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Jewish World Review Oct. 24, 2000/ 25 Tishrei, 5760

Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

Jackie & Raul
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PLEASE, Mr. Mugger


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- PRESIDENT CLINTON, in seemingly evenhanded fashion, called on both the Israelis and the Palestinians to cease fighting. This was a little like telling both the victim and the mugger to stop as soon as the victim tries to protect himself. Soon after the Arab mugging, meeting fantasy with fantasy, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, of another Arab country, Yemen, informed the world that the explosion which had just occurred in the harbor of the port city of Aden was merely the result of a collision between small boats: something that often happens in any busy harbor. While he made the announcement the Navy was trying to locate the bodies of U.S. sailors -- ultimately 17 dead -- who perished in a blast that caused a gaping hole eighty feet wide and forty feet deep (the size of a house) in the steel hull of the destroyer Cole.

On September 28, shortly before the outrageous attack on the Cole, Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, one of the holiest places for both Jews and Muslims. The Palestinians erupted in a spasm of violence, claiming they were justified in their actions because they were provoked by General Sharon making a visit to pray at the Western Wall.

Putting aside the obvious fact that they are only able to pray at their adjacent holy places because the Israelis guaranteed them that right after Israel defeated them militarily, thereby gaining control of the area, and putting aside the historically proven fact that if the Arabs who as a matter of religious and national policy have sworn to destroy the State of Israel had gained control of the area, the only Jews that would have been allowed there would have had to be dead or in chains, no civilized person could rationally accept Sharon's visit to pray as license to throw stones and commit violence.

It may come as no small surprise that in our respective occupations we run across lots of people who are objectionable and provocative. Theaters have hecklers and loudmouths in the audience, law offices, on occasion, have low-lifes on the premises, in fact there are some who might argue that you only find low-lifes in law offices, yet can anyone remember the last time a performer threw rocks at an audience he didn't like, or a lawyer pulled out a gun and shot a client because the lawyer didn't like what the client said? Lawyers don't need guns: they can charge retainers, and entertainers don't need rocks. They can simply take the money and walk off the stage.

Now that the subject of low-lifes has come up, this brings us to Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has had, until recently, a virtually unbroken and perhaps unsurpassed record of support for the Palestinian cause. Whether one listens to Dick Morris, former intimate and adviser of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, reporting of her anti-Semitic remarks, or looks back to her early support for Palestinian independence or remembers her kissing Mrs. Arafat, and the belated feeble explanation of her sudden passion toward the Palestinian first lady, her feelings about the Palestinian are clear. Even now she says she was opposed to the United States' shameful refusal to veto a U.N. Security Counsel resolution condemning Israel. Voters must undoubtedly ask themselves how persuasive her voice will be in the halls of Congress if she can't seem to persuade the man with whom she shares a bedroom as to an appropriate course of action where the Palestinians are involved.

The veneer of a civilized political movement was removed from the Palestinian cause when two Israeli servicemen under the protection of the Palestinian police were tortured, murdered, and mutilated by a Palestinian mob. The photographs of this atrocity and its participants went around the world. Particularly hideous was the image of a young Palestinian gleefully showing his blood stained hands to the crowd. The perpetrators are all residents of a relatively small geographic area, so it should not require Detective Columbo to find them -- that is, if there was really any will to do so.

On the question of punishment however, the Arab criminals, particularly those involved in the Cole attack, had best beware...particularly if they live near any factories making medicine.

Clinton has an unbroken record of retaliation when it suits his political purpose. Just before Monica Lewinsky was to go before a grand jury and the country was fixed on the presidential scandal, America attacked a poison gas factory, in Sudan. The only trouble was the factory made medicine, not poison gas.

Just as the Congress was about to take up the impeachment question, Saddam Hussein was attacked for a long-standing refusal to allow weapon inspections. In fact the congressional debate was delayed because of the military attack by our country.

No one ever accused the Arabs of operating in a sensible way to help their cause. The present Arab attacks could not have come at a more dangerous time for them. Democratic leadership in the U.S. is being questioned on the issues of the oil crisis and the prospect of a new Mideast war on the eve of a close national election. History should tell them that if the Clinton party is in trouble, they should head for nearest air raid shelters.


JWR contributors Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder need no introduction. Comment on this column by clicking here.

Up

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10/03/00: Space invaders
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08/23/00: Life's certainties
07/31/00: AlGore needs a doctor --- badly!
07/03/00: Only a coincidence?
06/01/00: Can a liberal make sense?
06/02/00: Never give a GOPer a break
05/17/00: Computers, OY VEY!
05/02/00: Cuba si, Castro nu
04/17/00: Gen. Kennedy for Commander-in-Chief
04/06/00: Guns, hypocrisy and common sense
03/31/00: What's sleazier than a lawyer?
03/23/00: Clinton the 3-D Man
03/10/00: Politics or Pro Wrestling?
02/28/00: Free advice to the pundits: Get a life --- and new jobs
02/14/00: She Flunked!

© 2000, Jackie Mason & Raul Felder. This article first appeared in online edition of The American Spectator.