The Israeli mob deals in large arms and stereotypes

It usually doesn't make the first page of the ever ready checklist of ethnic accomplishment, but the Jews have proven to be as effective organized criminals as any other distinguishable group. Think about it this way: The legacy of Jewish-American gangsterism is a gilded palace of legalized sin called Las Vegas, while the non-fictionalized Italian-American mafia is now represented by the frosted tips and fake tans of Growing Up Gotti.

So it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that Israel has a vibrant criminal underworld. And, given the general militarism of Israeli society, an unusually well-armed one at that.

Mob activity in the Holy Land has been on the rise lately, according to this report. Which even goes so far as to claim that "when an explosion goes off on a busy Israeli street these days, it seems as likely to be a mob hit as a Palestinian attack."

So what is the source of this escalating violence . . ? A turf war over empties. Yes, the recyclable drink receptacles that can be returned for a few cents. Apparently Israeli mobsters require restaurants and nightclubs to pay for their protection with completely untraceable glass bottles and aluminum cans.

There is nothing unusual about the mob offering protection or picking up the trash -- these activities are staples of organized crime the world over. But there is something in the tedium of collecting and returning empties that play into certain age-old stereotypes.

So yes, if you tossed a penny in front of an Israeli gangster it stands to reason he would take the bait and bend over to pick it up. Although it isn't always wise to tease a man with an anti-tank missile launcher.

A bitter mouse's cry for attention

The big news in comic animal cartoon characters this week was Mickey Mouse getting caught encouraging -- on behalf of Hamas -- Palestinian children to fight Israel and to work for the global domination of Islam.

While most news reports are using words such as "imitation" and knockoff" to describe the mouse, I'm not so sure about that. Some will argue Hamas's Mickey is a little rounder in the face, but aren't we all?

Because, really, how much do we know about this mouse who has been a symbol of our nation for so long?

Mickey worked hard between 1928 and 1953, knocking out shorts for Walt Disney with great regularity. Then came his long current period of quasi-retirement. Sure they trot Mickey out for a parade or the odd cameo and affix his image to clubs and all sorts of merchandise but, basically, Mickey has been spending most of the last 70 years wandering his luxurious Burbank studio, watching as the snark of hated rival Bugs Bunny takes the day while Mickey's own very name has become synonymous with worthless currency and all things incompetent.

Is it really a surprise that a mouse so idle and mocked, while at the same time so rich and successful, would resort to radicalism to give his life a sense of purpose and to lash out at those who callously dismiss him?

Remember Mickey Mouse's greatest life influence was Walt Disney, a man who, legend has it, fostered a deep resentment towards Jews and their control of Hollywood -- the land Disney loved and coveted most.

Given Mickey's previous failure to complete such rudimentary tasks as steering a boat or firing a gun, a Hamas/Mickey partnership shouldn't prove disruptive to the world order. But it still represents a dark chapter in the long life of a beloved American icon.

A kinky new twist on the 'international incident"

I've always wondered what, for example, the Argentinian ambassador to Vietnam does. Sure there is the odd lost hiker, and the outside chance the two nations might meet in an international sporting event -- an occasion which would call for a meal of beef and sweetbreads to be diplomatically proffered against a spicy bowl of crab and banh canh.

Other than that, what? Well, there is the embassy party circuit. But can anything good happen when you send somebody's nephew to a far-off, irrelevant land and give him a cool-sounding title, fancy digs, diplomatic immunity, an expense account and unlimited time and opportunity for drinking?

Probably not. Or, as the Israelis are finding out, things can get out flat-out goofy. Goofy in a bad way. According the BBC:

Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear. Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.

While the Israeli Foreign Ministry acknowledged Ambassador Tzuriel Refael hadn't technically violated any rules or broken any laws, he is still being brought home as an "unprecedented embarrassment."

Idle threat of the week

During a week when much of the Northern Hemisphere decamped for the sun of the beach or the shade of the mountains, the hard working diplomats of the world were burning the midnight oil over at Turtle Bay. This dedication paid off big time when UN Security Council Resolution 1701 emerged as The Idle Threat of the Week.

The resolution took the coveted crown by threatening to disarm or remove Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon. Due to some sneaky and precarious language it took a great deal of parsing before our judges were able make the award official by determining the resolution actually said anything at all.

1701 claims the defanging of Hezbollah will be the job of the Lebanese army, backed by 15,000 United Nation Peacekeepers likely led by the French. Our panel of judges were surprised to learn this is the same Lebanese army last seen literally running and hiding when their country was attacked, and the same French whose military history can be politely described as "bumbling."

Of course, if the resolution had called for the deployment of a 30,000 strong force tasked to perch in observation towers and only come down when village girls in need of a good ravaging are spotted, the threat would have been deemed quite valid.

And some other person or document would have won Idle Threat of the Week for August 8 -14.

!!!Middle East crisis solved!!!

Damn, I'm good. As I sat here waiting for updates on Lindsey Lohan's collapse due to "dehydration," I was able to piece together an unconventional, but sure-fire, way to bring peace to the Middle East. I can only pity the "pundits," who have been getting all worked up trying to find a solution by regurgitating the same crap already responsible for that tangled mess of a web.

Besides the folks on the liberal blogs, of course, where any talk of Israel has been banned, so as not to provoke a rhetorical civil war in the wordy, if not particularly important, American Left.

None of that matters now because, with very little effort, I've solved the latest crisis and perhaps the whole situation forever. The solution came to me via a search engine query that brought a citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran to this space.

