Thursday, February 12, 2009

Pilpul - You Can't Make This Up

Tel Aviv

This is a collection of anecdotes that don't fit in any other blog posts but nevertheless appeal to my warped sense of irony. These are from reasonably reliable sources like The NY Times and Haaretz with my own editorial twists. Clearly this stuff cannot be made up and no amount of distortion or mischaracterization can make them more ridiculous.

During Operation Cast Lead a group of Sunni Muslims was holding the requisite anti-Israel, anti-USA and pro-Hamas rally in Baghdad. A Shiite homicide bomber walked into the crowd and set off his bomb belt killing a number of Muslim demonstrators. OK, let's have a chorus of "Which Side Are You On."


On two separate days, Hamas stole, at gunpoint, thousands of blankets and tons of food from a UNWRA warehouse and ten UN-marked tractor-trailor trucks. UNWRA, an organization funded with your tax dollars to help raise the next generation of Palestinian guerrilla fighters, took extreme umbrage and cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza. UNWRA demanded the immediate return of the stolen aid. A couple of days later, Hamas announced that they had made a mistake and returned the aid supplies. A mistake? And why is it OK for the UN to engage in group punishment for the sins of a particular group?

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Shas, appeared in Shas advertisements offering G-d's blessing to anyone who votes for Shas. The Israeli Election Commission decided that this went too far, even for a country operating without a First Amendment Separation Clause. So Shas pulled the ads. The next day, Rabbi Yosef announced that a vote for Lieberman would be giving strength to Satan. No one suggested that he retract or at least stop. So, let's see. Under Israeli election law, you can't buy votes with blessings from G-d but you can call your main rival the devil. Take notes, this will be on the final.

And, last but not least, there was the joint list run by the Green Leaf and Holocaust Parties. Before you start trying to figure out why environmentalists and Holocaust survivors would band together, please take note the the Green Leaf Party advocates the legalization of marijuana. I just don't know what to say. But for more on Green Leaf, see my blog from March, 2007

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