Meir Kahane Is Dead

This weekend I petitioned passers-by at the General Fowler Triangle in Fort Greene. Blacks were eager to sign. White people shook their head, when asked to sign a petition asking Congress and President Obama to support a ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas' resumption of its missile attacks reminds too many New Yorkers of 9/11 and the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. Their statements about Hamas using human shields and accusations of anti-Semitism came straight from the Western Media without any consideration for the injustice caused by the foundation of Israel.

Hamas is evil.

Israel is defending itself.

A Russian Jewish friend walked by the triangle.

"I can't believe you're supporting terrorists."

"No, I'm supporting an end to the fighting." I quoted Michael Jackson's line from BEAT IT. "I don't care who's wrong or right. All I want is peace."

"Meir Kahane said we can never be at peace with the Arabs." Mike was a young man. We knew each other from 47th Street. He bought gold. I sold diamonds.

"Meir Kahane?" I hadn't heard the name of the JDL's assassinated leader in ages.

"Yes, Kahane argued against the two-state solution, since the Arabs could outbreed the Jews."

"I recollect his saying that the Arabs should be forcibly deported from Biblical Israel."

"It's the only solution."

"You mean like a Final Solution?" This adoption of the Nazi policy against the Palestinians was too ironic for my tastes.

"It's us or them."

"But not the two."

"Never two."

"I don't think the USA will support that measure."

"That's naive. The Arabs don't care what happens to the Palestinians and neither does the USA. Only Israelis care about them and the only way to end the war is to end Palestine."

"A pogram?"

"They threw us out of North Africa by the hundreds of thousands."

"After letting the Jew live amongst them for centuries."

"Everything comes to an end. Good and bad." Mike walked away toward Atlantic Terminal.

"Sie gesund."

"Ed, the head of Brooklyn Peace Intiative came over to me and asked, "What was that about?"

"Meir Kahane."

"Meir Kahane. He was a friend of Bob Dylan and he instructed Arlo Guthrie on the Torah."

"He did?"

"Yes, but he's dead since the 90s. He was shot at a hotel. Supposedly the first al-Qaada attack, but the killer wasn't convicted of murder."

"Why not?"

"CIA?" Ed shrugged and we returned to petitioning the pedestrians.

None of them were Meir Kahane. He was dead.

Only people on their way home or Frank's Lounge or Mullane's or Mo's or la Habana.

Life was good in Brooklyn.

It wasn't Gaza.