the Shackle Report

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Tel Aviv, Israel – The Israeli government, typically bowing to pressure from foreign governments who are unhappy with Israel’s contribution to the Middle East peace process, has agreed to let the Israeli Defense Forces head up the new United Nations peace-keeping troops being mobilized in southern Lebanon.

The new forces, called “Unifillerup”, are now being deployed, but have not gotten a substantial military commitment from a modernized state to lead the effort. France, the US, and Somalia, have all declined to contribute the necessary forces and leadership to accomplish the mission. Israel has now reluctantly agreed to step into the void.

Jerusalem Israel Wailing Wall, head of the Israeli Defense Forces, says: “As the world knows, we are not in the habit of using military action to accomplish goals better attained by diplomacy. But, in the spirit of cooperation with international opinion, we have decided to lead the charge to bring peace to southern Lebanon.”

Leaders around the world praised the move. Walter “Hack-em Up” Liberty, president of Liberia, said: “It’s about time the Jews broke from their pacifist traditions, and helped the international community bring stability to a region notoriously fraught with violence, and just general malaise and ennui.”

President Bush, reached at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, commented through his official interpreter: “This will send a message throughout the world. As soon as our intelligence services, who are doing a heckuva job by the way, figure out what that message is, I will personally vocabularize it for the American people. We have our very best Jewish impersonators working on it right now.”

Ariel Sharon, asked for comment, had a brain hemorrhage and saluted. Doctors warned that the salute was not necessarily a sign of recovery for the ailing ex-Prime Minister, as people who have suffered strokes often make involuntary gestures that are not to be taken as indicative of cognizance. They cited Mr. Sharon’s decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip as evidence that these gestures can often be just the human brain having convulsions that are then interpreted as being real decisions.

—Scot Crawford