My Mideast Punchlines: Sheikh it up, baby, now….

2019 may have only just begun but already we have a strong contender for the most ridiculous anti-Israel article of the year.

Although the Financial Times sells itself as a reliable source of information, a recent piece left the HonestReporting team astounded. An article by academic Shela Sheikh entitled “Corinne Silva: Plants, Power and the Israeli State” attacks Israeli shrubs and trees for “erasing memory” of other peoples.

Yes, plants.

Sheikh focuses on a series of photographs taken by Corinne Silva examining “the inherent links between cultivation and colonisation.” The piece is dotted with bland photographs of typical suburban scenes – nondescript white fences, stubby trees, and the irrigation tubes that are ubiquitous in Israel, literally bringing life to a desert land. Alas, all these are twisted into being “designed with the aim of transplanting Israelis… on to land formerly populated by Palestinians.”

Perhaps Ms Sheikh should take a leaf out of Prince Charles’ book and talk to the plants instead of castigating them. Turning common sense on its head, she deserves the following pun: Sheikh it up baby, now…twist and shout.

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My Mideast Punchlines: shaggy (hot) dog story…

Here’s a shaggy (hot) dog story. The day after Christmas, Bloomberg News published an article titled “New York Hot Dog Rabbi to Make Qatar Kosher for World Cup.”

Apparently, his name is Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hamptons Synagogue.

Well bully (beef) for him. Far too many Jewish rabbis have been cozying up to the rulers of a country that not only supports Hamas’ desire to exterminate the Jewish state, but has a law banning Israelis from entering. God knows what will happen if Israel reaches the finals. Also, Qatar’s human rights record is appalling.  Nearly 2,000 migrant workers are alleged to have already died in near slave-like conditions building Qatar’s World Cup stadiums. Now, we all know that kosher means “clean”, but the hot dogs will be the only clean thing about Qatar during the World Cup. The rest of it, including the anti-Semitic Al-Jazeera TV station, is about as clean as a pig in shit. My message to all Jews: stay away, and let the hot dogs rot.

 

My Mideast Punchlines: Kung-fu tighter…

A short but steamy sex scene with Jackie Chan in the 2010 movie The Shinjuku Incident sneaked by Iranian censors, causing uproar with the authorities, The Algemeiner reported.

Heads rolled, including the director of the regional channel Kish TV, which aired the movie. An investigation ordered by Iran’s highest authority in broadcasting was promised.

Sex scenes are strictly taboo on Iranian TV. In fact, any intimate contact on the public screen is forbidden in the Islamic Republic (male/female and certainly same sex, as the punishment in Iran for homosexuality is death).

The incident generated thousands of posts on Iranian social media mocking the regime’s hysteria over the brief scene.

So, control of the airwaves in Iran couldn’t be tighter. I am reminded of the old Iranian saying: one can have sex with a woman to procreate, sex with a young boy for fun, and sex with a goat for release. Everything, it appears, is permissible — as long as your keep gays and Jackie Chan out of it.

My Mideast Punchlines: what’s up, doc?

A doctor in Ohio who vowed to give the wrong medicines to Jews still has an active license.

Lara Kollab, who was outed by the organization Canary Mission last November, was working as a supervised resident the prestigious Cleveland Clinic from July through September of 2018.

Between 2011 to 2017, Kollab wrote a series of anti-Semitic posts on social media calling for violence against Jews, comparing them to dogs, minimizing the Holocaust, supporting the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement (BDS) against Israel (who she likened to Nazis) and claiming that Zionists controlled the U.S. media and schools.

In a particularly egregious post, she tweeted, ““hahha ewww.. ill purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds…”

The hospital said in a statement December 30 that she was no longer working at their facility, adding, “In no way do these beliefs reflect those of our organization. We fully embrace diversity, inclusion and a culture of safety and respect across our entire health system.”

Reminds me of another doc who gave Jews the wrong meds. His name was Mengele. Plus ça change….

My Mideast Punchlines: Triumph of the Ill…

Hamas’s 31^st anniversary was marked with a string of terror attacks and an official statement by the organization’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, rejecting any recognition of the legitimacy of Jewish statehood. This provides further proof, if any were needed, of the impossibility of reaching a long-term arrangement with the organization.

Haniyeh concludes his statement by reiterating the main precepts of Hamas’s vision, notably the establishment of a Palestinian state with all of Jerusalem as its capital, the continuation of “armed resistance” against Israel, and the rejection of the Jewish right to statehood. On its 31^st anniversary, Hamas thus remains as committed as ever to its genocidal worldview: “Jihad is jihad. Either we triumph or die as martyrs.”

Triumph cannot be guaranteed for the pathologically ill, Mr Haniyeh, but martyrdom can be arranged.

My Mideast Punchlines: Christmas confusion…

For years, the Palestinian Authority and Fatah have presented Jesus as a Palestinian as part of its fabricating an ancient Palestinian history.

