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Sometimes a good idiom is the best we can do.  

In French, they say, “Its like a fence eating the crop.”  

Often, we hear people say, “Its like cutting off your nose to spite your face,” or 

“Throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” or 

“Burning down the barn to kill the rats.” “Its like a goat left to guard the cabbage patch.”  

But for me, what the news this week comes down to is best summed up by the expression, “Its like the fox watching the hen house.”

Dear UN, 

“You know, on behalf of this California liberal, you really make it ever more difficult to be loyal to my stripes.  Iran? Really? You put Iran in charge, the newest VP of the UN General Assembly AND  appointed them as secretary for the non-proliferation and disarmament committee?  What the heck is going on?  As US Representative Chris Lu said: “Iran’s record, unfortunately, speaks for itself. It defies UN Security Council arms embargoes, violates the human rights of its own citizens, and exports violence and weapons, fostering insecurity and inciting violence throughout the Middle East and across the globe.”  This isn’t LIKE the fox watching the hen house, this is it.

And to those of you reading this getting your “what-about-Israels” rarin to go, keep your powder dry.  You have absolutely no ground to stand on.  At Israel’s worst moment, there is absolutely no equivalence to Iran’s best.  Iran is committed to the publicly avowed oath that Israel should cease to exist.  It has for decades sworn allegiance to the decimation of Israel and the Jewish people, and it is single-handedly responsible for some of the most heinous acts committed against Jews and peace-loving people around the world….in Syria and Lebanon and Yemen…and more, and continues to support Russia against Ukraine. 

But as my dear friend once said in session, after momentarily stopping to ask his therapist how he was doing, “Enough about you, let’s talk about me.”  If the UN charter for the world is to make peace and stability, you seem to be kicking me off the team.  You’re asking me, a white, Jewish, peace-loving, liberal, to affirm my faith in you, despite the fact that you are insisting that I could possibly trust a teammate who looks at me and says, “We’re in it for the long haul, and we have plenty of patience.  And you in the US or Israel or anywhere else are not in our Master Plan.”  Don’t you care about me and my welfare?  Does it not matter that if given their druthers, they would just “do without me?”  Isn’t there something in the UN charter that affirms the dignified safety of all human beings?” Why is that not applicable to me?

And to those of my friends who may be making the argument that we should keep our friends close and our enemies closer, do you pay attention to Jewish history at all?  There is no fathomable strategic notion that justifies an act like this, and I know this may make me a persona non grata on the Left, but there isn’t a “rightward-enough” position I wouldn’t take to protect my family, who, are on a short list (3 and about 11 million or so) whom Iran would make invisible if given the opportunity. 

I write this note to you, UN, mostly because I want my congregation, family, and friends, to know where I stand.  With this decision to appoint Iran your VP and to report on the UN efforts to block the growth of nuclear arms, (and let’s face it, so very many more in the past), your very legitimacy is undermined completely and totally.

Your friend,

Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss