Barry Farber
Friday, Nov. 19, 2004

Somebody in the Pentagon got the bright idea that one of those prongs ought to be teaching German POWs democracy. And what better way, the suggestion continued, than by teaching them American football, which German prisoners knew absolutely nothing about.

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  American football! Sure; you know, teamwork, sportsmanship, everybody pulling together toward a common goal. Great stuff.

The program actually went forward. High school football coaches were rounded up along with interpreters. Old helmets, shoulder pads, hip pads and cleats were collected.

They sat in rooms with blackboards bristling with the familiar circles and Xs used to diagram football plays. They listened to lectures on the rules of football and then took to the practice field and actually ran plays, taking in the fundamentals and the finer points of offense and defense.

The head of the De-Nazification Program was as proud as a dog with a hemstitched tail to see all those Hans-and-Fritz fellows no longer goose-stepping under the swastika, but rather crouching down in a three-point stance in a double-wingback formation under a used football helmet donated by a high school in Front Royal, Virginia.

Came finally the day of the big game. The first football game in history ever played by two teams made up of enemy prisoners of war. The report didn t say whether high school bands and cheerleaders made the tableau complete, but at least there was to be a game, with the Pentagon architects of POW football beaming down from the 50-yard line.

The kickoff, according to reports, went off fairly normally. On the very first play from scrimmage, however, the whole scheme unraveled. The ball was hiked back to a running back, at which point ALL OF THE OTHER 21 MEN ON THE FIELD MADE A BEELINE FOR THE GUY WITH THE BALL!

They chased him down and pummeled him ferociously into the turf. He was carried off the field on a stretcher. And that was the end of the Democracy-Through-Football effort of America’s De-Nazification Program.

So, what did that teach us? Not a lot; perhaps only that those German soldiers, after they returned home, should not count heavily on returning to America as immigrants and winning lucrative berths in the NFL.

I was reminded of all that while watching them try to bury Arafat in Ramallah. Palestinians trying to bury Yasser Arafat had a lot in common with German prisoners trying to play American football.

A famous wit once wondered how many parties are thrown each year simply for the pleasure of NOT inviting somebody. France, ad-libbing protocol as it went along, staged a highly unusual airport sendoff ceremony for Arafat befitting a beloved chief of state of a closely allied nation.

Why? To honor Arafat and his unborn-again-and-again-and-again Palestinian state? Not quite.

I believe France brought out all that pomp-and-circumstance as a neat way to stick it to Israel. You can haul me in on charges of aggravated simplism, but to my dying day I’ll believe France hates Israel principally because France collapsed so ignobly under German attack in 1940 while the world was expecting big things from France; and, in contrast, Israel - only nine miles wide at its waist - has six times already dazzled the world as a military prodigy.

In Cairo, Egypt, a formal, dignified service was held for Arafat for those Arab leaders who refused to set foot in Ramallah or anyplace else under Israeli control. Watch what happens next.

The helicopter carrying Arafat’s body was forced to flutter aloft for 25 minutes because the mob of 20,000 grief-crazed Palestinians swarmed all over the place uncontrollably, giving the copter no place to land.

A ceremony was planned for Arafat’s resting place in Ramallah, but it never happened. The unrelenting mob made anything resembling a dignified service impossible. So they just buried him, and that was that.

So, what did THAT teach us? For all willing to learn, it taught that all the conflicting commentaries on Arafat’s life are a distraction.

Those who condemn Arafat as the inventor of plane hijacking and the man who redesigned terror to target civilians - the younger the better - as well as those who hail him as a wily and resolute leader of his people are useless until they change the subject.

What follows will be widely regarded as pro-Israel boosterism spewing ridicule and contempt upon the Palestinians. That's unfortunate. It's nothing of the kind. It's really a desperate call for peace from an American Jew who's made 23 visits to Israel and her neighbors and thinks he sees something that might be helpful.

Look fairly now upon the Palestinians. Anger is their national anthem. Corruption is their leaders’ way of life. Failure seethes out of every cobblestone alley. Democracy and stability can't find suitable soil in which to sink roots.

