IRISH JOKES

The Elder of Ziyon reminds us that the month of Adar on the Jewish calendar is a good time to dust off some old jokes. In that regard he's doing a great job on his blogsite but he may have unwittingly also provided us with the best joke of the month with his reference to an item in Ian O'Doherty's column from the Irish Independent -

STOP LAUGHING DOWN THE BACK

Really, if anything proves the utter credulousness and stupidity displayed by many of the members of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, it has to be case of Galway woman -- quelle surprise she's from Galway -- Treasa Ni Cheannabhain and her daughter.

The pair smuggled themselves illegally into Gaza and are now complaining that they are not being allowed to get back into Egypt.

The pair were refused entry into Gaza but entered illegally by wearing those charming full length niquabs (the charming black dress that makes women look like a walking letter box) and met up with some ministers from the charming Hamas government -- which caused the humanitarian crisis in the first place -- and then went around distributing money to local charities.

And how have indymedia.ie responded to the Egyptian authorities not allowing these people back into Egypt?

Well, according to them: "Treasa Ni Cheannabhain, from the Galway Palestine Solidarity Campaign, on a humanitarian mission to besieged Gaza with daughter, Naisrin, is now trapped there by the Israelis."

Um, sorry guys. It's the Egyptians. Still, facts are only a Zionist conspiracy, eh?

Although the quote from Ni Cheannabhain on the situation in Gaza was interesting in its insight and political understanding: "We hadn't expected this -- it's very scary."

The phrase dumb and dumber springs to mind.

Here in Australia, we have our own version of dumb and dumber in the form of Fairfax Media's Jerusalem bureau chief who yesterday produced Mid-East keenly follows race to White House. The article appareared in both the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. It was labelled "Analysis" in the former but not the later although it doesn't really matter because it's neither analysis nor straight out reporting - it's the usual anti-Israel propaganda that is by now so familiar with this reporter/analyst.

All of the usual features are there. He mentions Israel's "40-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip" (the latter territory is actually under Hamas military occupation today), Bush's 2004 letter that allegedly "countermanded all the UN resolutions", the "wall", the "Israel Lobby" and the prevailing feeling given is that Israel doesn't really want peace. The whole production is laced with the usual O'Loughlin bias despite the writer's attempts to cover them up so in the end, the whole thing falls down for both its lack of analysis and of any factual basis.

If there was a shred of analysis involved, O'Loughlin would have taken a look at Palestinian intentions with regard to the peace negotiations and in particular as to what they've done over the past five years to give the road map a bit of a kick on. The answer is very little if we are to go by the real facts, examples of which you can find everywhere except in the Fairfax Media. I'll bring you some over the coming days when I get over the fits of laughter I'm experiencing at the moment. Irish jokes like O'Loughlin do that to me!