Straussed Out

As long ago as 1868, the United Kingdom acquired a Prime Minister who, although a baptised and practising Christian, was of unbroken Jewish matrilineal descent, had a clearly Jewish name and face, and was always referred to as a Jew, which remains the case to this day. No one remotely like that has ever been President of the United States, or come anywhere near attaining that office. And imagine if a Jew nevertheless became President of France.

In fact, the world's third-largest Jewish community, after those in Israel and the United States, is in France. French Jews says what most American Jews think: they already have a country, and they don't need another one. So say the Muslims of India, always more numerous than the entire, not quite entirely Muslim, population of Pakistan. So say the Irish Catholics of the United Kingdom, always considerably more numerous than the entire, far from entirely Catholic, population of the Irish Free State or the Irish Republic. And so say the Jews of France, part of a Jewry in countries that one is perfectly free to leave which has always been vastly more numerous than the, nowhere near entirely Jewish, population of Israel.

Such a Jew with his finger on a nuclear button, with control of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and in overall command of the world's third-largest army, navy and air force? Plenty in Israel would have been quite indifferent. But those who would speak for them in America certainly would not have been. Ho, hum. I hope that they enjoy handing these things to Marine Le Pen. Not that they would care. There have been no Jews on the European mainland since the Forties, don't you know?