i've never understood why people commit such statements to posterity.
j
On Thursday, May 9, 2002, at 10:46 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> [someone who thought this was amusing sent this to me]
>
> From Dennis Miller:
>
> "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
> 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 co! uld'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 cour! se 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 percentage
> 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 id . . .
> uh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)"
>