This year was no exception. On the occasion of Christmas, a top Fatah official spoke of Jesus as “the first Palestinian” and “Christmas is one of the permanent Palestinian symbols.”

Meanwhile, a Gaza terror group called Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades warned the Strip’s 1,300 Christians not to celebrate Christmas.

A verse from the Koran, quoted on the left side of the flyer, warns Muslims “not to go the way of the Jews and the Christians, indeed God is not for the evil people.” The brigades added it is “absolutely forbidden” to celebrate the holidays in any capacity.

I’m sure the rapidly dwindling number of  Christians in Bethlehem are warmed by these dichotomous shenanigans. although it must be confusing being a symbol to some and a pariah to others. Still, it could be worse. They could just simply be pariahs,  like the Jews.

My Mideast Punchlines: droning on……

The British military reportedly used an Israeli anti-drone system to ground an unmanned aerial vehicle that shuttered the airfield at London’s Gatwick Airport for over 36 hours beginning Thursday, stranding tens of thousands of passengers.

Flights resumed Friday at Gatwick, the United Kingdom’s second busiest airport, while police said they were still hunting for the drone operator or operators and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said “military capabilities” were being deployed to safeguard the airport.

I don’t want to drone on about this, but you wouldn’t have heard about it from the BBC. The mandarins at Bush House are wont to stifle any positive news about Israel or it’s technological prowess. When it comes to Israel, the Beeb is only looking for boobs.

My Mideast Punchlines: oh, those mendacious m & m’s….

As Melanie Phillips writes, “the behavior of France and Germany in spearheading the subversion of U.S. sanctions against Iran is particularly odious.

Germany’s hypocrisy is stomach-turning. In 2008, its chancellor, Angela Merkel, came to Israel to say: ‘The Shoah fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive.’ Germany, she said, would always stand by Israel’s side; and she singled out Iran as the greatest threat to its security.

Even “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is no longer bothering to conceal his real side. Addressing the annual Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran last weekend, Rouhani called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that was formed as a result of World War II.

Yet although her foreign office condemned Rouhani’s remarks ‘in the strongest possible terms,’ Merkel is now Europe’s principal champion of his regime.”

Jewish values teach us that actions speak louder than words. Angela Merkel used to be considered a “righteous gentile” when it came to her support for Israel and the Jewish people. Easy to be such as long as the stakes are not too high. With her fawning supplication to the mad ayatollahs, those words from 2008 sound hollow. And what is Merkel’s reason for abandoning reason? Dosh, dough, moolah. You know, the green stuff. If those mendacious m & m’s, Merkel, Macron and May (if she lasts), join together to circumvent Trump’s sanctions, he should not hesitate to include them in the bad boys (and girls) list.

My Mideast Punchlines: should have called in Rentokil….

Operation Northern Shield, which was launched to expose and destroy Hezbollah tunnels along the border fence with Lebanon, is expected to continue for several weeks and the state of high alert in the North will continue, according to Israeli media reports Wednesday.

It is reasonable to assume that digging tunnels through rocks in the Galilee mountains, at a depth of 15 to 30 meters, takes years,” Dr. Maor Cohen, an expert on geography and the environment, told Maariv.

“The land in the hills of Galilee is very hard and not conducive for digging tunnels. These are limestone rocks, not soft sandy soil like by the Gaza border,” Cohen explained.

“Digging in limestone cannot be done using manual digging tools,” Cohen said. “It is reasonable to assume that the excavators used mechanical tools, which were apparently the source of the noise that residents of the communities on the Lebanese border had been reporting for years.”

So there you have it. Army commanders should be hanging their heads in shame. Some of those reporting the noises were told to go away and seek help from a shrink. We’ve all been there; scratching noises from your local neighbourhood mice. And the droppings are a clue. Maddening. But, of course, the solution is to either call in the local council or Rentokil. And if they don’t solve your problem, you probably will need to see a psychiatrist.

My Mideast Punchlines: Joburg’s sick joke…

The Johannesburg City Council on November 29 adopted a motion to rename Sandton Drive – a prominent thoroughfare in Johannesburg, which is home to most of South Africa’s 70,000-strong Jewish community – after Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. The move is not only hurtful to South African Jews and Israelis, but to all decent South Africans and people around the world.

It is also a direct offence to the US, whose consulate is currently situated on Sandton Drive.

The Haifa-born Khaled, 74, who now lives in Jordan, is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian and was one of the hijackers of TWA Flight 840 from Rome via Athens to Tel Aviv in 1969, and also took part in one of the four Dawson’s Field hijackings the following year.

So the carjacking capital of the world re-names a main thoroughfare after a hijacker. How apt. But then law and order is not one of South Africa’s strong points. There were 20,000 murder cases recorded in 2017/18. This gives South Africa a rather alarming 57 murders a day and at a rate of 35.7 people murdered per 100,000 population. Leila Khaled and her type would feel right at home there.