Posted on 05/10/2002 7:54:14 AM PDT by Delbert
Comedian Dennis Miller's Monologue on the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict
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 2000 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 30 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 50 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 h-ll 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 marshaling 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 id . . uh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)
Dennis Miller makes some great points here. What great logic by Dennis Miller!
Dennis Miller is now my hero. I wish Dennis had a radio show. Has Dennis cut his hair yet?
DENNIS MILLER IN '04
No. It was written by Larry Miller for a piece he writes in the Weekly Standard. Dennis Miller had nothing to do with this at all.
Note from Bill:
The e-mail "Comedian Dennis Miller's Monologue on the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict" was actually written by comic/actor Larry Miller, and was in the Weekly Standard. I am sorry for this error, it had been forwarded to me with Dennis Miller's name.
Below is the excerpt from "Whosoever Blesses Them: The intifada and its defenders" by Larry Miller
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/161yaihr.asp
I believe it was either Mitch Miller or Phylis Diller.
This one should make you laugh, I know I almost split a gut with the Helen Thomas remark (towards the end).
Enjoy. But Seriously Folks
Maybe so, but in a world of war, it is a little different. The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli military forces far outweighs the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists.
Israel would have more of a moral high ground in my mind if it did not bulldoze civilian settlements in retribution for terrorist attacks. Note that the US did not target Afghan civilians after Sept 11 and India did not bulldoze Kashmiri villages in retaliation for the Parliament attack.
You don't understand the politics of War..See von Clauswitz.
"My colleagues and I have put ourselves through extensive and traditional Freudian analysis and realized we're consumed with envy, self-hate, and a deep fear of being in the right. In addition, we've found God and come to understand the value of Old Testament justice over New Age compassion. In short, we apologize to our fellow citizens for being in the way. It won't happen again. And as a small gesture towards making things right, we just strangled Helen Thomas."Is that good or what? I thought I would bust a gut laughing when I first read it. Read the rest.
Well, our resident lefty chimes in...
Luke, how would you handle a situation where your country was under attack by, not an army, but a group of civilians? There is no army for them to attack. I think Israel could care less about how you feel regarding their moral ground. All they are interested in is stopping the attacks against them. Their people are being massacred, and not as retaliation for something they did. In war, you attack the entity that is attacking you, which in this case is the civilians who call themselves "Palestinians".
It's quite outrageous of us to tell Israel to show restraint after we go on the offensive when we are attacked. Israel has an Oklahoma city bombing almost weekly, and we tell them to do nothing. We get attacked and go on the offensive (which was the correct decision). We need to let Israel defend herself. Those attacking her are civilians, so civilians are targeted.
It's not that Israel hasn't tried to stop the attacks via political means. Arafart simply won't rest until Israel ceases to exist. They don't want to live in peace with Jews; they want NO Jews. How do you deal with someone like that? Arafart encourages his people to raise their children to be suicide bombers. There is account after account of Palestinian parents commenting on how proud they are of their little suicide bombers. They raise their children to hate Jews and to become martyrs. It's glorified in their culture.
Tell me, Luke, how do you defend against that?
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