Author’s note: The world continued to watch as Israel and Palestine failed to patch up their differences and Yasser Arafat continued to “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. It was not helped by the US and Europe moving further apart on their objectives. Plus ca change….
Israeli and Palestinian combatants appealed to mediators from around the world to leave them alone, today, so they can get on massacring each other without every “moist-eyed, limp-wristed liberal nancy boy getting in the way”
They were responding to the waves of mediators that have launched a set of successive offensive attacks on the Israeli-Palestine conflict over recent weeks. It is hoped that if the waves of mediators can continue to overrun the conflict the fighters may just give up and go home meaning that the whole world can “get back to just ignoring the problem again”
The conflict has now been running at full tilt for over a year but has been simmering for several decades. The Norwegians led an early skirmish achieving some success in overwhelming the raw hate that exists between the two participants. The US then joined the attack and claimed all the credit, with Bill Clinton explaining “that’s how we fight all of our wars”. However, the mediation attempt was gradually undermined by a series of guerrilla and Government attacks eventually succumbing to defeat with the election of Ariel Sharon.
Since then, the US has attempted to restart mediation but only in a half-hearted way with Colin Powell explaining recently that “it was difficult as they really didn’t want to upset anybody and was kind of hoping that everyone would just get along”. Recently, though, a number of new groups have stepped forward to launch mediation attempts on the area, regardless of whether they were wanted or not. European Commission President Romano Prodi has declared American mediation in the Middle East a failure, and urged the United States to stand down as primary peacemaker and let a broad alliance of nations intervene. During a phone call with Prodi, President Bush encouraged the EU to intervene with the words, “Be my fucking guest!” The situation rapidly deteriorated but seemed to have reached a peak after Mr. Bush could be heard muttering “yada-yada-yada” throughout Mr. Prodi’s address to the United Nations.
However, fighting has now broken out between the different mediation groups with vicious hand-to-hand battles occurring between European and US negotiators. In the Gaza strip Romano Prodi’s convoy was seen to deliberately swerve in front of Colin Powells and carry out an emergency stop. The two men then leapt from their vehicles and started violently remonstrating. They had to be separated by their respective aides after Powell was seen to pull Prodi’s hair and call him an “Italian wuss” whilst Prodi lashed out at Powell’s shin crying “Just go and sort out the mess you left in Iraq”
As amazed local combatants watched, the two groups were then joined by a United Nations team that offered to mediate between the Europeans and Americans. However, when the two men were released they immediately began fighting again and the UN team declined to act explaining that they were a “Peace keeping force” and were not allowed to actually intervene if fighting was taking place. “Anyway” explained Captain Mike Briggs, the leader of the UN force, “None of our guns work in the desert although the UK have promised an urgent repair programme to commence in 2006”
Further complications are likely as professional mediation services arrive in the area. A group of Marriage Guidance Counsellors from Lexington, MA have hired a plane and are currently attempting “bring the two parties together in a non-confrontational atmosphere. We will try and explore which parts of their relationship have worked and which need to be worked upon”. They are claiming some tentative success with Israel complaining that Palestine “never does the dishes” whilst Palestine laments “that Israel is always staring at other countries and commenting on how nice they look”.
Battalions of lawyers, arbitrators, estate agents, auctioneers, loss adjusters and building surveyors are now swarming into the beleaguered region and leading an all out assault against the combatants. Alarmed soldiers and terrorists are falling back asking the Red Cross to intervene between them and the mediators. “This is becoming insufferable” commented Ibrahim Mistry “How can we be expected to get on with killing each other with all these lunkheads getting in the way?”
The mediation assault shows no sign of abating however, with the US now threatening to “drop the big one”. President Bush intoned that the US had now instructed former President’s Clinton, Ford and Carter to be made ready. “Believe me,” he claimed “You really don’t want us to drop this baby on you”
Sex and Drugs and Growing Old 