Another Tack: Stan Laurel’s Smile, by Sarah Honig
Excerpts;
Israel’s Diaspora-born founding fathers ironically knew how to stand up to the world’s highest and mightiest. They could – and often did – send foreign potentates and their emissaries packing. But not so the progeny they reared, ostensibly unconstrained by degrading complexes. Pragmatic Sabras endlessly calculate the odds and are serially overwhelmed by them.
Pressurable and pliable Rabin, Barak, Sharon and Olmert – all products of our local insular upbringing – don’t remotely measure up to the stick-to-itiveness of Ben-Gurion, Golda, Begin or Shamir. Sabras may swagger but they’re fretful. They posture as tough unsentimental moral relativists, but they lack resolve, conviction and – pardon the untrendy term – pride.
That’s why Olmert flashed an inane Stan Laurel “hanger-in-my-mouth” smile when appearing with Bush, looking like a smitten overawed schoolboy in the presence of notable nabobs.
So conscious was Olmert of his new elevated status, and so intent on sucking up, that the satisfied grin didn’t even fade when Bush, referring to the Iranian nuclear threat, assured Israelis that “in the event of any attack on Israel, the United states will come to Israel’s aid.”
Bush didn’t berate him for “another fine mess,” while broadly beaming Olmert seemed to fawningly hang onto his mentor’s every word, almost like Stan Laurel asking “Whatever are we gonna do now, Ollie?” It would serve all of us – those who voted for Olmert and those who didn’t – to bear in mind that in the Laurel & Hardy reality, avoidable blunders inevitably lead to even more blunders, and debasement is endured so it can be repeated again.
Continue reading Another Tack: Stan Laurel’s Smile
