Monday, August 9, 2010

 
NETANYAHU WINS PEACE PRIZE

The California-based Irving Moskowitz Foundation (IMF) announced today that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will receive the foundation’s first annual Economic Peace Prize. It is “only natural” to award the Peace Prize to Mr. Netanyahu, IMF’s press release stated, since “economic peace is his schtick.” The foundation and the PM both define economic peace as productive economic activity without active armed conflict or a political settlement. The essence of economic peace, the IMF explained, is that “Israel gets the benefit of captive customers, natural resources and low-cost labor without friction or territorial compromise.”

“I’m delighted and entirely deserving,” said the Prime Minister, reached at his residence, where he was receiving a celebratory enema from his wife, Sarah. “As I’ve said all along, it’s time for the Palestinians to stop obsessing about sovereignty and open some more strip malls and hookah joints. At least until they leave the region.”

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, an ardent proponent of economic peace, released the award announcement in Israel on behalf of the IMF. “Economic peace enables responsible Arabs to grow their local economy, which could lead to discussions about non-state sovereignty in certain urbanized areas. Both sides win.” Asked why Israel then opposed Palestinian participation in the World Trade Organization, Steinitz dismissed the Palestinian WTO effort as “unilateralism.” Steinitz also rejected the notion of supplanting the Israeli siege of Gaza with economic peace. “There can be no economic peace unless Hamas recognizes our right to exist as a Jewish State on all land we control or covet.”

Other finalists for the Economic Peace Prize were Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, former US President Bill Clinton, fictional character Gordon Gekko and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (in recognition of its Bollywood-style arm sales video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktQOLO4U5iQ&feature). Like the other finalists, a Rafael executive accepted the results gracefully, describing Netanyahu as “a real prize himself.” Only Mr. Gekko sounded a negative note, saying “they gave the award to my charmless clone.”

In Arab-occupied Ramallah, a spokesperson for Fatah expressed ambivalence about the award. “We wanted Fayyad to win,” the spokesperson remarked. “But if economic peace is where Omri Sharon opens a casino for our high-rollers, it’s still okay.” Hamas was notably less enthusiastic. “I suppose this makes us the bad guys again, but we view economic peace as intercourse with our colonizer while he dispossesses us,” said spokesman Taher al-Nono. “Wasn’t the North American slave trade a form of economic peace with African chieftains?”

Attempts to reach Dr. Moskowitz were unsuccessful. A person answering his office telephone stated that Dr. Moskowitz was unavailable “because his nose hairs are entangled in another person’s earring.” However, a purported representative did subsequently contact Circus Israel to state that Dr. Moskowitz’s tax exempt foundation, which derives most of its wealth from “charity bingo,” sees no need to foster economic peace in East Jerusalem, where the foundation vigorously underwrites Jewish settlement activity. “Once the Arabs’re cleaned out of there, peace and economic development will take care of themselves.”

In a prepared statement, Mr. Netanyahu characterized economic peace as “scalable, even at the teeny-tiniest micro-level” so that Palestinians had no basis for demanding additional territory. On a related subject, the PM’s statement criticized Elvis Costello, the Pixies, Gil Scott Heron and other artists that have refused to perform in Israel. According to the statement, “these C-list performers are enemies of economic peace, apparently preferring to promote suicide attacks that leave little bits of human flesh dangling from the tattered awnings of family-owned enterprises.”

With some reluctance, but also with a clear awareness of where his money comes from, Noam Arnon will formally present the Moskowitz Foundation Economic Peace Prize to Mr. Netanyahu in Hebron, where Jewish settler violence has virtually exterminated Palestinian commercial activity around Shuhada Street.

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