U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the American peace minister, has announced his aim to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in nine months. The Israeli side, at least, has agreed to this.
Nine months is an interesting time frame. Usually things that happen in such a period start with an activity that is pretty pleasant for everyone involved, but then the problems begin: The following months are plagued with nausea and vomiting, headaches and stomach aches and then, unless there is a miscarriage, a screaming creature comes out and defecates on everyone around it.
And we haven't even mentioned what will happen to this child when, at some point in his life, he learns that his parents divorced each other during those nine months.
Nine heady months under the auspices of John Kerry take us back to the days of Transylvanian ruler Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. One of his daughters -- Clarissa -- was well-known for carrying on with men in the forest around the castle, starting from a young age.
One day, Clarissa came home and informed her father, Dracula, that she was pregnant. Dracula was furious, and announced to his staff: "Bring me the man responsible for this, right this minute."
Dracula's servants immediately set out and scoured the kingdom in search of the man who impregnated Clarissa. After countless investigations and searches, the man was found and brought before Dracula. It was then that Dracula learned that this man was one of the richest men in Europe.
"You owe me compensation," Dracula informed the man.
The man replied: "If I have a son, I will buy him a castle with fields and forests and give him 20 servants."
"And if the baby is a girl-" Dracula inquired.
"She will get a smaller castle, a modest forest and ten servants," the man said.
Dracula considered the offer, and finally said, "Okay. I'll accept."
But then the rich man had a question of his own: "But wait," he said. "What if she miscarries-"
Dracula immediately replied: "If she miscarries then you will take her and do it with her again."
The scent of a woman
Professor Yaakov Frenkel has decided to withdraw his candidacy for the position of Bank of Israel governor. Even he, who was once accused of stealing a bottle of perfume, realized that this whole situation stinks.
Back to peace negotiations
Even before the peace talks had begun, that Holocaust denier Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that "in a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli -- civilian or soldier -- on our lands." This is a clearly racist declaration. The Nazis had a term for it: Judenrein -- clean of Jews.
But Abbas knows exactly what he is doing. Open anti-Semitic racism immediately makes you a darling of Israel's round-glasses-wearing bleeding hearts. All you have to do is be a racist anti-Semite and an entire Israeli camp will crown you the great hope for intergalactic peace. We love peace so much that we don't even care if it is in fact peace.
Which brings us to a story that happened several years ago: An old sputtering bus made the trip from Afula to Kfar Tavor. At the stop near Daburiyya, a huge Bedouin man boarded the bus and screamed: "Which one of you is Shalom-"
All the passengers were silent.
The Bedouin man screeched again: "Who here is Shalom-"
The passengers looked at each other and no one said a word.
Finally, a Jewish man rose to his feet and said, with a trembling voice: "I am Shalom."
The giant Bedouin man signaled to the driver to stop the bus. The driver stopped in the middle of the village and the big man grabbed the Jewish passenger by the collar, dragged him off the bus, tied him to a statue of a horseback guard and beat the living daylights out of him. It wasn't until the victim lay there bleeding and motionless that the Bedouin walked away.
The passengers of the bus saw the badly beaten Jew barely scrape himself off the ground and begin limping back onto the bus, laughing.
"Why are you laughing-" asked a fellow passenger.
From the twisted bloody mess that was once his face, the man managed to say "I fooled him. I am not Shalom."
As long as we're on the subject
Abbas made his racist remark immediately after receiving a phone call from Kerry informing him of the resumption of peace talks. Interestingly, it was reported precisely that same day that the Spanish train driver who caused a deadly crash several days prior had also gone completely off the rails after a phone call.
In honor of the authors' law
Though the author's law (which aims to ensure that authors are adequately compensated for their work) was passed by the Knesset this week, here are a few literary works that, sadly, will not be published:
- Gideon Levy's "My Love For Israel"
- Shimon Peres' "The Virtues of Modesty"
- Amira Hass' "The Life of Lord Haw-Haw"
- Yaakov Frenkel's "The Scent of a Woman"
- Avi Luzon's "How To Be Loved By Everyone"
- Yair Lapid's "Economics For Beginners"
- Shula Zaken's "A Love Story"
- Haim Ramon's "A Thousand Kisses"
- Gilad Sharon's "From the Greek Island to the Preacher's Pulpit"
- Mahmoud Abbas' "My Struggle" (or, in German, Mein Kampf)
Calling all travelers
Another record was broken at Ben-Gurion International Airport this week, when more Israelis flew out of the country than ever before. Is there any wonder that there are not enough people to attend social justice protests? That's what happens when people get too fat -- no one has the energy to move.
It is like the preschool teacher who noticed that after all the parents had picked up their children at the end of the day, a single man remained at the gate of the school.
"Are you expecting a child-" she asked him.
"No," the man replied. "I'm just fat."
Just one last question
On Wednesday, one of Israel's newspapers reported a rise in the number of emergency calls asking for help extricating a partner from handcuffs used in certain activities.
Wait a minute: Activities? At the Knesset podium perhaps-
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו