Month: December 2015

“Thanks for nothing,” an embittered 2015 said in his farewell address to the world this afternoon.

“I wish I could say it’s been fun, but it hasn’t,” the disillusioned outgoing year said, in a speech punctuated by snide references to the disappointments he had suffered.

”I began with the best of intentions, but I clearly didn’t have what it takes to handle the likes of Al-Bagdhadi, Trump, Putin and that little schnorrer Blatter.”

Interviewed by The Kibbitzer on the day before taking office, a youthful 2016 said that he had a good feeling about things but wasn’t going to make any promises.

“Part of the job is dealing with the unpredictable,” he explained, while ironing his shirt for the big occasion. “We’re just going to have to take it one day at a time.”

In Washington, meanwhile, President Obama revealed that his New Year resolution was to give up Israelis and Palestinians.

“It’s going to be tough in the beginning,” the president said, “but I know that it will be good for me in the long run.”

Some of the world’s most prominent thieves have signed a petition calling on the president of Israel to pardon disgraced former prime minister Ehud Olmert and save him from ignominy, The Kibbitzer has learned

The petition  was posted on the change.org website last night, only hours after Israel’s Supreme Court sentenced Olmert to 18 months imprisonment on a bribery charge.

“What is the point in serving the public if we can’t take tips?” the petition asks. “Even waiters get a minimum of 20%.”

Submitted by Spiro Agnew, the petition was signed by Mobutu Sese Seko, Mohamed Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos, Sani Abacha, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Alberto Fujimori and others.

“Let’s face it, Olmert was an amateur,” Marcos told The Kibbitzer. “I mean, taking brown envelopes when you can go and plunder the treasury does not exactly show ambition.”

“But he’s one of us and the only way he’ll learn is by playing with the big boys.”

“I appreciate this vote of confidence in me by my peers,” Olmert said in response to the petition, “and I hope I will still have the opportunity to fulfill their expectations of me.”

JERUSALEM – The Munich-based Society for Nazi Signs & Symbols has offered Israel free use of its trademarked yellow star to tag members of left-wing Israeli NGOs when they visit the Knesset.

Legislation providing for the labelling of the NGOs was approved by the Government Legislative Committee today, clearing its way for a Knesset vote.

“We fully endorse your intention to publicly identify Jews,” the society said in an email to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, the sponsor of the bill. “As a sign of our support, we will waive all fees and royalties on your use of the yellow star for this noble purpose.”

“The yellow star has proved highly effective at branding Jews in the past,” the email continued, “and we are confident it will make a positive contribution to your cause, as well.”

The Kibbitzer was unable to get a response from Minister Shaked before going to press.

HEAVEN – A bitter social media dispute has broken out between King David and King Herod over whose royal line will assume the throne of Israel when the Duma murderers and their friends take power.

The dispute stems from a statement issued by the Shin Bet last week that a group of extremist Jews based in the occupied territories was planning to rebel against the state, seize power and establish a theocratic monarchy.

Herod responded to the Shin Bet announcement with a Facebook post in which he said that “the Hasmonean dynasty has always served the Jewish People faithfully and devotedly and is preparing to do the same in the future.”

That statement aroused the ire of David, who tweeted, “the Davidic line was anointed by the Lord to symbolize its destiny to rule over all the Israelite tribes. Nothing has changed.”

In a subsequent tweet, David called Herod “an imposter, a sheigetz, a Roman pawn and a criminal madman.”

Herod responded by describing David as a “pervert, a voyeur and a murderer.”

“They’re both old farts,” said Yishai Shaar Yishuv, spokesman of the rebellious exremists, from his Shin Bet cell. “And, anyway, they’re too late. We’ve already chosen Baruch Goldstein as our king.”

JERUSALEM – Christians in Israel are outraged at being excluded from the torture fad currently sweeping the country.

“Everyone agrees that Muslims can be tortured and now there seems to be a growing consensus that Jews can also be tortured,” said Nicodemus III, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

“But what about us? What about the Christians? Why are we the only ones who don’t get to be tortured?”

The patriarch stressed that, with Christianity on the retreat throughout the Middle East, it was particularly galling that Israel, of all places, would exclude its Christian citizens from full participation in the life of the nation.

“As Christmas nears, I appeal to our Israeli brothers to do the right thing and end discrimination against Christians when it comes to torture,” he said.

A Shin Bet spokesman said in response that the service was an equal opportunities torturer and would continue to ensure that every community had access to torture.

BETHLEHEM – The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed that the bright light seen in the sky on Wednesday night was caused by “bombing the shit out of someone,” and was not the Bethlehem Star, a military spokesman told The Kibbitzer.

