I’m at work. I’m bored. Make me laugh.

Trawl Rockall for:

Voices of moderation gain ground in Middle East crisis

Despite several setbacks in the Middle East peace process, a recent wave of pronouncements have given hope that peace is just around the corner.

Israeli PM Adolf Sharon announced a dramatic shift in the controversial policy of settling the occupied territories, declaring: "Previously our plans was to make the West Bank 'Judenfull' in 10 years, but we fully realize that this is not conducive to a final peace, so we have decided to change the timescale to 20 years to give those other people more time to leave."

Furthermore, addressing his decision to allow Chairman Arafat the freedom to walk around in a 30 square metre area, Mr Sharon will also stop blocking Yasser's satellite TV signals to permit him to watch his favourite shows including the Arabic version of Sex in the City called All Western Women are Painted Jezebels.

In response to these magnanimous gestures Mr. Arafat has promised to continue to call for a halt to all attacks on Jewish civilians. He also promised to stop making those "wink wink" gestures afterwards.

Islamic Jihad has also been ventilated by the winds of change. Mohamed Al-Salaam, the head of the IJ, has announced a major change to his group stated goals for the conflict. "No longer will we call for the rivers to run red with the blood of the Jewish pigdogs, but rather the rivers will run a slight crimson shade with the blood of the Jewish people. Also it will no longer be necessary for the Jews to be pushed into the sea. We will be more than satisfied if they plummet to their death from a high cliff," he said.

Not be outdone, Hamas has announced a change to their current policy of suicide bombers. Instead of filling the bombs with sharp, ragged edge rusty nails they will instead use smaller, less lethal upholstery tacks. They are also considering using 30 per cent less nails, but this is still the subject of a major debate within the group.

Finally, the Israeli Defense Forces have promised that they will no longer use their tanks after 7pm in the occupied territories, since they found that this upset the Palestinians during dinner time. Food, water and medicine shipments will still be blocked.

With such dramatic change in attitude from all of the major players, many commentators believe that peace in the region can be attained within 500 years.

 Email an enemy  Pub-friendly printable version  ‘World News’ index page