Pope flunks Facebook quiz, leadership in doubt

Pope Benedict XVI's 1.1 billion Facebook friends were stunned this morning to read a wall posting from the pontiff that blared: "Pope B-16 just took the Holy Land Trivia quiz and scored 56%. Can you do better?"

"OMFG," said one commenter. "I know more holy stuff than the pope."

Vatican officials say that Benedict was hoping for a little downtime after a long day standing in line at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, so he curled up at his Bethlehem hotel with his laptop and a virgin Bloody Mary and sank into Facebook.

His Holiness is already having a rough week in the religion department, ever since he arrived in the Holy Land having forgotten to pack his mea culpa. Muslim leaders in Jordan were hoping for an apology for the pontiff's 2006 remarks criticizing the prophet Muhammad. Jewish leaders in Israel wanted an apology for the Vatican's passive voice during the Holocaust. Christian leaders in Palestine were simply hoping the Pope and some of his friends would move in with them.

This week Benedict has also had to confront his Nazi past, deal with getting around Israel's Separation Wall in the West Bank, and restore hope to his flock in the Middle East. It's been, well, a crucifying ordeal.

According to a Vatican spokesperson, the pontiff was extremely tired, dehydrated and suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome when he logged on to his Facebook account, which may explain why he missed such quiz questions as Where is the Mount of Olives?; How many Stations of the Cross are there?; and What was Jesus's middle name?*

Vatican officials quickly moved to assure the world's 1.1 billion Catholics that the pope would do better next time. Meanwhile, they downplayed speculation that in the future pontiffs might be chosen based on how well they do on the quiz.**

The moral of this modern biblical story: Let he who is without sin try to deal with all that sh*t.

* OMG - JK :-)
** The Holy Land Trivia quiz on Facebook is a creation of the Israeli consulate in New York City, which hopes to entice American Christians to follow the pope's pilgrimmage to Israel and spend lots of money and love Israel blindly, etc, etc.

Jenin's Freedom Theatre defies critics, arsonists

"Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy."
-- First Commandment of the society in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

On the night of April 15, a few weeks after the final performance of a Palestinianized version of Orwell's classic upon the stage of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp, an unidentified two-legged arsonist set fire to the theatre's main door.

Motives may be many, suspects are yet nil, and thankfully the damage was confined to the exterior of the theatre complex as the fire was extinguished before drafting inwards toward the stage, classrooms and computer lab.

At a press conference the next day, the Freedom Theatre's general manager, Juliano Mer Khamis (pictured), who re-founded the theatre in 2004, called on the Palestinian Authority security services to bring the culprit(s) to justice.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Juliano was a man named Zakariya Zubeidi, a man who is sometimes referred to in the Israeli press as a "reformed terrorist."

Zubeidi might be better called a "redeemed child" rather than a reformed terrorist. As a lad, he was active in the original Freedom Theatre started by Juliano's late mother, Arna. [Shameless plug: for more background, see an article by the Tuque Souq's alter ego published in This Magazine about the Freedom Theatre.]

In 2002, a child no longer--whose home and family were threatened by an Israeli military onslaught known as Operation Defensive Shield--Zubeidi joined the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade and fought for the defence of the camp. Shortly thereafter, when the senior leaders of the Brigade were dead or captured, Zubeidi reluctantly became its new commander in the camp, which put him at the top of Israel's most wanted list (for assassination) for a time.

But, accruing wisdom and stoicism with age, Zubeidi, now 33, left the militant group for the Palestinian Authority security services. He also has a few ambiguous civic titles in the refugee camp. [That's Zubeidi, pictured, inside the Freedom Theatre.]

Nowadays around Jenin he's mainly known as the one guy who survived it all.

[For even more, see this recent Globe & Mail article by Patrick Martin about the Freedom Theatre and Mr. Zubeidi.]

When the story of the fire hit the Israeli press a few days later, leading daily Ha'aretz published an article claiming that, apparently for security's sake after the fire, the Freedom Theatre had named Zubeidi as its new director.

Juliano Mer Khamis vigorously denied this in an email sent to the Theatre's email list, implying that it is within Zubeidi's role as a member of the security services in Jenin to help bring the arsonists to justice, and to help protect the theatre.

"The Freedom Theatre called upon Zacharia Zubeidi and all supporters of the organisation to take clear action to protect it from these forces," read the letter.

Whether via bad journalism or bad translation, neither of which are usually attributed to Ha'aretz, the media got this one wrong.

But at least Ha'aretz gave us some gossip: rekindling the rumour that Zubeidi is romantically linked with Tali Fahima, the Israeli activist who, five years ago, went to live with Zubeidi in Jenin as a human shield when she learned that the Israeli military was planning to assassinate him. Both she and Zubeidi have denied the rumours.

Tuque Souq 2009 Israeli Election Preview

We don't want to fear-monger and tell you to pack your bags and head for the hills (of Jordan), but polls open in Israel in less than 48 hours and things ain't looking so good. While last-minute surveys hold that the Likud Party remains in the lead for the throne, it has become startlingly clear that the coveted princess of this election is not Benjamin Netanyahu but Avigdor Lieberman.

