AMERICA—With the recent revelation that an attempted humanitarian aid mission to the Gaza strip was met with force by the Israeli military, resulting in anywhere from 10-20 deaths, 30 injured, and over 600 arrested, millions of Americans have announced that uh-uh, no way, not in a million fucking years are they gonna go anywhere near this one. Not with a ten-foot fucking pole.
“Oh no, you’re not dragging me into this,” announced David Haren, a fellow at the Brookings Institute Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “If there one thing Middle East studies have taught me, it’s to know better than to wade into this mess. Jog on.”
Indeed, when numerous experts were asked whether or not they’d like to talk about these events, we were met with abrupt hang-ups, abject laughter, stammering leading into fainting, and various reams of profanity indicating that we had either lodged our heads completely up our fucking asses, had gone completely off our fucking rockers, or were assuming a mass level of retardation had swept the ranks of American academic, foreign policy, and news commentary.
Upon requesting that a group of individuals from the Washington Post give their opinions on the situation, they, as a group, slowly backed away from us before sprinting and diving into an abandoned spillway.
When we approached normally reliable sources on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for their input, such as John Abrahms of the Carter Center, who last year almost successfully convinced the Oxford English Dictionary to add “arguing about Israel on the internet” as the number one definition of “futility,” Mr. Abrahms produced a large knife and proceeded to barricade himself inside his office.
Even members of the American public seemingly know better than to comment, as if they feel nothing useful or productive will ever emerge from a discussion of Israel.
Several attempts to engage citizens on the street about things like American aid to Israel, the UN Security Council, Turkey and NATO tensions with Israel, independent investigations, Matisyahu's back catalogue, or general questions about the Middle East were either met with intense skepticism and silence, protestations that they spoke no English, or statements that they "fucking knew better and that you [we] oughtta fucking know better than to ask, you [we] jackass [jackasses]."
In fact most Americans have reflexively taken to flinching when the third-person singular verb, “is”, is employed. Most have suspended the use of the word “real” in order to avoid having other people think they just heard them make a comment about Israel and attempt to start a conversation about it.
We were able to get one person to comment, Dr. Tom Wallace of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown. After a series of unethical lies about our intention to discuss flowers, puppies, and the general state of pleasant niceties, Dr. Wallace eagerly opened up.
After explaining that we were “rotten, disingenuous bastards” and that he would “bring down all manner of unpleasant horrors on our families", we in turn informed him that the room we were in had been barricaded, the windows sealed, sharp objects removed, and that he had no chance of escape. After an unsuccessful attempt to change the subject to “things that are much less divisive… like, say the Armenian genocide or America’s storied racial conflicts”, Dr. Wallace relented.
“I, uh, would just like to say that… oh Jesus… that, whether or not you think Israel acted rashly or, OR... that the actions of the humanitarians… SO CALLED HUMANITARIANS, SO CALLED HUMANITARIANS… were justified,” Wallace said, his eyes darting around the room looking for any means of escape and his shirt beginning to soak from the profuse sweat.
“I think we can all agree… that this… was… important. Or possibly not important at all. I certainly condemn the loss of life, but not in a manner which seeks in any way to asses blame, just factually acknowledge that lives were lost… hoo boy…. Sovereignty… good… terrorism… bad,” he finished, before attempting to swallow his own tongue after repeated attempts to hold his breath until he died failed miserably.
As of now, Wallace is recovering in the intensive care wing of an unnamed local hospital. His career is in critical condition, having been immolated in a cross fire of warring commentary on his commentary by opposite sides of the Israel/Palestine debate.
At press time, the country said “See!” and noted that there’s no way they’re getting involved of any of this shit. Early reports say America has calmly turned its TV to old re-runs of Mama’s Family.
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