This week in unneccessary cultural chaos

Behold! The Arab-Israeli conflict. An anarchic conundrum of irrational people doing irrational things, with reasonable folks hovering around in the background trying to figure out why we can't go a day in Haifa or Gaza without some crazy bastard holding up a burning effigy, a young kid throwing rocks at something stoic to rocks (like tanks) or the Israeli government chucking a rocket at someone. For two decades now, peace agreements have been rescinded, people have been blown from here to the Suez Canal, and the underlying theme of it all is that it is the other guy's fault.

We could go through all of the crazy shit that has gone down and why it has been insane, but that would require us to work take too long. Go read a book or something; Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem actually would be a good start.

But this week, it's Israel's turn to be the assholes.

Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered embassies abroad to use a photo of Adolf Hitler meeting a top Palestinian cleric to counter international criticism over a Jerusalem settlement project, a senior Israeli official said on Wednesday.

The decision to circulate a 1941 photo featuring the Nazi dictator sitting with the then grand mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini is aimed at easing pressure on Israel over a construction project on land in annexed east Jerusalem once owned by the cleric, the official told AFP.

Thanks, Minister Lieberman. Real fucking cool. Play the Holocaust card as it relates to the people of Palestine, who had no control over Amin al-Husseini's courting of Hitler. It's not their fault the British were completely screwing Palestinians over and that al-Husseini sought an ally, but it is your fault that Palestinians hate you. You're really making great strides toward peace, and are really representing the maturity of your party well. Dick.