My old pal Igor thinks that if Arafat or Rajoub just smile sweetly at me, one more time, I’ll be running straight back into their arms, ditsy Yafat Nefesh ("beautiful soul"=bleeding heart liberal) that I am. Well, I’m not that ditsy, or Yafat Nefesh!

So I was wrong. So take me out and shoot me!

You know, the other day I was telling a friend at work, a right-wing guy who was eventually persuaded to vote for Ehud Barak, about Efraim Karsh’s "The Oslo War: A Tale of Self-Delusion" (Hebrew link), and he said he remembered watching Benny Begin (son of) in the Knesset saying exactly the things Karsh says in his paper, when it was still relevant, when it was still possible to stop it before too much harm was done, waving the reports with the evidence in the air, and my friend said he remembered thinking, “What’s he talking about? Why doesn’t he just shut up and go home.” And this was a right-wing guy, the son of Herutniks, the grandson of Revisionists, early settlers of the Emek (the Jezreel Valley). It wasn’t just the bleeding hearts that were swept away by Oslo, Igor.

Well Benny Begin did go home. He was probably the most honest, upright, decent politician we had and we knew this, but we still wouldn’t listen. Now he’s researching earthquakes or whatever it is Geologists do.