Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, is, as of this writing, extremely ill with COVID-19. He is fighting for his life in an Israeli hospital. No matter that he has spent his professional life trying to take down the Jewish state — he’ll “compromise” and take Israeli medical care if he absolutely must.
Here is how the PLO Negotiation Affairs department put it in a statement Oct. 18:
“Because of the chronic health problems in Erekat’s respiratory system, he is being transferred to a hospital in the 1948 areas because his condition requires special medical attention and supervision.”
As far as his health is concerned, we wish Erekat a speedy recovery. As far as his grasp of language, of reality, and of ethics is concerned, we despair of wishing him anything. Did you catch the language? He had to be transferred to a hospital “in the 1948 areas.” The what? This is Erekat’s, and the Palestinian leadership’s, way of talking about Israel.
Israel’s War of Independence began in 1948 — but that cannot be acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership. Nothing happened in 1948 and nothing has happened since. There is no Israel. There are only “the 1948 areas” — belonging en toto, of course, to the Palestinians — and in these “1948 areas” there are superior hospitals. Israeli hospitals. Which are good for providing Erekat and his like “special medical attention and supervision,” but which are not good for acknowledging as Israeli institutions. Because there is no Israel. Because there are only “the 1948 areas.” Because Saeb Erekat and his like live in a fantasy world. Which is why his negotiations with Israel, unlike the negotiations of Bahrain and UAE with Israel, have never gone anywhere. And never can go anywhere, if Palestinians continue to do what they have done since 1948. There can be no agreement with a fake world, which, to Erekat, is what Israel is.
Meanwhile, weddings in the Orthodox Jewish communities of Brooklyn are big affairs. At a recent chasidic wedding, it was reported not only that 10,000 people would attend, but that 10,000 people actually did attend. This, of course, is contrary to all guidance on COVID-19 and a terrible indictment of Jews, both leaders and followers. How do we know that 10,000 people attended? A video was posted on Twitter. It’s right there in plain view. The huge crowds, and not one single mask in sight. Not one single mask. How dare they!
Of course there was not one single mask in sight. The video was, yes, of the wedding of a grandson of the Satmar Grand Rabbi — in 2006.
New York is filled with politicians who poison relations with some of their Jewish communities and with some Jewish communities who very unwisely respond in kind, flouting the COVID regulations. Cutting your nose to spite your face. But it starts with politicians who lash out — witness Mayor de Blasio’s apology this week, six months late — and with spurious images maliciously spread around and gullibly believed. What better artifact of this than the huge wedding that never happened, that, Satmar spokesmen say, never was even planned on a grand scale, but that we all know for certain did happen. Because we have the evidence. From 2006.
Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News
