Are you going to talk or fish?

One of my favorite fishing stories concerns an old small town fisherman who invites a young newcomer to go fishing with him. The next day two men head out onto the lake in their boat. The young man begins to assemble his rod and attach his bait. The older man watches him for awhile and then reaches into his tackle bag, pulls out a stick of dynamite, lights the fuse and throws it over the side of the boat. There ensues a large explosion and shortly many stunned and dead fish float to the surface which the old man begins to collect. The younger man is shocked and proceeds to berate his fishing partner. “You can’t do that; it is immoral and illegal.” The old man listens to the tirade for a few moments and then reaches into the bag, pulls out another stick of dynamite, hands to the young man and says “Are you gonna talk or fish”? It seems to me that this story has some relevance to current and upcoming events in Israel/Palestine. The international community including the US and George Bush have been strongly criticizing Israel for their continued expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since the Annapolis conference and for their failure to remove so called “illegal” settlements on the West Bank. This has happened before when the in 1997 the Clinton administration tried to prevent construction of settler housing in Har Homa/Abu Ghniem in occupied Jerusalem. After much discussion and threats regarding these settlements, Israel finally called the US’s bluff and the Clinton administration backed down and did nothing. It is clear that nothing will happen to forestall the continued settlement construction without strong US action. Talk won’t get it done. It is likely that, when George Bush visits Israel in the near future, Ehud Olmert will hand him a stick of dynamite and ask “Are you gonna talk or fish”?