Thanks For Stopping In, and By The Way, Fuck You

Israeli hospitality at its finest:

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Tuesday its intention to build 1,600 new housing units in a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem, infuriating Palestinians and upsetting the American administration, as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed to the Israeli leadership here “absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.”

...Mr. Biden, who will stay in the region through Friday, was not forewarned of the interior ministry announcement and spent the day making a concerted and highly public show of American support for Israel.

Good times, good friends. He then got back in the clown car that is American mid-east policy and rode off to Palestine where he will no doubt spend much of the time wagging his finger at Abbas and Fayyad for being such intransigient little wogs. But not before running the compulsory performance gauntlet at Yad Vashem:

After his morning meetings with President Peres and Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday, Mr. Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill, visited the gravesite of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to reconciliation with the Palestinians.

He then toured Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and center. After signing its guest book, he said: “The phrase ‘never again’ is used so often it almost has lost its meaning. But then again all you have to do is walk through Yad Vashem to understand how incredible the journey has been for world Jewry and why Israel is such a central part of its existence.”

Yeah, never again. Now try walking through Gaza and finding clean drinking water. Or locating the memorial for the 91 victims of the terrorist attacks on the King David Hotel, the bombing of which Bibi and the Israeli reactionaries are so fond that they held a celebration in 2006 to remind themselves why killing innocents is wrong except when they do it.

I'm reminded of the legend of Samson, whose strength resided in his hair, and whose pride and lust rendered him defenseless against the woman who shorn him and delivered him to his enemies, to be blinded and chained. Israel has become our Delilah, and we, helpless to resist, imagine her fuck yous are actually pillow talk, and walk into her arms to be rendered impotent. The question is, who is it who will blind and bind us, and how long will it take for our power to grow back?