Becoming sexy for Palestine!

I am in receipt of rather amusing e-mail which originated with a group of Jew-haters in Marin County, forwarded by someone who does not realize that he and I disagree over certain key issues.

[Begin cite]

Dear Friends,

A group in California has come up with a creative way to raise money for If Americans Knew and a number of other organizations. It is not to late to join in their efforts! (Naturally, adjust step number 1 to fit your time and location.)

You are cordially invited to donate a pound or two of your flesh to Palestine by taking part in our Sponsored Diet in aid of various organizations including: **14 Friends of Palestine** **Keep Hope Alive** ** Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions** **If Americans Knew** **Jewish Voice for Peace** ** US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation**

The Rules

• Weigh in at a private home in San Rafael on Sunday Jan 3rd 2010
• Get sponsors (suggest $1 per pound, or more)
• Eat less or differently
• Exercise more, on your own, or join our weekly hikes
• Weigh-out Sunday March 21st, after 11 weeks
• Collect money from sponsors
• Give in all money to organizer by Saturday May 1st 2010
• Stop exercising and eat lots so we can do it all again next year?

Please note that while your actual weight will remain confidential, your weight loss (or gain!) will be broadcast for the merriment of others.
If you want to join, please email 14friendsofpalestine@gmail.com
Long distance dieters from elsewhere in America are welcome to join us.
Penalty clause: Anyone who gains weight pays a fine of $10 per pound (we could raise quite a lot of money this way)
Automatic disqualification for:
Rocks in pockets at weigh-in
Use of helium balloons at weigh-out
Limb amputation
Child birth

Good luck! And may we all end up with a figure of a twelfth grader.
Please note that while your actual weight will remain confidential, your weight loss (or gain!) will be broadcast for the merriment of others.
If you want to join, please email 14friendsofpalestine@gmail.com
Long distance dieters from elsewhere in America are welcome to join us.
[End cite]

COMMENT BY THE FORWARDER TO HIS OWN E-MAIL LIST: "This will show those Shylocks what a pound of flesh is really about! I urge all of you to join up now and loose weight, so that the masonic izzy plan to starve Gaza gets flummoxed. Forward this to everyone you know, ESPEcAilly anyone who lost their job because of the neocon economy! Stop sucking blood and gusts out of Palastine!" [CUT]

HATEFILLED STOMACHS

I actually do not know which I find more amusing - the idea of anti-Semites starving themselves and the attendant potential for medical problems, or the absurd off the wall addition by the gentleman who forwarded the e-mail from the fourteen haters of Israel.

There are times when I enjoy the conversational surrealism of the other side. Many of them are not soundly based in objective reality, quite a few live in strange parallel universes (such as Berkeley). Some are just nuts.

"...And may we all end up with a figure of a twelfth grader. "

There's a sexism in this wish that is actually quite appalling.
Seriously, I have to wonder how many Israel-haters have Humbert Humbert tendencies. Do they really wish that they looked like a high-school student again? Does the heart of a sexiliscious Lolita beat within the withered breasts of Marin County 'activists', or does some overwhelmed and overweight earth-mother deeply resent her present undesirability so much that she would starve herself in spite?

In addition to the suggestion of perversion, there is something deeply mediaeval about this self-imposed penance. Not only does it express a sense of white guilt, but it reflects an egomaniac attitude of centrality, in which the dieter believes his or her own mortification capable of altering the universe.
As well as a feeling of repulsiveness which may be alleviated by 'punishment'.
That latter is probably justified.