Israel, listen, I know what I’m talking about

Israel,

Don’t you see what is going on?  I won. It’s over.

There are protests around the world, all in support of me.  None for you.  It’s clear.  Last week, within 5 days of each other, I attended two demonstrations in Detroit, each garnering over 1000 people. Today, over 5,000 walked through the streets of Chicago calling you out.  Remember when you had Chicago in your pocket?  Not anymore.  15,000 in London marched against you.  And it wasn’t just us.  There were white people, black people… even Jews!  You believe that?  New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Madrid… everywhere.  They came out in the tens of thousands in Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town.  That’s right, South Africa.  And those guys know what they’re talking about.

Over a million people around the world, and we didn’t have to bribe them or anything.  We didn’t lobby them.  We didn’t threaten them.  They just joined with us, all on their own. I guess you might just say that they are all wrong and misguided. But no one is buying it anymore.  Those days are over.

It must be scary.  It’s been a good run of 66 years.  But it’s finished.  Things will never be like they used to be.

But don’t worry, I am here for you.  Believe it or not, I am the key to your redemption.  It’s not too late.  You have to open yourself to learning from me, because, as has become all too clear, I am just better at getting the world to like me than you are.

You know how I did it?  I didn’t act like a jerk.  Sure, I made mistakes, a lot of them.  But I just wasn’t a jerk.  Actually, as it turns out, as long as you’re not a jerk, people will be pretty open to you.

But you’ve been kind of a jerk for a long time.  Someone has to give it to you straight.  And no one knows you better than I do.  Let’s talk about some of your jerk-like activities.

Shooting a teenager with an M-16 when he throws a rock at you.  Jerky.
Bulldozing villages to make way for your immigrants that you could have easily housed somewhere else. Really jerky.
Hiding behind your big, rich, influential friend whenever you do something wrong.  Jerky, and kinda sad.
Claiming hummus and falafel as staples of Israeli cuisine.  C’mon.  It doesn’t get jerkier than that.
Dropping leaflets in a neighborhood full of civilians telling them you are going to attack in two days, and then still massacring them when they don’t leave… well, aside from being just plain mean and murder-y, that’s something that only a major jerk would do.

Don’t you know threats are much more effective when you use them to get what you want instead of actually following through?  Iran has perfected this.  So has the United States.  And no one does it better than Arab moms.

By the way, I have a couple more things to say about the whole dropping-leaflets-in-Gaza-to-warn-them thing.  First, how are they supposed to learn from your threats if you just kill them all?  You never thought of that, did you?  Also, the whole “previous warning” thing doesn’t make you less of a jerk. FYI.

In any case, you should probably run most of your stuff by me before you actually go through with it.  I have a pretty good sense of how the world thinks about you and these things.  I’m not trying to be cocky or anything.  Sure, you can kill better than I can.  But in everything else, I’m just better. Most of all, I’m just not a jerk.

Yours truly,
Amer, your Palestinian friend