Israel Supporters Must Now Show Their True Colors

I never thought I'd see the day when showing support for Israel in my mostly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood would feel like an act of defiance.
But when I tied blue and white ribbons to the antenna of my car today, I briefly worried that I might end up with a broken window, or worse. Just yesterday I saw a kid nearly roughed up by passionate opponents of Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout because he dared display a pro-disengagement sign at their rally.
I tied the ribbons to my car in response to numerous orange ribbons that have popped up on vehicles in recent weeks. Orange is the color chosen by Gaza Jewish settlers and their supporters to show solidarity and protest.
Like any sane supporter of Israel I have strong concerns about whether the disengagement or pullout or evacuation or expulsion -- whatever you choose to call it -- will improve or harm the security of the Jewish state. It certainly feels like rewarding the perpetrators of thousands of bloody terror attacks, while punishing the law-abiding citizens who endured those attacks. It's also shrinking the borders or an already tiny country, while getting nothing tangible in return. At least the Sinai was traded for a piece of paper with Anwar Sadat's signature.
But it would be the definition of chutzpah for me, who has never lifted a finger in Israel's defense despite spending considerable time there in my army-age youth, to second guess a general who has fought every war since the country declared its independence, and shed his own blood on the battlefield. Plain and simple, if this is a catastrophic mistake, its one for Sharon and the people who elected him to make.
Opponents of the Gaza pullout argue that Israel belongs to all the Jewish people, and its leaders must heed the concerns and dreams of those in the diaspora as well as those of their own electorate. But that rings hollow in a country with mandatory military service, where each citizen is required to physically back up the policies of the leaders they elect, and bear the costs of their mistakes. Non-Israelis do none of those things, no matter how much money we raise or trees we plant or summer vacations we spend there.
Jews and America and elsewhere who have stood fast against the pullout -- and polls show they are a minority -- are not wrong to express their grave reservations. But they are wrong to try to stifle those who stand by Israel's elected government. And they are wrong to presume that they can sit in Brooklyn or Teaneck or Baltimore or Toronto and tell Israeli soldiers what territory to fight and die for. Truly supporting Israel means backing all its citizens, not only the settlers but the leaders and soldiers, too, as they endure one of the most challenging ordeals in their history.
Whatever we think of the pullout, it's a done deal now. The orange ribbons have served their purpose. Israel is once again taking a massive chance for peace, as it did in the 90s when it trusted Yasir Arafat.
The way to show our hope that this time will turn out better is to display true, proud colors of Israel: Blue and white.

When Mets Collide

It's easy to think of baseball players and other pro athletes as adults who get paid a fortune for playing essentially a kids' game for part of the year. And they are.
But last week's collision between center fielder Carlos Beltran and right fielder Mike Cameron of the Mets at a game in San Diego is another reminder that pro-sports can be a dangerous business. Your or I might not dive for a grounder at a friendly softball game the way these two went at it, but the stakes are much higher for them, especially when their team is struggling to get out of last place before they are eliminated from contention.
Wherever there are fast-moving objects, like balls or 200-plus pound outfielders, involved there is the danger of serious injury, and it's extremly fortunate neither ended up with a life- or career-threatening injury, although Cameron as of Wednesday remains hospitalized and Beltran, though anxious to get back on the field, may need facial surgery. An impact of that nature could easily result in a neck or spinal injury if not brain damage.
Worse than the physical damage is the mental harm to the way they'll play the game in the future. How can either one of these guys ever dive after a grounder again and keep their eyes on the ball, rather than their nearest teammates?
These guys deserve credit for working hard and taking risks, and it will be great to see them both back in action soon.

Pay Now Or Pay Later

President Bush is to meet with his top security advisers today to discuss the situation in Iraq. "People always say to me, when are you going to bring the troops home," he said in a sound bite. "The answer is, as soon as possible. But not before the mission is completed."
That terminology couldn't help but summon up the image of the "mission accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier where the President thanked the troops. What was it, about two years ago?
There's a saying among dentists and plumbers: Pay me now, or pay me later. Splurge for that expensive root canal or valve replacement now, or pay a more expensive price later for neglecting it.
Sooner or later we will have to face the reality of leaving Iraq without accomplishing very much at at all except for removing Saddam Hussein from power -- a seemingly goods result except when you consider that it cost the lives of 1,800 Americans and counting and tens of thousands of Iraqis we were supposed to be liberating, and that there is no way to ensure that a worse thug won't eventually rise to power.
The conflict in Iraq has essentially become a waiting game. The insurgents know that with every mass casualty attack our resolve weakens, and that's why they have launched their attacks not strategically, to weaken supply lines are disable air bases, but to inflict the highest death toll on the soldiers themselves. The insurgency grows stronger every day as a result.
If we acknowledge, as we must, that we will inevitably have to give up, the question then shifts to pay now or pay later. And later only amounts to the loss of more American lives.
Until now, I have felt that we have an obligation to the men and women who have died so far to continue the mission so that they will not have died in vain. That the real mission in Iraq was simply to stay the course, hold the forts and resist the impulse to run.
That was surely part of the rationale in Vietnam, too. We should now realize that our greater obligation is to the troops who have not yet died, and who will surely die if we stay, and to their families.
The only thing worse than making a mistake is failing to treat it like a mistake, failing to learn from it, and proceeding full ahead on the same mistaken course. Granted, if we pull out of Iraq under fire it will embolden our enemies, as it did after we left Beirut in the 80s and Somalia in the 90s.
There are two ways to address that. The first is to declare victory: Set a very public, very achievable goal that we can strive toward in the next few months -- say to put a certain number of trained police in place-- meet it and get out as ceremoniously as possible, not like the helicopter evacuation of Vietnam.
Second, make it clear to everyone, most of all ourselves, that we will do what every great people does and learn from our mistakes.
Israel's Ariel Sharon is no soft touch. For decades he was the most right-wing politician in the mainstream. And yet in his old age he has come to realize futility when he sees it, and to know that part of valor is knowing where to concentrate your troops. That's why he's letting go of Gaza as a necessary amputation to save the greater body. His loyalty is more to the 8,000 or so troops who have to defend this embattled territory than to the equal number of civilians who want to keep up the fight.
Our obligation to our own troops, and to ourselves, should be no less.

