Sticks and Stones

One of our favorite stories about America and the Jews concerns Meyer Levin’s famous encounter with Creighton Abrams. It took place during World War II, when Levin was a young correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency assigned to scout around the European theater to write profiles of Jewish war heroes. He found a general who was Jewish and approached his aides, saying, “Hi, I’m Meyer Levin of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. I want to write a profile of the general, stressing the Jewish angle.” Back came word that the general wanted no such profile; he had enough problems.So Levin kept searching until he heard about a dashing young tank commander called Creighton Abrams. He finally caught up with the future chief of staff in the field. The correspondent climbed aboard the officer’s tank and the colonel himself emerged. “Sir,” the writer said, “I’m Meyer Levin of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. I want to write a profile of you – stressing the Jewish angle.” Abrams looked at him a bit quizzically but without pausing a second said, “Well, hop in.”We thought of the great Creighton Abrams, who was of Scottish background and not Jewish, as we read the latest from the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, bewailing the fact that many Iraqis have taken to calling American GIs “Jews.” Mr. Friedman attributes this to Scott Pelley of CBS, who had been asking around Iraq to see what Iraqis were calling the Americans the way Americans called the Germans “Krauts” and the Viet Cong “Charlie.” Mr. Friedman quotes Mr. Pelley as saying: “Many Iraqis have so much distrust for U.S. forces we found they’ve come up with a nickname for our troops. They call American soldiers ‘The Jews,’ as in, ‘Don’t go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock.’ “Why it seems to these two gentlemen that “so much distrust” was the reason that they chose the nickname “The Jews,” this is a mystery to us. But Mr. Friedman deals with this situation by blaming – wait for it – the Israelis and President Bush. Mr. Friedman worries about “a steadily rising perception across the Arab-Muslim world that the great enemy of Islam is JIA – ‘Jews, Israel and America,’ all lumped together in a single threat.” This trend he blames on Mr. Bush “embracing Ariel Sharon so tightly that it’s impossible to know anymore where U.S. policy stops and Mr. Sharon’s begins.” He blames Mr. Sharon for getting out of Gaza for the wrong reasons.Forgive us, but where is Mr. Friedman’s magnificent mother? Certainly someone ought to tell Mr. Friedman that to be called a Jew is not something of which to be ashamed. It can only be a compliment to Israel if it is being lumped together with America – and vice versa. For Israel and America are two countries conceived in the light of Sinai. There is no reason for Mr. Friedman to be upset about this. And it is not either Mr. Sharon’s or Mr. Bush’s fault that many Arabs – or many Europeans – hate the Jews. They were hating Jews long before Mr. Bush was born, even before Mr. Sharon was born, even before there was a Jewish state.

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones

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