OUT.OF.CONTEXT

It's fully explicable. It is, after all, a cultural thing. Not to be confused with an insult. Simply a hyperbolic statement. Of course, there's fact in there as well. And of course there's the audience. The show must go on. One has an audience, one has an obligation to play to the audience. There's one's reputation to uphold, after all.

Wouldn't expect people in the West, for example, to understand. Or Jews, that prickly race. Say 'boo' and you're an anti-Semite. Some Jews are counted among my dear friends. Remember that note I sent along to Israeli President Shimon Perez? Was that unfriendly? Exactly! Precisely my point. I caught hell at home for that one.


How'd it go now? Oh yes: “Great and good friend, being desirous of maintaining and strengthening the cordial relations which so happily exist between our two countries, I have selected Mr. Atef Mohamed Salem Sayed El Ahl to be our ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. Highest esteem and consideration.”

 

Feel like holding my heels to the fire over that? Liked that one, didn't you?

So I called Jews "pigs" and "bloodsuckers". You don't consider that to be charming and polite. Sometimes charm and courtesy are out of the picture, but it doesn't mean they aren't there entirely. I could say 'just kidding'; would that make a difference? It's my critics and my enemies that have it in for me.

If it hadn't been for that Egyptian TV show thinking they were so smart, poking fun at me, this would never have come to public attention. So, you're deeply offended. Don't you believe in evolution? Aren't we all descended from rude animal stock?

It's just a cultural thing, you tell your infants the boogy-men will get them, and we Egyptians tell ours that it won't as long as they know their enemies, so parents speak to their kids about "hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews". Like big deal. Get over it.

Isn't it true that the Israelis exercise aggression against the poor Palestinians? Think of their violent incursions into Gaza, the IDF, slaughtering innocent Palestinian children. It is to weep. So I do. And I get angry. Wouldn't you?

Everyone gets aggravated now and again. So I was expressing myself undiplomatically. Get over it. What's that crude expression y'all use? Suck it up!