Cutting off your head to save aspirin

A quick couple of things today.

First, as predicted, the Jewish left is getting on the bandwagon of a deal with Syria to outflank Hizbollah and Iran.

In the latest weekly Forward newspaper, Martin von Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says Israel should pursue a deal with Syria in order to cut off a route for materiel for the Lebanon-based terror group. The argument is that without Syria, there would be no axis of terror in that region.

Of course, von Creveld says in passing, Israel would have to give up the Golan Heights. But, so what, he says. Israel may better be able to defend itself without the heights. Since there is a lot of space for military maneuvering on the heights and only a couple of roads off them, he says, any Syrian attempt to invade Israel would necessarily fail.

Of course, Syria has no helicopters or paratroopers to circumvent such a strategy.

In any case, giving back the heights will cut out much of Israeli's burgeoning wine industry, as well as tourism. And the blood spilled in 1967 to get the region. Just look at the history of what Israel has gotten for its land concessions:
-- for giving back the Sinai, a cold peace with Egypt;
-- for giving up Gaza, rockets and attacks.
-- for giving up most of the West Bank, recriminations, bombings, rocket attacks.

Giving up the Golan Heights to weaken Iran and other terror entities is like cutting off your head to prevent headaches and save aspirin. It may work, but at what cost.

Seinfeld the Commission Nazi

On another front: Don't you love irony. More of it has come from the cast of the former Seinfeld show.

It seems a court in New York has told Jerry Seinfeld he must pay $100,000 to his ex-real estate agent in finding the comedian a Manhattan home.

The agent, who is a Sabbath-observing Jew, was not available one Saturday to show the place to Seinfeld because she had shut off her phone and didn't answer his call one Saturday. Sabbath-observing Jews don't talk on the phone that day. So, the impatient Seinfeld went to the home without the agent and cut a deal with the owner. He turned into the Commission Nazi (as in the Soup Nazi, a running character on the Seinfeld show). The Soup Nazi, when he was upset at a customer, would say, "No soup for you." So, Seinfeld, the Commission Nazi said, "No Commission for You."

The courts saw it another way. Seinfeld had signed an agreement with the real estate agent and had to fork over the $100,000 commission, even it was not convenient, the court said.

What's the irony?

Seinfeld, who is Jewish, was ready to gyp a fellow Jew out of a six-figure commission because she had the gall to keep the Sabbath. Here's a Jew who apparently thought acting Jewish was inconvenient. But when the fellow Seinfeld actor Michael Richards, who played Kramer on the show, was nailed for racist comments in California, he said he felt Jewish, as if that would be helpful.

The non-Jew who conveniently feels Jewish and the Jew who apparently doesn't want to deal with someone who acts Jewish because it's not convenient.

Hence the delicious irony.