians of their patrimony in Jerusalem and
giving it to the Jews can only be the exercise of a racist stance.
Another thing that may not be
fundamentally racist but very much the stance of a rascal, is that Bret Stephens
praised Netanyahu for making concessions to win the goodwill of the Arabs,
while harboring the intent to reverse those concessions after obtaining what he
came for. Well then, my friend, has a Jew ever been anything but that? Will a
Jew ever be anything but that?
Stephens says he would have concurred with
all that, except that Netanyahu blew it while practicing open rather than
subtle appeals to bigotry.