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Thursday, February 18, 2010
So a coupla Israeli guys are hangin around in Dubai, havin a good time, checkin out the place, seein the sights, that building that looks like a boat, that island that's shaped like a bigger island, get a few drinks, catch a show, kill a Palestinian, maybe grab a coupla souvenirs for the kids an hit the road. Oh wait! Wait a second! Something went wrong there! Something happened there that was very, very wrong! Because in the course of doing those things, those people went and forged some British passports.
Well now it's one thing to kill Palestinians abroad and thousands more next door while starving whoever manages to survive and demolishing their homes, but sullying the honour and dignity of Her Britannic Majesty's Royal Passport? Well sir, that is just not cricket. That sounds to me like one a those less enjoyable English pastimes like badminton or stumpgouger or dead arabball. Now it's pretty obvious to me that Britain and Israel have a lotta stuff to work out, a lotta trust issues. But if we sit down, talk it over, work it out, I think we can save this relationship. Maybe over a friendly game of dead arabball. Labels: rhymes with shmisrael, running the world
posted by fafnir at 8:50 AM
Well, torture, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid - that's one thing. We've all been there. But identity theft? That, my friend, is beyond the pale.
by
 , at February 18, 2010 10:34 AM
It would be very wrong to think of dead-arab-ball as an English pastime. While the rules are similar to those codified in the now neglected game of dead-fuzzywuzzy-ball and the much more modern variants of dead-asian-ball and dead-balkan-ball, dead-arab-ball never really caught the public imagination in the UK. This is partially due to the increased use of protective equipment and its more blatant pandering to television networks.
Dead arabball caught on pretty well in the UK in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s, and still has its devoted fans today.
I am shocked that the UK did not try to prosecute non-UK citizens for crimes committed outside the UK against non-UK citizens. Why, I saw someone stealing a car in Texas the other day, and called Scotland Yard... and they didn't come!
This isn't a question of the UK simply "not prosecuting" Israel for crimes committed in Israel. The UK - along with the US and the rest of the EU - have been actively abetting Israeli crimes for years, economically and militarily. To see Gordon Brown stamping his foot over identity theft now when the past few years have seen his government happily engaged with that of a mass-murdering apartheid state is blackly hysterical, in that it stands as evidence that six British passports are considered more precious than a thousand Palestinian lives.
If you have half an hour to kill (no pun intended), this Dubai-based clip, chronicling the murder is quite fascinating, in a morbid sort of way:
Gulf News report chronicling the murder
by
, at February 18, 2010 1:38 PM
I'll have all you people know that the dead brown person was engaged in something quite possibly worse than identity theft -
Internet Piracy! Yes, my friends, the Hamas leader was, according to my unnamed Pentagon sources (Barry McCaffrey), using an unlicensed version of Itunes to download the latest Lady Gaga. A crime punishable by death, obvious to any Western mind. Next on the list, btw, is Lawrence Lessig. DupinTM
by
, at February 18, 2010 3:20 PM
Surely we are all familiar with the important distinction, made in the Serenity Prayer, e.g., between those things that we can take action with respect to, and those things with which we must simply put up? One can understand why Her Majesty's Government might consider forging British passports to be in the former category, and the mass murder of Arabs in the latter.
Robert Fisk reports that his source says:
"the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-britains-explanation-is-riddled-with-inconsistencies-its-time-to-come-clean-1902994.html
John Caruso of "a distant ocean" quotes those alleging that British are less shocked than it may appear.
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, at February 19, 2010 6:50 PM
What is all of this talk about repression of identity, Fafnir?
It makes me want to change my name again, and I don't want to change my name again Fafnir, because I loves me my name! What is the oppressive forces that are trying to force me to unwantingly change my name, Faf? It is wrong.
Well maybe it's just like when Americans traveling in some third world country always claim they're Canadian. On acount a everybody being angry at America, or that's what I've heard anyway. So if you're walkin around in Dubai, and people, are goin "Hey, are you Israeli?" Ya just gotta say "Nope, wanna see my passport."
by
, at February 21, 2010 3:21 AM
Well - duh! And if you were on vacation in Dubai, you'd probably want to to do something work-like so's you could claim it as a Business Trip. Who knew they'd get so upset over just one dead Palestinian in Dubai. Back in Israel they call they call that 'slacking'.
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, at February 23, 2010 1:50 AM
Speaking of curling, eurosavant.com liked David Letterman's Feb. 17th explanation of the sport:
In curling, they get a 40 lb. granite stone and send it down the ice and then they sweep the debris from in front of it. It’s all the fun of shuffleboard, plus household chores. I've never played it, but I have played shuffleboard (years and years ago), and I have swept the floor (quite recently).
It's so terrible and awful that I'll have to stop reading Fafblog now! Oh, if only you hadn't traumatized my oh-so-delicate pwoggie bloggie sensibilities by criticing Our Saviour Obama AND Our Wonderful Friend Israel!
Like Adam Sandler, your earlier work was so much funnier and better and less offensive to my pwogwessivenessness. So sad. Sooooooo sad. Sad sad sad.
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, at February 23, 2010 6:24 PM
"Al-Mabhouh was involved in the 1989 abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon. In a video taped two weeks before his death, and broadcast on Al-Jazeera in early February, Mabhouh admitted his involvement, saying he had disguised himself as an Orthodox Jew." (Wikipedia)
See, the moral here is that even if you really, really want to go on TV to tell people what a good murderer you are, it's a good idea not to if the guys you murdered were Israeli soldiers.
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, at February 27, 2010 5:52 PM
Here's the thing, RedPhillip - I'm not talking about morality here. You can argue who's right with someone else. You want to call the killings an act of war, fine with me. I'm just saying al-Mabhouh wasn't any old Palestinian. He's a guy who went on teevee to brag about kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers. That wasn't very bright of him, was it?
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, at February 28, 2010 7:14 PM
With your caveat I might agree that tactically it was unwise for Mabhouh to have made those statements. I doubt very much that the Mossad et. al. were unaware of his role in the 1989 action. The timing of his assassination was likely more to do with access than with his televised comments.
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, at March 01, 2010 9:05 AM
Frankly my friends we are all somewhat custard flavoured, its just how you look at it and which way you lick the edge
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