Larry Miller's Take on
The Middle East Situation
 A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to
all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just
a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I'm a giver.
Here we go: the Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that:
There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two
thousand years.
Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern
invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there
were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there
were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing
oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the
"Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and
"nation."
So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to
describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out
they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs From The
Same General Area Who Are In Deep Denial About Never Being Able To Accomplish Anything In
Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And
Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then:
"Adjacent Jew-Haters."
Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No,
they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years,
especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to
have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually
have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the
other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of
course-that's where the real fun is-but mostly they want Israel. Why?
For one thing, trying to destroy Israel-or "The Zionist Entity" as their
textbooks call it-for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to
divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon
most illiterate, poorest, and
tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know
that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits
waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim MidEast. Unless I'm missing
something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way,
thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews. Think of
all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the
middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack
of matches, everyone will be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the
string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to
drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.
My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers.
Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple
brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite
to themselves? Of course not. Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for
generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the
murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs
baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to
themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to
death.
Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations
coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize
our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than
stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in
any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already
lost some.
After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all
terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after
months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every
day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint. If America
were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be
screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the
Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad
idea . . . uh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)
Note: This article is commonly mis-quoted
as originally being Dennis Miller's take on the Middle East. However,
it is really a reprint from an original
article written by humorist Larry Miller. |
