Monday, July 14, 2008
Neutralize a Leftist! Mock him!
Neutralize a Leftist! Mock him!
By Steven Plaut
I have a confession. I really love Sacha Baron Cohen. Not just because
both he and I are both graduates of Habonim, the Labor Party youth movement
(he, in the UK of course). His Ali G character always has me in stitches,
and I have tried to imitate
<http://stevenplaut.blogspot.com/search?q=ali+g>it (see the addendum
at the end of this).
While containing many a crude and vulgar moment, his Borat film was also
madly funny. My favorite scene: when the drunk frat boys tell Borat that
they endeavor to have sex with women whom they never telephone afterwards
and Borat asks if this is because the women have no phones in their village.
I loved how he spoke Hebrew in the film and pretended it was Kazakhstani.
But if there was ever a doubt as to the greatness of Cohen, it is gone
now that he has decided to make a public fool out of Yossi Alpher. The
US-born Alpher was once an IDF intelligence officer and then a Mossad
officer, and like so many Israeli intelligence officers he became a
far-leftist of the sort so familiar in Israel. He used to be director of
the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, then senior
advisor to Ehud Barak, and has ties with far-leftist Peace Now.
These days he co-runs a far-leftist web site together with Palestinian
terrorist Ghassan Khatib (ex-minister of labor in the Palestinian Authority
and Vice President of Bir Zeit "University"), called Bitter
Lemons<http://www.bitterlemons.org/index.html>
. Khatib is a guy who thinks
Hamas<http://www.bitterlemons.org/previous/bl310308ed13.html>is
moderate, although Alpher holds
the same idea <http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/14040>. Like
all such collaborations between leftist Jews and Arabs, it is essentially
pro-Arab and anti-Israel. It is also anti-American. Alpher's ideas about
peace <http://www.forward.com/articles/radical-visions-of-a-new-middle-east>
? "The United States should talk to Iran without preconditions and
encourage Tehran to talk to Jerusalem and seek modes of coexistence before
it is engulfed in war." The only good thing one can say about Bitter Lemons
is that it is less extremist and anti-Semitic than most other leftist web
sites. Alpher invented the "Alpher Plan" back in 1994 under which 89% of
the West Bank would be turned over to the PLO to become a Palestinian terror
state.
Sacha Cohen's new comedy character is a gay Austrian fashion freak named
Bruno (see his photo
here<http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2008/07/08/amd_%20bruno.jpg>
). Cohen set up Alpher and his Palestinian sidekick Khatib to be ridiculed
by inviting them for an interview, signing them onto ironclad releases they
could not wiggle out of (Cohen got sued a lot over his Borat interviews,
which made people look stupid) and then filming them trying to answer really
funny questions. Cohen asked them things like: "When will you Jews return
the pyramids?" and asked why the militant group
Hamas<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Hamas>was named after the dip,
hummus.
Bruno complains to them that he had to throw his pita away cause it was
dripping hummus, and adds, 'Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina
is worse.'" The AP scooped the
story<http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/07/07/2008-07-07_sacha_baron_cohen_pokes_fun_at_the_israe.html>,
which was also carried in many other newspapers and magazines.
Alpher tried to prettify the situation and paint himself as a victim in his
column at the leftist Jewish weekly
*Forward*<http://www.forward.com/articles/13679>,
where he is one of the newspaper's stable of leftist columnists. He
reports how he sat there with a straight face and responded seriously to
Bruno's questions, which included: "Vy don't you Jews and Arabs settle the
conflict with a time share on the land?" "Ven vill you Jews return the
pyramids?" "Vy can't Jews and Hindus get along?" Even Michael Handelzalts,
the book editor at Israeli leftist daily Haaretz, has an
Op-Ed<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1001059.html>in which he
mocks the stupidity of Alpher and his sidekick.
Alpher disagrees about being shown to be stupid, cited in the
Jerusalem Post as saying, "We ourselves were not being ridiculed - only the
conflict that occupies and preoccupies us."
I have long believed that mocking leftists is far more effective than
insulting them. They love it when they are accused of being traitors,
unpatriotic, and supporting the enemy. But they can't stand being laughed
at because they take themselves so seriously. There is a lesson in Cohen's
antics for all of us in the Anti-Left trenches.
***
My attempt to imitate Ali G:
Ali G on Da May Day March in London:
Evenin mates and big up fanks fo coming, and hear me now!
Me and da geezers got a really special show for you all dis evening.
As you know, all dem antiwar protesters what was out dis weekend in
Britain supporting Saddam and bin Laden, most of dem was carrying
Socialist Workers banners and buttons.
So as you knows, me and da homies fum Staines got a certain fascination
wit work. It is how some geezers get their squids. So we decide to see if
we could find a single protester calling hisself a socialist worker what
actually has got a gig, a job!
We dodged da constalubury all day and searched through da crowds. It was
.Bushie dis and Bushie dat., and all dees bruvers was really aggro over
Mistuh Blair. We search and we search.
And, by Jackie Chan, we finds one at last.
We sees dis mate what is carrying a big sign what says .No War for Oil..
So I asks him, .so what you tink we DO gotta fight a war for anyways, for
erbal remedy?.
Chill out, he tell us. He is only there for da shag and flange, for da
chicks.
See, he tell us, he really is workin for his squid over in dis boozer. He
took some time off to see if he can find him some spunky bitch. Problem
is, all da birds he sees they is feminists and doan like geezers.
So yes, blokes, dare is at least one socialist worker what got hisself a
job!