You blame the 37-year Israeli occupation? Fair enough, provided you can show me an example of democracy and stability in any other Arab country. And by stability I mean the stability of DEMOCRACY, not the stability of military and police repression.

Now look at Israel, the only democracy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Israel's parliament, the Knesset, contains Arabs who wish the dismemberment of the state of Israel. Arabs are denied one and only one right in Israel: They may not serve in the armed forces. Israel explains, "We don't want to force them to take up arms against their own people." A lot of visitors to Israel are shocked to learn that security at Israel's major international airport is handled by Moslems, not Jews! The Druze, Moslems who broke from Arab Islam centuries ago and who support the Israeli democratic state, guard Ben Gurion Airport.

In 1976 Israel planned a commando raid to attempt to rescue Israelis and others who were on a plane hijacked by terrorists and held hostage in a warehouse at Entebbe Airport in Idi Amin’s Uganda.

The military concluded that the window of opportunity for the raid was so tight they would have to load the planes and take off BEFORE the raid had been approved by the Israeli Cabinet. The needs of the military and democracy collided!

The Israeli resolution? The planes would take off and head for Africa, but they would circle Sharm el Sheikh at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula while the Israeli Cabinet deliberated. If the order came to abort the mission, the planes would return to Israel. If the Cabinet's decision were to proceed with the raid, the planes would quit circling and proceed.

The planes never had to circle. The Cabinet’s OK was radioed in code and the planes proceeded. Israeli commandoes rescued all the hostages and returned to Israel, losing only one Israeli commando, the leader of the mission, Yoni Netanyahu, the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who later became prime minister of Israel.

Just as the French, in my analysis, suffer self-esteem deflation when they contemplate Israel's battlefield valor compared to France’s own record of collapse and collaboration, the Palestinians know they are failures forced to live in the blinding glare of Israeli success. That's tough for any human.

France reacts by excoriating Israel at every opportunity, even if they have to confect opportunities. The Palestinians react by blaming their failure on Israel, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Arabs in the 20-plus Arab states NOT occupied by Israel do no better.

At the moment, the well-meaning "even-handed" world either cannot or will not grasp one terrible fact of Middle East life: The Palestinians do not seek a homeland alongside Israel; they seek a homeland REPLACING Israel.

Columnist Sid Zion, 30 years ago, asked the best question ever. In the early days of earnest groping for a "Two-State Solution" Zion said, "Do you all really think Arafat’s going to be content running the post office in Nablus?"

For the Palestinians, overthrowing Israel won’t work. Emulating Israel might. Democracy, discipline, inter-factional cooperation, the abnegation of violence, the institution of self-blame, and education – education without the textbooks that ask, "If you kill a Jew on Monday, two Jews on Tuesday, four Jews each on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, how many Jews have you killed that week?" (I'm not making that up!)

You say there's no tradition of democracy among the Palestinians? Start one!

Postscript. In the 1980s I checked into the Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem. The desk clerk asked me if I’d mind waiting a few minutes; they wanted to send a technician up to my room to make sure I’d be getting all the TV channels I was entitled to. I was a bit disgruntled because I hadn’t come to Israel to watch television.

Once in the room I surfed the available channels and found something puzzling. One of the channels featured an American movie that offered Arabic subtitles, but none in Hebrew. I knew the Israeli population spoke English to a praiseworthy extent, but not to the point where they could show an American movie without Hebrew subtitles.

On my way out of the the hotel I asked the desk clerk why an Israeli TV channel would show an American movie with Arabic, not Hebrew, subtitles.

He explained that the channel I was watching was not an Israeli channel. It was a Jordanian channel. Israel and Jordan were officially at war at the time.

Now then. People were shot by the Nazis for listening to enemy radio during World War II. People were sent to labor camps in the Soviet gulag for listening to the Voice of America or the BBC during the Cold War. Many dictatorships have forbidden listening to the enemy. Others merely discourage listening to the enemy. Democracies are apathetic. America doesn’t care whether you listen to the enemy or not.

Only Israel makes you wait in the lobby while they send a technician to your room to make you don’t MISS the broadcasts of the enemy.

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