Rahm Gets It Right

Or, “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while,” or, in this case, I should say that even a blind reptile occasionally finds a rodent. I’m referring to Rahm Emanuel’s recent remarks to an Israeli diplomat reported here. As distastful as I find the man, he has a point:

(IsraelNN.com) The United States is “fed up” with Israelis who “adopt the right ideas too late,” and also with the “Palestinians who always miss opportunities,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel angrily told an Israeli diplomat recently.

IDF Army Radio reported that Emanuel said this in a meeting with Israel’s Consul in Los Angeles, Yaki Dayan, two and a half weeks ago.

Dayan reported to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that Emanuel said: “We are fed up with you Israelis who adopt the correct ideas several months too late, so that they become inefficient. In addition, we are also fed up with the Palestinians, who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. If there is no progress in the diplomatic process, we will reduce our involvement and effort in the conflict, because we have other matters to deal with.”

If both sides don’t get their act together, we’ll reduce our involvement because we have other matters to deal with. Amen! I agree with the sentiment, even if it is being spoken by one of the more unappetizing figures on the current scene, Obama’s very own Karl Rove (and former ballerina), Rahm Emanuel.

How bad is Rahm? Well, read the testimony of someone who claims to be his friend: “I’ve known Rahm for twenty years, he’s a friend, and I’ll be the first to admit that he’s an insufferable jerk, a Grade A a-hole, a complete prick …”

Not to sound too callous, but am I the only one whose eyelids droop the minute I hear anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The very term “peace process” causes my brain waves to flat line. It’s a ‘road map’ to sleep, ha ha (sorry, I couldn’t resist). I have other matters to deal with. I frankly just don’t care which ethno-religious faction controls that tiny, arid strip of nothingness. I’ve seen parts of Nevada that look more appealing, and believe me, brothers and sisters, that’s saying a lot.

Would that God could have seen fit to make a slightly larger holy land. Oh, well, stick it next to wisdom teeth, prolapsed hemorrhoids, the Bush family, and flesh-eating bacteria in that bulky file labelled, “Mistakes of the Divine Creator.”

Yeah, I feel sorry for the Palestinians, who are being shamefully brutalized and deserve their own country. Yeah, I’m sorry that Jews had to wander for two millennia as state-less outcasts, the helpless victims of one violent pogrom after another. Yeah, we need a two-state solution. Yeah, we need peace in the Middle East. Yeah, we all need to light candles, hold hands, and sing John Lennon songs at the Temple Mount. My politically correct bona fides are all in order, man.

But it’s not going to happen. Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party don’t want that to happen any more than our own Pentagon wants peace in Afghanistan. Hamas doesn’t want it to happen any more than our own homegrown, red-white-and-blue religious nuts want to enter into a ‘meaningful dialogue’ or ‘bi-partisan consensus’ with Obama and the Democrats on anything. The whole mess is driven by irreconcilable groups that want nothing to do with each other and whose power is based on perpetuating the conflict.

Fine. We’ve got other matters to deal with.