Israel steals a much deserved Lebanese title!
Posted by worriedlebanese on 19/11/2009
In his closing remarks at the Israel Annual Conference on Aviation and Astronautics, Benjamin Netanyahou claimed that Israel is “the most threatened country in the world”. How preposterous!! What about us?
Any objective viewer will agree that we have earned this title at a very costly price: civil wars on a regular basis, foreign military involvement, autonomous paramilitary formations, massive bombings from our neighbours, occupation… The ingredients are simple:
- LOCATION: best choice of bellicose neighbours: we’re stuck between Syria and Israel. Who can beat that? We’ve been repeatedly occupied, pounded, plundered… Can Israel beat that?
- CASTING: Shrewd thugs and their offsprings. Our political class was taught in the late 50s that violence pays! Every single political player (except one) who took up arms and killed a couple of his compatriots was rewarded with amnesty and a piece of the cake. Every now and then, there’s a repeat to get some new players in. The country is threatened by those who hold power! Can Israel beat that?
- GUEST STARS: We started with the PLO in the 1960s, and now we have a dozen of foreign armed groups operating under different banners all over the country. Can Israel beat that?
- SCRIPT: We’ve been working on it for almost half a century. We’ve done a better job than Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (check out this scene to get the picture). We found a way to combine Nietzche’s Eternal return with hollywood style happy ending (in a disaster movie meets post-modern family drama). As a cinema teacher of mine once said with his typical Brooklyn accent (trying desperately to be the epitome of a jewish producer): “It’s Story, Story, Story”. Can Israel beat that?
- REVIEWS: Now that’s the best part. When you read what the critics have to say about our country, you wonder if they even bothered to watch the movie. Do you remember the poster “What’s on man’s mind?“, well, in the case of our critics, it’s ta’ifya (also called confessionalism, sectarianism…), they don’t care about the plot, they already have their culprit.
- and most importantly STYLE: no panic, no hysteria, no paranoia. just a bit of tension, some humour and a full enjoyment of life! Can Israel beat that?
How can we assert our claims to the title of MOST THREATENED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD? Should we ask our new Tourist Minister, Fadi Abboud who was behind Lebanon’s entry in the Guinness book of world records for the largest dish of hummus?
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lsr said
haha – will get back to you on what we can beat you guys at (I have my eyes on the second point as a definite candidate…)
lsr said
On second thought…Maybe Bibi in a rare show of introspection and decency was talking on behalf of the millions of Palestinians living in Palestine/Israel (if this is the case – we might deserve the title after all…)
Ghassan Karam said
I like that :-). Since there isn’t much that can be done about the neighbourhood then its #2 that becomes the major issue. That is where we become complicit in inflicting more danger upon ourselves. We are getting perilously close to the point of having our name added to the “extinct list”.
Jester theFool said
well said
NB said
Hmmm … Lets trade Humus for the title of the most threatened country in the world. It’s a fair deal I think, isn’t it?
PS
By the way, we are also packed with tons of radioactive waste. And we claim it as our unique national heritage. What’s about this?
worriedlebanese said
No worries. You can always find a way to convince one of our politicians to buy it.
And if this doesn’t work, recycle it in you weapon industry and then use it against us. The result is the same. We’ll still compete on who has the largest quantity.
lsr said
NB – the radioactive waste seems an offshoot of the second point
lirun said
excuse me – you dont have over a million jewish mothers in law.. shut up
NB said
Shut up you. You always have to destroy everything. (Just when I thought that I was at the point of convincing these people to score that Guiness record for themselves)
lirun said
ehras! 🙂
lsr said
good point 🙂
lsr said
(good point about the in laws)
lirun said
maalum!