What has Mark Helprin been taking?
The novelist and arm-chair strategist Mark Helprin who for some reason likes to brag about his service in the "Israeli air-force" (was he a pilot?) and looks like a British actor Edward Fox (the one above on the top) has a very silly op-ed the New York Times today: First there is the idiotic analogy of the Israeli-Egyptian peace process, something about "similar metaphysics." WHEN considering President Bush’s new plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, it would be wise to bear in mind that because political initiatives in the Middle East are cursed with such a high failure rate analysts sometimes use the odds as a substitute for craft. After Anwar Sadat’s spectacular trip to Jerusalem in November 1977, the press, mistaking cynicism for wisdom, was skeptical. After all, in the first 25 years of its existence, Israel had had to fight Egypt four times. But the past was no guide to the future, for in the last 30 years the peace of Menachem Begin and Anwar...