Time-Out

TWO siblings fight over the same toy. The first thing Uncle does is pull them apart, before there's any further physical harm. Exception, if the siblings are the children of Abraham and the uncle is a guy named Sam.

Uncle Sam does get Israel and Hamas to silence their guns, while he opens up his arms, er, arms reserves for Israel as the latter runs short of ammo (I wonder why). Hmm. Let Thesaurus add another synonym for 'cease fire'. It's called 'time-out', just to re-load the guns…

Meanwhile, Ban Ki Moon has been screaming. His boys and gals at the (In)Security Council have been up all night to pass a resolution. All VOTE, one simply swaps the 'E' and 'O'.

The Israeli Justice Minister tells the UN to get lost. UN pouts its lips. Not fair -- you stayed up all night for nothing…

There, there, honey, it's ok. Look, you're like the sweet, harmless Facebook. Proposed resolutions are posts, debates are comments, 'Yay' votes are 'Likes', 'Nay' votes are 'Blocks', 'Abstentions' are no responses. In the end, the original post adds up to nothing.

Oh, I envy Ban Ki Moon -- a handsome salary for accomplishing nothing. For that matter, Netanyahu too, for he can single handedly reprimand the legislative and executive branches of the most powerful nation on earth after receiving US$234 billion from the latter since 1948.

The Arab World has been admirably patient, perhaps exercising Sabr during Ramadan. Or maybe they were sleeping with US made ear plugs, or merely can't (don't) speak English, or the monarchs have all of a sudden taken to playing the fiddle as Gaza burns. As Ramadan draws to an end, they Google 'Moon' to find out the day of Eid. The search yields 'Ban Ki Moon' and that's when they learn about the Gaza crisis. And then, a collective: “Our thoughts go out to all the...oil”.

But, thank Heavens there is a real ceasefire in effect, at least till the time of writing. The Germany-Brazil game has ended with a clear win. The tunnels and the rocket launchers have been destroyed. Objectives met. Congratulations on exceeding past performance records -- the kill rate of 2009.

If destroying tunnels and neutralising rockets and launchers cost 1,875 Palestinian and 67 Israeli lives, then Israel surely needs a lot more than just US$3 billion military aid per year to upgrade its 'precision' weapons. Unless it took a shotgun approach, literally. Otherwise, even Ananta Jalil would have done a better job and told the world, “Most Welcome!”

Oh, what havoc the mighty can wreak with its wrath. I thought you lose if you get angry, unless, of course, you're Incredible Hulk.

Hmm, Hulk Yahu. Well, he surely has scored major points. What will soon follow is an unprecedented record employment rate, especially for the settlers. Their occupation? Occupation. He is then a sure shot winner if he runs again for office, hell, even the White House, with a campaign slogan: “Yes we can-nister”. In fact, Obama's approval ratings have fallen because in America, the person most shown on TV is Benjamin Netanyahu.

As Bibi sticks around to moon the world, Mr. Ban Ki Moon may need to stick around for a while too. After all, he did say to both Israel and Hamas: “Stop fighting and take on the root cause.”

The root cause. Exactly…    

The writer is an engineer & CEO turned comedian (by choice), the host of NTV's The Naveed Mahbub Show and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.
E-mail: naveed@naveedmahbub.com