Sunday, June 17, 2007

Adam Ereli, in Arabic (Is it really Arabic or some new language that I could not decipher?) Who has told Adam Adam Ereli of the US Department of State to speak Arabic on Arabic TV? He appeared on New TV (along with Charles Ayyub, editor-in-chief of the pro-Syrian, Al-Diyar newspaper). It was quite a show. First, you need a special dictionary of whatever language Ereli speaks. I mean, really. For several minutes, he kept talking about "azab lubnani". I was most confused. I assumed he was talking about Lebanese suffering (`adhab) before I realized that he was talking about "Ahzab Lubnaniyyah" (Lebanese parties). He then talked about "qaqiqah". Again, I did not know what he was trying to say before I figured he meant to say "haqiqah" (truth). It went on and on. Charles Ayyub posed a question to him in Arabic, and Ereli asked him to rephrase (so Ayyub said "falafil" and Ereli quickly understood). Ayyub then asked him for the reason of Arab antipathy to the US, and for US bias in favor of Israel (as a factor). Ereli said: "It is not true. The US is not biased in favor of Israel." At that point, I could only think of some US academics who urge the US government to put more US propagandists on Arab TV because they think it will sway Arab public opinion. They are right, and I was wrong. Because as soon as Ereli denied US bias in favor of Israel, Arabs took to the street--yes, that famous street--and waved US flags. This Ereli (who my inside sources tell me is a fanatic Zinionist Likudnik) will now serve as a US ambassador in Bahrain. The Bahraini people have started a donation to hire a translator for him.