14 August 2014
B’tselem and the Martians (1)
The Gaza War and Hamas
B’tselem and the Martians (1)
The Gaza War and Hamas
Shortly after writing the previous blog entry (How Many Civilian Casualties in Gaza?) a link to the website of B’tselem arrived from a friend. This devotes many articles to the damage and casualties in Gaza. Possibly, the sender meant them as an antidote to my article. Instead, it reminded me of a story I heard many years ago.
This was not long after the BBC’s monopoly of British television was broken by ITV. One of the innovations of ITV was the introduction of wrestling into sports programs. Much of this was the sham, entertainment-type of wrestling - far too vulgar for the BBC.
One day, as the wrestling was being shown; earth was visited by beings from space – almost certainly Martians. While circling the earth, their receivers somehow picked up the wrestling transmissions.
Unfortunately, these suffered a serious malfunction – and only one of the wrestlers was visible. The Martians watched as the lone wrestler repeatedly smashed his head against the corner post, screamed in agony, twisted his arms behind his back, contorted his face in pain, bounced off the ropes, rose into the air and crashed to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Disturbed by this alarming display, the Martians could see no rational explanation and concluded that the earthlings were mad. Curiosity satisfied, they reversed direction and headed back into space never to return.
