Sunday night I attended a "Town Meeting" talk by Israeli Consul General Meier Shlomo (great name - Martin Solomon in Hebrew) and Boston Globe reporter Charles Radin concerning the Gaza Disengagement, "After Gaza: Looking Ahead." It was held at a Lexington (suburban Boston) Synagogue. Turnout was good -- I'm guessing around 2-250 people. Mostly an older crowd, as usual for these things.

I had thought it was to start at 7:00, so I was there plenty early for the real 7:30 start time. The first thing that struck me was how much security there was present. I've been to a fair number of these evening programs, usually with far more controversial speakers, and I've never seen this much security -- at least 15 police officers with metal detectors and a bag search and separate "Temple Members" and "Community" entrances. I figured this was overkill, but come to find out that the local "Peace and Human Rights" contingent was allowed out of McLean Hospital for the evening, so a serious armed police presence was considered necessary.

Since I was inside the hall reading a book at the time, I didn't catch the shenanigans going on outside until I was driving home. I missed this:

Boston Globe: Protester arrested outside Israeli's speech

Poor Charlie Radin. He was the voice from the "Left" for the evening (obviously -- he's from the Globe, after all) and couldn't resist a couple of Vietnam references (message to MSM: find a new paradigm), and one 'just think, if Clinton hadn't overreached, maybe things would have turned out different for Gore in Florida.' It's not even Halloween yet and he was already trying to scare us! When I was driving out, there was a woman holding a hand-painted sign saying "IS CHARLIE RADIN A CLOSET ZIONIST?" (Hence the name of this post) Ouch. The things some people say. I mean that's really low. See Charlie, you just can't be far enough to the left for some people.

I have audio of the entire evening (I can't believe I forgot my camera), but it was overall fairly pedestrian. Charlie Radin told a couple of interesting anecdotes. One such was during the discussion of the use of Israel and the Palestinians as an all-purpose Arab excuse. Radin described being in the home of a Saudi Sheik who, after ensuring that neither he nor any member of his family had any Jewish blood, explained that it was really the Jews that were keeping the Muslims and the Christians apart, and that this was part of Jewish world plans -- something completely apart from anything having to do with Israel, and not at all a fringe belief in his experience. Nazi stuff.

Shlomo's opening speech didn't even mention the disengagement but was instead his boiler-plate on how awesome Israel is. He didn't discuss the disengagement at all until the Q&A.

Only one moonbat managed to filibuster the mic at all (the guy wearing a yarlumka in the top picture on this page, although he wasn't wearing it that night). They were mostly outside.

The bottom line from both the left and the right inside the hall that night is that no one knows quite what's next, but that the ball is more or less in the Palestinians' court, but that's certainly not the view, I think, from the Left outside the hall, either in close proximity or world-wide.