The Final Countdown?

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when Discovery's troubled mission came to a happy end Tuesday morning with a textbook touchdown at Edwards AFB. Thus ended a mission in which nearly all the attention was focused on maintaining the mission, leaving open the question of what was gained other than launching the shuttle and retrieving it. Oh, yes. We also resupplied the equally questionable International Space Station.
The shuttles are grounded indefinitely while the rocket scientists at NASA (that sounds sarcastic even though it isn't) try to figure out why foam insulation keeps flying off the fuel tanks. Either this never happened before or people just didn't take it seriously before the Columbia disaster. That leaves open the question of whether these vehicles will ever be launched again. NASA is already talking about launching capsules into space again like in the 60s, the ultimate case of going back to the future.
I must admit that this morning I sat glued to the TV with my kids watching that glowing dot in the California sky morph into the shape of a shuttle and touch down so gracefully on the tarmac, coming from quadruple the speed of sound to a dead stop in a matter of minutes. All day today I was filled with awe. I guess it takes a catastrophe like Columbia to refocus us on what an incredible feat it is to safely launch people off the planet and then recover them safely, no worse for the wear. Over the years it had become so routine.
Nevertheless, the thrills in this case are too expensive. As I wrote below, this should be the final countdown. The risk of lost life and the billions of dollars wasted are too much to justify when there is no discernable benefit to those of us on the ground but to fire up our imagination and deceive us with the notion that we could one day travel far beyond our planet. It's impossible and the sooner we get a reality check on this the better off we'll all be for it.

Carville's Free Pass

Commentator Bob Novak's been rightly condemned for his intemperate behavior on CNN last week, using a profane word on non-premium cable and storming off the set in the middle of a segment.
Mr. Novak was likely perturbed by forthcoming questions about his role in the CIA leak case in that interview. But watch footage in the segment and you'll see obscene behavior of another sort coming from the other commentator on the set that day, James Carville, aka the Ragin' Cajun.
Carville behaved like a boor by interrupting Novak in the middle of a point about a Senate race in Florida, and when Novak protested, Carville essentially challenged his manhood, insisting that Novak had to "show these right-wingers some kind of backbone, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you show them you're tough."
Novak should have brushed it off, but it was a cheap shot by Carville and lowered the discourse substantially, paving the way for Novak's expression of frustration. He deserves some credit: another man might have retorted with a similarly personal attack.
Sunday pundits had a field day making fun of Novak, who was given a time-out by CNN, which suspended him from its programs. But the network would have done well to send both these men to their rooms until they learn better behavior. Why let Carville off the hook for being a cheap-shot instigator?

Warm Hearts On A Cold Sea

The Russian navy should feel no shame at having asked for international assistance in the rescue of a minisub crew stranded at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (a place we all know well.) An unmanned British vehicle freed the Russian sub after nearly three days in 45-degree darkness trapped by a fishing net, allowing all seven crew members to emerge in good health.
Some said the Russians had learned the lesson from the 2000 disaster in which more than 100 men died waiting to be rescued from the submarine Kursk in the Baltic Sea after an explosion sank her. But news reports said the authorities initially withheld the news of the imperiled sub until the mother of one of the sailors leaked (no pun) the story to a radio station. Only then did the government call for help from Japan, the United States and the British.
The Russians were surely concerned about protecting their military secrets, obviously a major factor in the Kursk incident (the cause of the explosion is still unclear). Wounded pride was probably an issue as well. Operating submarines is expensive, risky and complicated business and the Russians are struggling to keep their edge.
But the U.S. has had its share of sub disaster in recent years too, including the USS San Francisco, which smashed into an undersea mountain this year, and the USS Greenville, which collided with a fishing boat during a high speed surfacing a few years ago. Both incidents were deadly.
Considering the number of subs in the water and the thousands of brave crew who operate these ships, it's safe to conclude that the service is no more statistically deadly or risky than flying planes or launching space shuttles, or even driving on the highway. Accidents, however, are sadly inevitable. So there is no reason for the Russians to fear a perception of ineptitude.
Instead, they should be proud of the choice of placing their sailors' lives ahead of all other considerations. Submariners are a close-knit band of brothers, regardless of nationality, who surely do not hesitate to stick their necks out for each other, easily picturing themselves in a similar predicament but for the grace of God.
This incident should be remembered as a triumph and example of international cooperation at a time when it's badly needed.