The sudden appearance of a dazzling light in the eastern night sky caused the seven pilgrims in Bethlehem for Christmas to go into raptures. Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics had to sedate and pacify the agitated visitors, who took the light as a signal that the Redemption was about to begin.

The army later confirmed that the light was the result of an intensive artillery bombardment accompanied by flares.

“It was our nightly bombing the shit out of someone,” the army spokesman said. “Only a foreigner would imagine it to be something else. The locals are used to it already.”

One Palestinian victim of the confusion was local merchant Nabil Fawzi, who was about to sell an olive wood nativity figurine to one of the tourists when he saw the bright light.

“He just fell to the ground and lay there, shaking and frothing at the mouth,” Fawzi told The Kibbitzer. “The money was still in his hand. It would have been my first sale this Christmas season.”

Alleged Shin Bet torture of Jewish detainees has been vociferously condemned by Israeli right-wingers and representatives of the settlement community in recent days, but last night it received strong support from an unlikely source.

“I always found the Jews devilishly hard to break,” said Tomás de Torquemada, the first grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, in a telephone interview with The Kibbitzer.

“Knowing the Jews as I do, I think torture really is the only way to knock some sense into their heads.”

“My advice would be to experiment with a small auto-da-fé or two,” Torquemada added. “I always found it produced good results – and it gave welcome warmth on a cold day.”

“Of course, in my day it wasn’t the Jews doing the torturing,” Torquemada remarked, “but that’s progress for you.”

Asked to comment on the grand inquisitor’s statement, a Shin Bet spokesman said: “Spaniards should go back to labelling settlement goods and leave the nitty gritty of investigations up to us.”

JERUSALEM – Israel’s Health Ministry announced yesterday that the client-centered health profession  previously known as Occupational Therapy will henceforth be known as Return to the Homeland Therapy.

“The ministry’s management decided that the term Occupational Therapy painted the country in a negative light,” ministry spokesman Avi Ben Haim said at the press conference during which the shock announcement was made.

“It decided, therefore, to change the name to something more relevant and in keeping with the times.”

The certification issued to members of the profession in Israel will henceforth be called the Return to the Homeland Therapy Certificate.

Asked whether the change wouldn’t make life difficult for Israeli Return to the Homeland therapists in their dealings with international colleagues, Ben Haim said: “Our purpose is to enhance the standing of the profession inside Israel. We’re not interested in what the goyim think.”

TEL AVIV  – The world’s most powerful supercomputer has failed to decipher the Israeli High Court’s rulings on the legality of house demolitions, sources at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California told The Kibbitzer yesterday.

Israel demolishes the homes of suspected terrorists as a means of deterring additional attacks. Most demolition orders are appealed to the High Court before they are carried out, creating an archive of several dozen rulings on the issue.

In an effort to establish the logic of the rulings, scientists at the laboratory fed all data dating back to 2001 into the Vulcan computer three weeks ago. Regarded as the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, the Vulcan normally handles classified U.S. government work, but is partly available to business and academia.

“It churned away at the data for three whole weeks,” said David Whitmore, a senior Lawrence Livermore computer analyst, “until eventually it just gave up. It’s never done that before. Clearly this is up there with the Big Bang and other unsolvable cosmic mysteries.”

Israeli legal scholar Prof. Eran Volker of the Hebrew University said that he wasn’t surprised by the Vulcan’s failure. “There are some things that not even a supercomputer can untangle,” he said.

“The rationale behind the court’s baffling and inconsistent rulings on home demolitions is going to remain one of the unsolved enigmas of the natural world.”

TEL AVIV – With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to host Republican presidential contender Donald Trump in Jerusalem on December 29, scientists are warning of potentially catastrophic fib pollution in Israel’s capital and as far afield as Tel Aviv.

“This is historic,” said Prof. Assaf Goldschmidt of Israel Technion science institute in Haifa. “As far as we know, there’s never been a conjunction between two liars of such magnitude, so we really don’t know what to expect.”

“But all indications are that the fallout could exceed the damage caused by the Asian tsunami in 2004.”

“This is going to make Beijing look sanitized,” said Prof. Ivan McKenzie of the Princeton Institute of Sustainable Sciences in a telephone interview with The Kibbitzer. “My prediction is that the sustained mendacity level (SML) will be off the charts. It’s going to be a Newtonian experience.”

The Health Ministry has advised residents of Jerusalem to wear double sets of ear muffs for the duration of the meeting and to prepare sufficient cotton wool for several days afterwards.

“We’re recommending that pregnant women, people with high blood pressure and those sensitive to distortion, deception and outright fiction remain indoors until given the all-clear,” the ministry said in a statement.