My son Aharon was impressed with me when he shared this Hebrew clip:
I not only understood the (very simple) Hebrew, but also his accompanying comment which translates to: “This is the concept of Oslo.”
I suspect that hearing the title of the clip in English will be enough to key in the perspicacious readers of Israellycool as to what is happening here. Ernie is offered the contents of a bottle of air for one shekel. He is persuaded to see this as a bargain by the shyster in the trench coat (you use it to breathe, to play the trumpet, and etc.) and hapless Ernie coughs up the dough, persuaded that he’s getting something amazing for just about nothing.
Shyster pours the air into Ernie’s hands as Ernie exclaims over the vast quantity of air he has received for just one shekel.
Bert comes along and excitedly, Ernie waves, forgetting that he has air in his hands. Whoops. He loses all that air.
Oslo: we were offered nothing for a bargain price. We paid for a lot of nothing with settlement freezes, Gaza, and all sorts of aid and concessions and got nothing in return. No concessions. No recognition of Israel.
Heck, they won’t even pay their electric bill.
But here’s where my son Aharon is wrong. We did get something for our “bargain” price. We got terror and plenty of it.
We just never got what we paid for.
We paid for peace.
