Date: November 2, 2068
Place: Edward Said University, Paris, Islamic Republic of Northern Gaul.
Subject: Notes from the Special Guest Lecture today in the course “History of the Middle East,” by visiting professor Osama bin Levy.
I would like to thank all of you – men, women, cyborgs – for attending my lecture this evening, despite the leak in the metrodome over the city that is allowing in some rain. I hope you did not have too much trouble finding parking for your personal commuter rocket devices in the university guest space station.
I have been asked to sum up for you an era of Middle East history that took place before most of you were born, though it is fully documented in the standard knowledge chips you all have dangling from your rocket ignition keychains.
It is truly difficult for those of us alive today to understand the depth of foolishness that led to the demise of the state of Israel earlier in the 21st century. But I wish to remind you that the events took place back when humans still lived in the most primitive conditions, operating mechanical computers with screens rather than bio-thinking supplementals; when humans drove those suicidal machines called automobiles and crashed into one another.
Israeli political leaders, journalists and academics had for years infected the nation with a bizarre disease called Acute Settlerphobia, or AS. The plague of AS was inculcated with such massive determination that few in the country were able to immunize themselves against its mind-freezing symptoms. Those infected became mentally paralyzed, incapable of contemplating any solution to life’s problems which did not include the idea that the settlers were responsible for all terrestrial problems.
So you see, the temptation to adopt the “Two States for Two Peoples” solution was based not only on overwhelming international pressure but on the insistence of Israel’s own political and intellectual elites that this formula would put an end to the Middle East conflict once and for all.
There were, of course, plenty of reasons for skepticism. Israel had just a few years before abandoned the Gaza Strip, removing all of its soldiers and civilians. The result was the launching of thousands of rockets and countless other terror attacks against Israel by the Gaza Palestinians.
Clearly an intelligent being or even an average cyborg should have understood that Gaza was serving as an illustration of what Israel could expect from any further territorial capitulation.
But the leaders of Israel kept repeating what the Americans, Europeans, and others were chanting in global unison. They kept saying that no one could really knew what the Palestinians would do with their new state under the “Two States for Two Peoples” formulation until they got it.
By repeating endlessly the hope that maybe the Palestinians would morph into civilized neighbors once they had their own state, and that anyway there was no alternative but to give the idea a try, Israel’s opinion shapers eventually snookered the masses into into agreeing to “Two States for Two Peoples.”
Exactly 14 minutes after “Two States for Two Peoples” was implemented, the state of Palestine opened up a barrage with tens of thousands of rocket launchers, mortars and other low-tech means of warfare still being used by armies back in the early 21st century. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were nearly obliterated.
Following the massive rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – attacks that (naturally) were completely unexpected by Israel’s political establishment and chattering classes – came the final blow from Palestine.
Masses of troops and volunteers from other Muslim states, especially Iran and Pakistan, who’d flooded into Palestine to defend it from the Israeli aggressors, were on the march. Large groups of Palestinian infiltrators attacked what was left of Israel near Netanya, cutting all north-south highways and dividing the country in half.
Thousands of Jews living in isolated towns and communities in the Galilee were lynched by members of the Galilee Liberation Front, their beheaded corpses left alongside the roads.
Palestinian rocket crews had earlier shut down Israeli airports, and missile barrages had made Israeli sea ports too dangerous for any ships to enter. So there was no escape for the Jews. Remaining pockets of Jewish resistance were placed under siege, their residents starved into submission. (Kibbutz members under siege were so desperate, they were actually reduced to eating kosher food.)
To the very last, nearly all Israeli politicians insisted that the turn of events was completely unexpected and could not have been foreseen by anyone.
Shortly after Israel was completely overrun, U.S. President Al Franken and French Prime Minister Abu Jihad announced that Two States had at last been achieved for Two Peoples – the Palestinian and Jordanian peoples.
They appealed to countries around the world to allow the surviving Jewish refugees from the dead Zionist entity to enter their countries, but only Micronesia acquiesced.
Next week’s guest lecture will be on the history of the now extinct Christian community of Europe.
Steven Plaut, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor at Haifa University. His book “The Scout” is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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