In a remarkable new peace initiative, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to cede an entire three acres of an empty East Jerusalem parking lot to the Palestinian Authority. Barack Obama has called the impending land transfer, “the most comprehensive Israeli step towards lasting peace in decades”.
This transfer of three acres will have, in the words of a generic and possibly informed celebrity, brought about a better world for all.
This open handed no-strings-attached gift coincides with the construction of one thousand new settler homes throughout East Jerusalem, as well as a planned expansion of existing settlements. While the probably anti-semetic United Nations has condemned these expansions as ‘imperialistic and colonial expansions displacing indigenous inhabitants without compensation’, it is important to remember the holocaust. After all, the holocaust was a terrible crime against humanity in which millions of Jews were systematically slaughtered and as such must be relevant to today’s conflict.
Israeli soldiers detained our valiant Lapine reporters when they attempted to interview local Palestinians who were being displaced but we did, nevertheless, manage to sit down with one Bedouin-Israeli man. Unfortunately, for lack of a translator, we were unable to hear his views on the matter, but from his tone we could surmise that he most likely agreed with our previously established viewpoint.
Unsurprisingly, violence prone Palestinian youths threw rocks at brave and heavily armed Israeli soldiers as they evicted Palestinians to make room for new settlements; evicting them from lands that were, most certainly, empty at some distant point in history. The soldiers were, as in the past, forced to fight back at the rock-throwing hoodlums with tanks and small arms fire. So perhaps, the generous gift of three acres was not enough to satisfy the impoverished and violent Palestinian immigrant invader mobs.
At times like this one can almost understand the influential Israeli politician and spiritual leader of the Shas party Ovadia Yosef, who declared, in regards to the fellow Palestinians he shares his young country with, “it is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them… They are evil and damnable."
Then again, maybe not… for the second time in its history, The Lapine will let you make up your own mind.
Flynn Pomeroy
Reporting From The Lapine