John R. Houk
© January 10, 2014
President Obama’s Administration via the State Department mouthpiece of Secretary John Kerry (the duo makes me thing of the Antichrist and False Prophet of Apocalypse of John) has taken a tact to impose the Obama government will on Israel by issuing a Framework forcing Israel and the Palestinian Authority to create the circumstances for a Palestinian State. At this point it is being called a Framework. Apparently the selling point of this Framework is it moves Palestinian Statehood forward but with impositions that make both Israelis and Palestinians unhappy. For Israel the framework would impose the 1967 borders of the second to last war of Arabs attempting to destroy Israel. Just as it sounds the 1967 border would mean giving up the Eastern half of Jerusalem where the Temple Mount is located. The Framework’s major imposition on the Palestinians it to accept Israel as a Jewish State. Son of gun! I don’t see any real benefit for Israel’s existence while it gives a Palestinian State the toe-hold to continue terrorism or war against Israel’s existence including the re-desecration of reestablished Jewish artifacts refurbished after Israel retook part of their ancestral home in 1967. The portion incidentally that the British aided Jordan’s (then Transjordan) Arab Legion to usurp from the nascent Israel State in the 1948 war of Independence.
The text of the framework has not yet been released, and Kerry has worked to keep details of all negotiations confidential. But numerous reports indicate Kerry is leaning toward Israel’s positions on at least two areas of controversy: allowing Israel to maintain some kind of military presence in the Jordan Valley of the West Bank, even in a sovereign Palestinian state. There are also indications the framework would endorse Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which in 1988 recognized Israel as a state, add recognition of it as a Jewish state — an acknowledgement Israelis say they would understand as a genuine end to the conflict over the biblical land both Jews and Palestinians claim as a homeland.
In return, Netanyahu reportedly would accept a statement in the framework that any final agreement would be based on the borders of 1967, the year Israeli forces captured and occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Accepting the 1967 lines — with exchanges of land to allow Israel to keep its largest housing settlements — might push at least one party out of the governing coalition. Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the settler Jewish Home party that favors annexing the West Bank, on Monday vowed to leave the government. “No more word games: the 1967 lines mean dividing Jerusalem and giving up the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and the Old City,” Bennett said. “In what way will our history remember a leader that gives up Jerusalem? We won’t sit in such a government.” (U.S. Proposal Boosts Momentum for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks; By Karl Vick; Time; 1/9/14)
In essence this is my introduction to a Norma Zager essay that quite wittily explains the angst behind the Jewish expression “Oy”. “Oy,” Zager explains, is the conditioned response a thousand years of historical Antisemitism and how that frustration is continuing with Prime Minister apparent willingness to get on board with this Framework.
JRH 1/10/14
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Bibi and the Oy Response
(This is the Reality of Life Right Now)
By Norma Zager
1/8/2014 11:53 PM
There is a reason the Jewish word Oy has no English translation.
Okay, sure, some would offer such phrases as Oh My God, too bad, who needs this, too much, etc. etc. To these interpreters I say, are you kidding me?
No English phrase could ever compare to the angst inherent in these two tiny letters.
I stand by my position and ask that Netanyahu remember why this word was invented and its true meaning to Jewish people.
May I continue? Too bad, I will.
The true meaning of the word oy to a Jew has no meaning.
Confusing, of course but aren’t all Jewish phrases? Come on. The Jewish curse, “You should grow like an onion with your head upside down,” and others in that vein, shows no rationale or reason.
Jewish people don’t have to be reasonable. We’ve earned the right to be muddled in thought and speech. After all, we have countless Nobel prizes in science, medicine and technology to prove we can think clearly when necessary. An oy moment is not one of those.
The reason the Jews have earned the right to use the word is that they among all others are the singularly most masochistic people on this planet.
Only those who have mastered the art of self-deprecation can understand why Oy is a necessity.
Jewish people leave themselves open for ridicule, pain and untold suffering. It would be bad enough if it was only for them, but they have opened the door for innocent Jewish children to suffer. They react to insults by insulting their own, a weird dynamic to be sure and a uniquely Jewish one.
When Kerry and the Obama administration sold out Israel to Iran, the world scratched their heads.
Jews just said Oy.
When the Palestinians and Iran yell “Kill the Jews” and demand Israel be wiped off the face of the earth, the Jews mutter a big Oy.
When Israeli soldiers are murdered and kidnapped, there is a collective Oy.
So is this the answer to the Jewish penchant for suffering?
Perhaps we should all rethink our methods.
Now Bibi is sitting down with Kerry to resolve the so-called “Palestinian Problem.” Forgive my narcissism, but I prefer the phrase Jewish Problem.
It’s Israel’s land that the world is so anxious to give up to people who would like to kill them.
Hmmm. It makes as much sense to me as the British giving Scotland to the Nazis as a good will gesture.
Granted some Brits would have done so on Chamberlain’s advice, but in hindsight it would have been a bad idea.
Israel has given up land for peace for the last forever years. How’s that working for us? Not so good actually.
The U.S. once a great supporter of the Jewish State has now thrown it squarely under the bus and lined up Iran’s tires to ensure Israel is completely run over and left for dead.
Now Bibi is meeting with the very man driving the bus.
What will Bibi give up this time, Jerusalem and the last remnants of national security?
Whatever he offers up, it will never be enough. Until the Jewish people are gone from the Middle East, they will stand in the way of the ethnic cleansing now underway.
Odd that we have lived to see the Saudis among Israel’s only friends left in the world. Proof of the old saw, “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.”
Jewish people never learn. They make themselves victims over and over to those who seek to destroy them.
The new challenges facing Israel and the Jewish people are grounded in a history of giving in to our enemies. Of playing possum instead of standing up and ferociously attacking those who wish to do us harm.
We are the bitten not the biter.
That is why at the end of the day, Jewish people must only content themselves to shake their heads and mutter an Oy in an attempt to allay the damage recently heaped upon them by their leaders and themselves.
However sadly, we have now reached the point in our history when a simple Oy will not fix the problem.
Not even a truckload of Oys will solve Israel’s plight when forced into a position of certain destruction by their greatest enemy since Hitler, and the greatest appeaser since Chamberlain.
So what’s a Jew to do?
I suppose the only hope is to invent a new word or phrase to replace our old stand by. Although I can’t imagine it will do any good.
For when Israel capitulates to the world’s insistence that they give away their country, live with the threat of annihilation from their enemies and tolerate the constant criticism and economic blackmail from those who would see them destroyed, one can only put their hand to their forehead, breathe deeply and let go with a giant Oy.
And to this pitiful response to the problems we now face, I say, “Oy, and can I get a big Vey with that?”
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An Intro to ‘Oy,’ Israel, USA and Palestinians
John R. Houk
© January 10, 2014
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Bibi and the Oy Response
Norma Zager is an award-winning investigative journalist and author. Her passion for Israel has driven her to dedicate the past decade writing and having a radio show about Israel.
This is the latest in the series “Postcards from America – Postcards from Israel,” a collaboration between Zager and Bussel, a foreign correspondent reporting from Israel.
Ari Bussel and Norma Zager collaborate both in writing and on the air in a point-counter-point discussion of all things Israel-related. Together, they have dedicated the past decade to promoting Israel.
© Israel Monitor, January 2014
First Published January 7, 2014
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