The Iranian was looking for "super sexy photos." Because my site is the one-stop shop for all things Timberlake and his mission to "bring sexy back" the Iranian was directed to jsb.

So, I'm like, egads, we have the other JT, who wants to bring sexy back, and we have Iran, who wants sexy.

Let's get them together!

At the very least the good-will created by this American-brokered marriage of convenience will result in Iran calling off the dogs of Hezbollah and declaring an immediate cessation of their controversial nuclear program.

If it turns out these crazy kids really like each other, expect an ebullient Timberlake to try to "burn it up" with every man, women and child in the Islamic Republic.

Good news sure, but somewhat tempered by word (from India?!?) that Lohan will be giving up partying. Well, you win some and you lose some.

Thinking of the children

Photographs of children in Northern Israel painting taunting messages on shells meant for targets in Lebanon have made their way around the world, via that dastardly internet, inciting controversy at every stop.

Also today Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams, while addressing a large audience of school children in Brisbane, Australia, said she "would like to kill George Bush."

I'm a big fan of preaching violence to children. I think it does a good job preparing them for when they become adults.

That in mind, I whole-heartily endorse children painting taunting messages on bombs.

Messages have been painted on bombs ever since either bombs or paint were invented. And taking into account kids grow up so fast these days with the myspace and the cell phones, I think we owe it to children to treat them as adults in respect to ordnance.

Plus this activity encourages creativity. Although, I can't say the examples of messages cited, such as "from Israel with love," were particularly creative. What they really need is a contest to spice things up. The winner would get a summer internship as a New York Post headline writer.

As for Mrs. Williams's "kill Bush" remarks, I'm mixed. Part of me thinks any speech to a youth group that encourages the issuing of idle threats is only beneficial to jsb's long-term prospects.

But another part of if me thinks Justin Timberlake is still a very young man and it is cruel to even suggest a humble schoolchild from a place called "Brisbane" would ever be in position where he or she could dream of ending Timberlake's tyrannically Idle Threat of the Week reign.

The folly of equality

FIFA finally weighed in on the Zidane headbutt, suspending the retired French football star three games, but also suspending Italian defender Marco Materazzi two games for taunting Zidane.

A few minutes later the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan, addressing the UN security council, blamed both Hezbollah and Israel for the conflict in Lebanon.

What links these two stories is they are more examples of an international organization looking at a situation where there is conflict and controversy and trying their damnedest to dole out blame equally.

Since international institutions represent a cornucopia of interests and perspectives they have to do this to maintain their legitimacy among their members.

The price they pay for this legitimacy is a lack of authority.

It has been said diplomacy is "the art of letting someone have your way."

So how could it be anything but folly to turn an organization like the UN, which doesn't have a unified "way," for diplomacy?

I'm not stating anything earth-shaking here. The UN has lost authority as a geopolitical broker every year it has existed. I doubt many serious people still think it can serve that function at all.

But what has replaced the UN is the de facto mini-UN's we create when we excercise the instinct to bring in as many voices as possible into conflicts, whether it be Iraq, North Korea or Lebanon.

Diplomacy needs to be handled as unilaterally as possible -- or not at all.

The "equal" solutions large groups tend to come up with are anything but, and they only lead to more trouble down the road.

This guy would be better off blogging

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This was the scene in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City yesterday. It was supposed to be a protest about Israel's current bombing campaign in Lebanon.

There are plenty of other photos from the same protest that feature placards displaying more appropriate messages. And whatever you think of the overall situation, you have to have sympathy for the people of Lebanon.

But that sign claiming Islam will dominate the White House, as well as that gem about Allah destroying Israel with his magic, were front and center. For most Americans they will and should overshadow whatever else the protestors had to say.

Has there ever been a worst PR move than mixing the inflammable with the inconceivable? Did another human being ever even consider it, before the Islamic Fundamentalists adopted it as their go to move?

Hmm, let's see how many people we can piss off and make lose respect for us. Simultaneously! And a real loss of respect. Not that figure of speech kind.

Beyond that, I'm skeptical of any kind of physical presence protest in 2006. It is pretty clear they don't influence the government and it is doubtful they change minds.

Back in the day, when the lines of communication didn't run seamlessly between everyone with a modem and polling information wasn't readily available, the protest or march might have been a good way to express your feelings and prove a strength in numbers.

Now it just proves a tiny percentage of the public, who might be illiterate, feel like getting together and yelling.

If nothing else protesters need to leave their placards at home. For their own good.

Great moments in fund-raising

As Israel vows to continue its offensive until its kidnapped soldiers are returned and Hezbollah vacates southern Lebanon, the region and the world prepare for more heavy military activity in the Holy Land.

Israel has an ace-in-the-hole. If the fighting escalates they know they can turn to a certain former president. Not as a negotiator or broker of peace -- like many before him Bill Clinton has tried and failed in that role -- but as an IDF grunt.

President Clinton said in 2002:

"The Israelis know that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die."

Of course, Bill Clinton wouldn't really pick up a rifle if Iran joined the fray -- his cardiologist would never allow it.

But seriously, both news reports I could find about his speech to a Jewish group in Toronto claim the crowd stood and cheered wildly in response to Clinton's bold declaration.

This is testament to what a rousing speaker Clinton must be. I would have imagined it would have gone more like this:

The crowd instinctively rises, when it is reveled such a great and powerful man shares their passion and concern. During their ascent they are overcome with laughter, as they realize the absurdity of what they have just heard. By the time they reach the standing position there is only the stunned silence of shock and awe.

It is then I like to think Clinton cracked a joke involving checkbooks.