Looking at what’s going on in the Middle East could make one either laugh or cry - usually the latter. But enough tears for now. There have been a number of items we’ve come across recently that may appeal to one’s sense of humor in a perverse sort of way.

Did you see where three newly elected Hamas legislators are threatening to go to Israel’s Supreme Court because their Jerusalem residency rights have been revoked? Here we have official representatives of a universally recognized terrorist group dedicated to Israel’s destruction seeking vindication in an Israeli court of their right to live in Israel’s capital. As an Israeli Foreign Ministry official noted, “We don’t believe these people should be entitled to Israeli social security payments”. We could add that neither should they be permitted to ride around with Israeli license plates so they can go about their appointed terrorist rounds. Here we have new meaning given to “chutzpha” - or whatever its’ Arabic equivalent.

Speaking of Hamas, the Jerusalem Post recently reported that a Hamas official accused Fatah-affiliated militias of being behind the latest wave of Kassam rocket attacks against Israel. He described it as a “conspiracy” to topple the Hamas cabinet. Could this be the start of a civil war - one where we could root for both sides?

Closer to home, we have had two relatively obscure professors crawl out of the academic woodwork to elaborate on “The Lobby” - or, “How Disloyal Israel-firster Jews Control U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East”. The premise of the authors Messrs. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, is that there are no strategic or moral reasons for American support for Israel. Citing numerous blatantly anti-Semitic sources, (and publicly lauded by David Duke), they conveniently overlooked public opinion polls consistently demonstrating strong American support for the Jewish State. The two learned professors blithely ignore, for instance, a February Gallup poll showing 69% of Americans favoring Israel as opposed to 25% unfavorable. But such indicators mean nothing to Walt and Mearsheimer, who either by ignorance or malice, go on to describe a Zionist “stranglehold on Congress”.

What was equally laughable was the authors’ pretense of professional self-immolation because of their efforts in exposing “The Lobby”. As Mearsheimer put it to the New York Times, “We both knew from the get-go that whoever wrote this piece would essentially be committing career suicide in terms of getting a high-level administration job in academia or a policy-decision position”. What he actually means here is that now that we have written this we should really be in line for better paying jobs in order to show that you are not intimidated by “The Lobby” and for academic freedom. Given the sorry state of Middle East studies at our universities, Walt and Mearsheimer should have no problem continuing their Israel-bashing careers. But being the inspiration for a new chapter in “Profiles in Courage”? No way!

Given the vast power attributed to “The Lobby”, as a former Executive Director of AIPAC when it lost a bitter fight in 1978 in the Senate to deny the Saudis F-15 aircraft, I can only wish we had been as powerful as described. This bring to mind the story of the elderly Jew whose good friend often saw him reading from violently anti-Semitic tracts. When confronted about these strange reading habits, the reader explained, “With all the troubles we Jews have to endure, I just love reading how all-powerful we are”. I hope AIPAC takes full advantage of this latest testament to its prowess to incease its fundraising.

I also take some comfort in the fact that Stephen Walt is from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, how could I have any respect for an institution that would grant me a degree? This was back in 1962 before it was named after JFK, and I’m happy to say that I didn’t have to pay a red cent for it!

Not to be outdone by mere academics, a former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit” at its Counterterrorist Center, Michael Scheuer, reacted to “The Lobby” with his own claim that “U.S. citizens have been the subject of a political action campaign designed and executed by Israel”. He writes of U.S. politicians and Secretary Rice “groveling at AIPAC’s annual conference, each willing to compromise U.S. security if they garner pro-Israel votes and pockets stuffed with cash from pro-Israel contributions”. Given this kind of mindset, we can guess why the CIA’s Directorate of Operations has been in such disarray these past twenty-five years in its dealings with the Middle East. With people like Scheuer in charge at Langley, Mein Kampf could well become required reading.

Of much greater significance than the anti-Semitic screeds by two pointy-headed professors and a slightly demented former spook, (who says we deal only with policies, never with personalities?), are the continuing death wish statements of Iran’s Ahmadinejad. Only a certified religious nut could continue to openly dare the world to do something about Iran’s pursuit of nukes - for peaceful purposes, of course. Referring to possible action by the U.N. Security Council, he was quoted as saying, “They know they cannot do a damned thing”. This actually shows he may not be so crazy after all. But even if a distracted American president might not order an air campaign to take out Iran’s nuclear sites, Israel, which has been directly threatened by this Iranian madman with annihilation on an almost daily basis, may have far fewer compunctions. Even Hitler never publicly announced his intention to murder all of Europe’s Jews. But this zealot believes so strongly that it is his religious obligation to destroy Israel, that he just can’t seem to help himself. While most religious nutcases can be ignored, a nutcase with nukes is a different story. Former Director of Central Intelligence Jim Woolsey has publicly called for the same hilarious “South Park” treatment of Ahmadinejad it used on Kim Jong Il in its “Team America”. If you are unfamiliar with “South Park” - ask your teen-ager!

If you are no longer a reader of the New York Times, you might have missed Tom Friedman’s latest (April 19) revelation that he would rather live with a nuclear Iran than risk a military strike. Would you like to have some fun? Next time you see one of Friedman’s typical pontifications, count the number of “I”s and “Me”s in it. I recently counted no fewer than twelve, which is not a record. This columnist, admittedly a best selling author for reasons which escape me, is so full of himself he has become a legend in his own mind. Who really cares about Friedman’s deepest personal feeling about everything - except perhaps his most immediate family? But now that Tom Friedman believes he can live with a nuclear-armed Iran, shouldn’t we all feel better? Not me.