Humor in the Middle East

I can categorically deny that Israel had anything to do with the assassination of the Hizbollah military leader, Hassan al-Laqqis, in Beirut on Wednesday. In fact the Israeli Government sent a condolence card, on Tuesday. Nevertheless, Hizbollah persists in believing that because the hit was a professional one, that no Arab entity could have done it, and so by process of elimination they blame Israel. Laqqis had been responsible for the Hizbollah forces fighting on behalf of Pres. Assad in Syria, and he was shot in the head at close range outside his home in Beirut. Some think that a case can be made for a Sunni extremist group, of which there are many in Lebanon, taking out the commander of the Lebanese Shia forces in Syria, in support of the Syrian opposition. Even though such a group, the Ahrar al-Sunnah Baalbek Brigade, claimed credit for his killing, Hizbollah still blames Israel. I ask you, is this fair?

Yuval Diskin, a former Head of the Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service, looks intelligent, but doesn't appear to be. He made a speech in which he stated that the lack of a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict was more dangerous for Israel than the development by Iran of a nuclear bomb. PM Netanyahu responded that his remarks were "divorced from reality," while other analysts were somewhat more critical. What is it with these former heads of Israeli intelligence, as exemplified in the documentary film (that I have avoided seeing) called "The Gatekeepers," in which they not only "spill the beans" on Israel's intelligence failures, but confess to their own stupidity. How is it that such men rise to the top of one of the most respected intelligence organizations in the world and then come out so absurd? I know the answer, they are all actually Palestinian plants. Only Palestinian intelligence (a contradiction in terms) could be that stupid!

Did Arafat die a natural death, was it AIDS as many suspect, or was he killed by radioactive polonium poisoning, the current fashionable way for world leaders to die? Three independent labs, one each in France, Russia and Switzerland, were given samples of Arafat's flesh, bones and soil from his grave to analyze. The results are in and its 2:1 in favor of, guess what, no polonium! Yes, that's right, the Russian and French (police) labs both found not a trace of polonium, while the Swiss one did find some. But, wait a minute, since Po-210 has a half-life of 138 days and since Arafat has been dead for 8 years it is physically impossible for any radioactivity to remain unless he was killed by more Po-210 than Russia has in its arsenal. Ok, so the moral of this story is - don't trust Swiss labs! And by the way, how much did his widow Suha Arafat pay them?