Up There With Atlantis

It's not only G-d who works in mysterious ways. Ditto for certain historical phenomena - at least for those who dwell on Planet Zion.

Here are two examples of same culled from a recent opinion piece by Mark Leibler, national chairman of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), in The Australian, the Murdoch-owned newspaper of choice for Zionist heavies.  (Just to fill you in on the context of the piece, Leibler was responding to a "simplistic, contentious and counter-productive" op-ed by former foreign minister Bob Carr on the subject of Israeli settlements.)

The first of these phenomena constitutes, for Zionists at least, one of the greatest mysteries of all time. It is for them what Atlantis is for the rest of us.

Although it may take many forms, here it is in Leibler's current rendering:

"...Palestinians whose ancestors fled in 1948..." (Carr's view on settlements is counter-productive, The Australian, 18/2/14)

Typically, for Zionists such as Leibler, despite their much-touted reputation for grey matter, the 'why' of the Palestinians "fleeing" in 1948 always seems to elude them.

It's like, Now you see 'em, now you don't/ Here today, gone tomorrow/ Funny, I could've sworn they were here a minute ago. Know what I mean?

Like Churchill's Russia, 1948's "fleeing" Palestinians is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma - only more so!

But hey, how convenient was that "fleeing", how very, very convenient. More convenient even than a chain of 7/11s, and then some.

The second phenomenon is equally mysterious:

"Settlers were not transferred or deported into the West Bank in a 'forcible' manner - as Article 49 [of the Fourth Geneva Convention] implies... They moved there of their own volition."

That's right, conveniently, the Fourth GC simply doesn't apply to Israel's colonization of the West Bank because Israel was, always has been, and forever will be just an innocent bystander in the process.

Like God, who created the heavens and the earth and all that jazz in just six (6!) days, and took a well deserved break on the 7th, Israel was so damn rooted from conquering and occupying and cleansing the West Bank in just six (6!) days in June, 1967 that he too rested on the 7th and apparently hasn't lifted a finger (except to the rest of the world) since.

And lo, he, Israel, just sat back and watched in total astonishment as, in the following decades, wave after wave of Israeli settlers crossed the Green Line into the occupied - sorry, disputed - territory, drawn there by some mysterious, totally inexplicable force, never to leave.

Spooky, eh?