Lieberman (pictured) leads the far-right, secular-nationalist, pro-transfer party called Yisrael Beitenu ("Israel is our Home"). In recent weeks, his iron-fist rhetoric in post-war polling among voters has led many to conclude that the balance of power in the next Israeli government will be wielded by a racist who advocates the mass expulsion of Arabs from all of Israel.

Before we get to further analysis, here is a breakdown of the current standing of Knesset parties (blue indicates parties in the current coalition govt), and a poll prediction for Tuesday's vote.

Current Knesset:
Kadima 29 seats
Labor 19
Likud 12
Shas 12
Yisrael Beitenu 11
Nat'l Union/NRP 9
Pensioners 7
United Torah Judaism 6
Meretz-Yachad 5
United Arab List 4
Hadash 3
Balad 3

Latest Poll Prediction:
Likud 26 seats
Kadima 23
Yisrael Beitenu 19
Labor 17
Shas 10
Nat'l Union/NRP 6
Meretz-Yachad 6
United Torah Judaism 5
United Arab List 4
Hadash 4

(Notes: With 120 seats in the Knesset, a coalition needs 61 seats to govern. The party that finishes in first place gets first crack at forming a coalition, but if it fails then the runner-up finisher gets a crack. Parties must win at least 2% of the popular vote to qualify for a seat in the Knesset. The Pensioners Party is the latest here-today-gone-tomorrow Israeli party. They came from almost nowhere to nab 7 seats in 2006 and swing Ehud Olmert's Kadima-led coalition. Then the party split, and now it's all but gone.)

Naturally, the poll-leading Likud party is interested in having Lieberman's bloc join it in a coalition government. Things would then get sticky as the religious Shas Party probably wants nothing to do with anti-religion Yisrael Beitenu. So a hypothetical Likud-led government might have to include either Kadima or Labor to add up to a majority of 61.

Ehud Barak's inches-left-of-centre Labor Party is also pulling at Lieberman's sleeve. Kadima smells blood and hopes that enough right-wing fence voters will choose Lieberman over Likud so that Kadima ends up finishing in first place.

Then there's Shas, the Sephardi/Mizrahi ultra-orthodox party, which once upon a time held the fulcrum that Lieberman now wields. Used to be, Shas and its 12-or-15-odd seats would be enough to tip the balance of any coalition, and Shas was usually willing to join any government so long as it secured certain financial and moral guarantees from the government. (Shas is particularly fond of childcare subsidies, since the Haredim have such large families, and it opposes secular marriage ceremonies, which Lieberman staunchly supports.)

Recently, Shas's spiritual leader, the rabbi Ovadia Yosef, warned right-wing voters who sit on the fence between religious and secular that "a vote for Lieberman gives strength to Satan."

Lieberman, true to form, is basking in the glow of all this pre-election pomp. Despite his objectionable, physical ugliness, he's apparently quite popular among young, first-time voters in Israel. And despite his stomach-turning moral ugliness, he's already boasting that in the next Israeli election, his party will win over the most hearts and votes of Israelis.

So will Tuesday really be Avigdor Lieberman's bal débutante? Will Netanyahu get squeezed out between the far-right and the near-right? Will a fourth- or even fifth-place finish spell doom for Labor?

What if Likud and Yisrael Beitenu finish 1-2 but short of a combined majority? Would all the other parties (except presumably the also right-wing NU/NRP) unite to deny Netanyahu and Lieberman a chance at a possibly ruinous government?

Other election news/issues/tidbits culled from the final week of the campaign:

Further-right-than-Lieberman Baruch Marzel will be a poll-station monitor in the city of Umm al-Fahm, Israel's second-largest Arab city, which people like Lieberman and Marzel hope to force its residents to choose between loyalty to Israel and loyalty to Palestine (and expel the latter). This could get ugly.

The aforementioned Shas Party is showcasing its adaptability to the 20th century by promoting the political role of women in the ultra-orthodox community.

Could the Meretz Party, the white doves of the Israeli political flock, be shot down and stuffed for good? Ack, even Ha'aretz has turned on Meretz.

After the Israeli election commission reluctantly lifted its earlier ban on Arab parties participating in these elections, many in Israel's Arab communities are considering a boycott of the polls on Tuesday.

Oh, there are a whopping 33 political parties competing in Tuesday's election. That's a new record, even for a partying electorate like Israel's. The coolest party of the lot:

The Pro-Marijuana Holocaust Survivors Party!!

(This is not a joke. Click here to watch a Holocaust survivor encouraging you to toke up -- at least medicinally.)

The Yemeni Jewish orphan who became President - of Yemen

A Yemeni Jewish orphan who grew up to be President - of Yemen. An Israeli family that lost part of its history. A brutal war that saw Egypt gas its fellow Arabs. A poverty-stricken country divided by the political ideologies of the Cold-War Middle East.

If it sounds like a helluva story, that's because it is. Unfortunately you have to be in Israel to read all of it. The Hebrew-language monthly - Mishpaha - that published it doesn't have much of an online presence. But happily a good portion of it was re-published in English in Ha'aretz.