Olives
Rosenblum, Mort
Pit Stop Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit Mort Rosenblum North Point Press I 3.r6 pages I $25 REVIEWED BY Joe Queenan T en years ago, International Herald Tribune editor Mort...
...The trees can live to be 700 years old...
...Gethsemane" means "olive press...
...Many of these dupes are Americans...
...Olives have permeated every Mediterranean culture from prehistory to last week," he writes, noting that there are 14o references to this often overlooked fruit in the Bible...
...Israel made sacrifices for peace by signing a peace treaty with Jordan...
...President Mubarak has never visited Jerusalem...
...A decade later, Rosenblum has become a certified oliophile, a man so deeply enraptured by the humble, perhaps even obscure, olive that he is capable of saying things such as: "Olives, like grapes, are essential to any life worth living...
...Nevertheless, competition for agricultural subsidies from the European Union make it very lucrative to file false reports about a farm's olive oil production—and attempts to get at the real figures can sometimes be fatal: "No one, for example, has yet explained why an olive-oil inspector named Antonio Tarsitani turned up full of bullet holes at a freeway service station in June 1993...
...Pit Stop Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit Mort Rosenblum North Point Press I 3.r6 pages I $25 REVIEWED BY Joe Queenan T en years ago, International Herald Tribune editor Mort Rosenblum bought a broken-down old farm in Provence...
...His message—there's nothing new under the sun—is hardly original, but his manner of telling it is...
...He also explains the relationship between olives and the Mafia...
...Saudi Arabia is a monarchical tyranny...
...Best of all...
...As the world now knows, these weapons were turned on Israeli soldiers and civilians at the very first opportunity that the Palestinian leaders provoked...
...Fortunately, under the current Israeli government such a surrender is not in the cards...
...There is little thanks on the part of Egypt for this generosity and this sacrifice for peace...
...Just be sum to allow six weeks for your change to take effect...
...So he opens witha fusillade of surprising facts and figures, thus making his project seem a smidgen less quirky...
...Iraq, under its dictator Saddam Hussein, is a rogue state attacking its neighbors and killing its own citizens...
...Sudan is engaged in the systematic slaughter and enslavement of its black African people...
...There is persistent pressure on Israel to bring "sacrifices for peace...
...1 TAS Address Changes Made Easy...
...What are the facts...
...it captured the Golan Heights from Syria, which had been used for decades to shell and spread tenor over much of northern Israel...
...MOVING...
...The two most important olive-oil-producing countries, however, are Italy and Spain, and the relationship between them is tenuous...
...Rome had a separate stock market and merchant marine for oil...
...Having established its vital role throughout history, Rosenblum fills us in on what the fruit's been up to lately...
...Rosenblum, who has worked for everyone from the Washington Post to Vanity Fair to AP, knows that in seeking to immortalize the olive he may have a tough sell on his hands...
...He is unwilling to consider even an ice-cold peace, except for Israel's total surrender of the Golan Heights...
...The greatest sacrifice for peace that Israel has brought was the resuscitation of the bankrupt and moribund PLO terror organization and the acceptance of it "chairman" Yasser Arafat as a negotiating partner...
...Here are three good sacrifices that the Arabs could bring for peace: (1) Abandon the insistence on recovering the Golan...
...Subscriber Service P.O...
...It is understood that these "sacrifices" refer to greater "flexibility" in dealing with the Arabs, but mean primarily that Israel should allow its dismemberment, in order to bring peace to the region...
...and because the last book I read by an English-speaking journalist who had settled in the south of France was an appalling piece of condescending twaddle by Peter Mayle, I began reading Olives with a sense of apprehension, even dread...
...Since its creation in 1948, Israel has been subjected to almost constant Arab terror, to unceasing Arab aggression, and to three major wars...
...For peace with Egypt, Israel returned the entire Sinai...
...1. Please write your new address in the space provided...
...Along with the farm came 150 olive trees, about which he knew nothing...
...Box 655, Mt...
...It has yielded control of the Gaza Strip and of all major 'West Bank" cities to the Palestinian Authority and has agreed to detailed plans to grant further autonomy to the Palestinians...
...Just as Petroski used the history of that humble writing implement as an oblique prism for viewing society, Rosenblum has used the olive as a way of telling the story of Western civilization from an entirely different perspective...
...Kahn soybean sagas in the New Yorker...
...Aristotle philosophized about them...
...The Greek city states did not collapse until the domestic olive oil business was destroyed...
...Your tax-deductible 56 contribution allows us to publish these important messages...
...because I do not care for martinis...
...As for Syria, no offered sacrifice for peace seems to be sufficient to satisfy its dictator, President Hafez Assad...
...In that peace, Israel granted Jordan a large yearly allowance of fresh water from its own dwindling and meager resources and accepted a petty demand for "border rectification"—yielding of land...
...He finds that the best eating olives come from Morocco, the best oil comes from Palestine, and the best mythology comes from France...
...The earliest Olympic flame was a burning olive bough...
...President Assad of Syria has occupied Lebanon and has killed and tortured thousands...
...In what is probably the ultimate folly in this process, Israel has tolerated the formation of a Palestinian "police force" (actually an army) of 40,000 menthe largest police-to-population ratio in the world (!)—and has equipped this "police force' with a complete arsenal of automatic weapons...
