Satire

The men seated around the conference table stared at Jimmy Carter. Richard the Lion-Heart could have parachuted into the middle of their séance from the siege of Acre with a crossbow strapped to his back and would have caused less alarm. Mouths gaped open; eyes flickered with fear. Che Guevara was the first to recover. He smiled. He was Alfonso Bedoya in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. :”Ah, Senor Carter,” he said. “Mi amigos tell me you were Presidente of the United States. It is an honor to meet you.” The peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, seemed embarrassed.

It wasn’t Des Moines, Iowa, or Gun Blast, Texas, it was Gaza City, the land of Yasser Arafat and Hamas, of car bombings, honor killings and nasty old men filled with 1,400 years of hatred. But no one had promised Piffy a rose garden, least of all Asma bint Marwan. He got off the bus from Rafah carrying puppy dog in a covered birdcage—yes, a covered birdcage. The mutt was sound asleep and no one could see inside so no one was the wiser. The first thing Piffy noticed about Gaza was the smell, a combination of cooking oil, horse and donkey sweat and raw sewage.

Muslims say the Darndest things