Lamb Lies Down With Lion

Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus on National Review Online

Jay posts his next installment from Israel. This joke sent in to him by a reader made me laugh. I'm surprised I have not heard it before.

An American minister goes to the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem and is astounded to see in one enclosure a lion and a lamb. Unable to contain himself, he rushes to the director's office. "I must tell you how wonderful this is," he exclaims. "Here we are in this violent, hate-filled land, yet I see, as the Biblical prophecy has it, a lion and a lamb lying down together. How do you do it?"

The director shrugs. "Easy. Every morning we toss in another lamb."

In this segment Jay interviews "Efraim Halevy, the Man Who Kept the Secrets (to quote the title of a book about Richard Helms, the late and legendary CIA director). Halevy was with the Mossad from 1961 to roughly yesterday, ending as chief. He, indeed, knows the secrets — not that he's sharing all that much."

Regarding our CIA in the Middle East.

I ask Halevy about the CIA's ability in the Middle East — or lack of it. He is not so dismissive — not at all. In fact, he is stoutly defensive of the CIA, and of George Tenet, in particular. They are doing as good a job as possible, he implies. (Halevy wrote an article — about intelligence inquiries in the U.S. and Britain — for The Economist. Here.) People have to gain some perspective, he continues. Israel occupied the West Bank militarily from 1967 to 1994 — that should mean knowing the ground pretty well. "Yet we still have had 1,000 dead — and we are now disengaging."

Another interesting observation.

As I leave, I meet an unlikely IDF soldier — a blonde, blue-eyed southern belle. A real Dixie beauty, from Birmingham, Ala. She inquires of our group, "Y'all from the States?" She herself is an Israeli who has experienced both countries (obviously). As we talk, she mentions that she has been a kind of liaison to a group called Christian Friends of Israel. Back in Birmingham, she faced anti-Semitism — "but here, the Christians love Israel."

One day, I'm going to go see that land for myself.