The Myths of Palestine and Palestinians

Tuesday May 07, 2002 16:26

by Dennis Miller - Satirist

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 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 G-d's Earth, and if you've ever been around G-d'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, G-d 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 id . . . uh, that is,
what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)"