...Many Sacrifices for Peace...
...I am still not convinced that the olive is essential to any life worth living—I'd still probably have to go with Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin...
...It is the coolest possible peace...
...68 February 1997 - The American Spectator You deserve a factual look at...
...It was created by Arab propaganda to induce Israel to agree to its dismemberment, to give strategic assets to those who are determined to destroy it...
...How strange that nobody asks the Palestinians or any of the Arab states to bring any sacrifices for peace...
...His search for the perfect olive carries him from Provence to Jerusalem to Croatia to Fez...
...3) Disarm the Palestinian "police...
...Not content with reviving his own dying trees, not satisfied with his trips to the Moroccan hinterland and strife-tom Israel, the author decides to take a jaunt to Croatia just so he can check out the local product...
...2) Stop the clamor about the division of Jerusalem...
...Instead, Rosenblum has written a beguiling, politely encyclopedic book that reminded me in some ways of Henry Petroski's The Pencil...
...Box 590359 ^ San Francisco,CA 94159 FLAME is a 501(c)(3) educational institution...
...Sacrifices for Peace" What else does the world expect Israel to do...
...Greeks used so much oil to lubricate their athletes that they devised a curved blade, the strigil, to scrape it off...
...olive trees wither and are reborn...
...Billy clubs are good enough for London Bobbies...
...and it conquered Gaza and the Sinai Desert that had been used by Egypt as staging ground and invasion route to Israel...
...By the time Ekron began exporting large quantities, olive oil was far more important to daily life than petroleum is today," he writes...
...Frank Sinatra was so taken with French oils that he would ask the singer Charles Aznavour to bring him a fresh supply every year...
...If this was going to be another one of those rustic diaries bustling with canny, mustachioed Frenchmen peddling 15 miles in a hailstorm to buy a baguette, I was going to make short work of it...
...The controlled Egyptian press spews daily anti-Israel venom...
...2. Attach the mailing label from your most recent issue...
...That's all there is to it...
...In the end, the most appealing feature of the book is Rosenblum's own passion...
...A sacrifice for peace brought in vain—probably a major act of folly on the part of Israel...
...2) Stop the clamor about the division of Jerusalem...
...Status was determined by who could afford to have themselves oiled down regularly...
...Renew my subscription for one year (twelve issues?35) O Payment enclosed I71 Bill me later O At various times TAS rents its subscriber list to other organizations...
...Here are three good sacrifices that the Arabs could bring for peace: (1) Abandon the insistence on recovering the Golan...
...If he ran late, Sinatra was on the phone howling...
...In order to achieve peace with its neighbors, Israel brought sacrifices for peace that have no precedent in the history of the world...
...In a world where people have a hard time making a connection with things that happened zo years ago, Rosenblum connects us all with our ancient roots...
...And conquering gladiators, like the Roman emperors, were honored with olives...
...In Egypt, thousands of Copts have been killed and their churches burned...
...Name: (Please Print) Address: City: State: Zip: Date of change: IL VCAFRM...
...The concept to bring "sacrifices for peace" is a new one that has never before found application in world history...
...This is the most poignant part of the book, quietly restating the author's basic Made Possible by a Grant From Dead White Males theme: Wicked men wither and die...
...Egyptian pharaohs were sealed into pyramids with golden carvings of olives...
...JOE QUEENAN'S latest book is The Unkindest Cut: How a Hatchet-Man Critic Made His Own $7,000 Movie and Put It All on His Credit Card (Hyperion...
...3) Disarm the Palestinian "police...
...According to Rosenblum, the Italian olive industry can barely produce enough oil to satisfy domestic needs, so it must purchase enormous quantities of Spanish oil, mix it with the Italian product, and then sell it overseas to unsuspecting consumers who have no idea that they are being duped...
...because the very idea of someone writing a 316-page book about olives conjures up terrifying memories of those three-part E.J...
...It was the only source of light...
...Because I am not the sort of person who views olives as essential to a good life...
...If you prefer that your name not be rented please check here...
...In the Six-Day War, it recovered its heartland of Judea/Samaria (the 'West Bank") and the eastern part of Jerusalem...
...In this ill-advised process, foisted on Israel by world pressure and by its previous government, Israel has made far-reaching and existential sacrifices and concessions...
...There is much, much more of this to come...
...The PLO, apart from the bloody crimes that it has committed against Israel, has now established a virtual dictatorship in the territory allotted to it...
...3. Return this form to us at the address listed below...
...A Bizarre Concept...
...The Arab countries, not Israel, are killing peace in the Middle East...
...In his view, organized crime has much less influence over the industry than it did a generation ago...
...The ancient Philistines built their empire upon the olive oil trade, an industry that flourished until the seventh century B.C., when the Babylonians razed the capital city of Ekron...
...Olives bristles with such arcane information: the oil is highly effective in combating heart disease...
...They made cosmetics and medicines from it...
...But Rosenblum certainly makes a persuasive case...
...Morris, IL 61054-8084 1-800-524-3469 ATTACH ADDRESS LABEL HERE IMPORTANT: Allow six weeks for address change...
...Why should any more be needed to patrol Nablus, Hebron and Bethlehem...
...People cooked with it...
...This ad has been published and paid for by Fit AmE Fads and Logic about the Middle East PO...
Vol. 30 • February 1997 • No. 2
