With apologies to Frank Sullivan

Q: Why Magnus Arbuthnot! How unexpected to see you in South Jerusalem! What brings you here?

A: I have been sent by a respected and impartial NGO to investigate the carnage inflicted by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Q: Which NGO would that be?

A: An NGO that uses an ostensible human-rights agenda as camouflage for an anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic program.

Q: So you’ve been south. What did you see there?

A: Collateral damage.

Q: Collateral to what?

A: To Israel’s right to defend itself.

Q: And what else?

A: To courageous Palestinian resistance against Zionist imperialism.

Q: What targets were hit?

A: Homes, schools, hospitals, military installations, and firing positions.

Q: How do you tell one from the other?

A: If you are Palestinian, you don’t bother.

Q: And if you are Israeli?

A: You shoot anyway.

Q: Could you be more specific? If you are a Hamas guerilla fighter, what is a legitimate military target?

A: Every outpost of Zionist imperialism.

Q: And what is an illegitimate civilian target?

A: Come again?

Q: The Israelis bombed homes and schools containing non-combatant men, women, and children.

A: They were being used as firing positions and endangering Israeli forces.

Q: How were they being used?

A: Cynically.

Q: And what the hundreds of deaths this caused?

A: They were tragic.

Q: What about the tunnels from the Gaza Strip to Egypt that Israel bombed?

A: They were lifelines for a besieged civilian population.

Q: Didn’t Hamas use them to smuggle rockets and other weapons?

A: Of course, the tunnels were a threat to Israeli security.

Q: Now that you’ve been to Gaza, what do you think of Hamas?

A: Hamas is fanatical Islamic movement sponsored by Iran that seeks Israel’s destruction.

Q: So Israel has a right to be concerned.

A: No, because Hamas is the national resistance movement of an oppressed people.

Q: And what do you think of us Israelis?

A: You are brave and determined.

Q: So you like us?

A: I suppose. Of course, you are the descendants of apes and pigs.

Q: Why did Israel invade?

A: It was provoked.

Q: And why did Hamas bombard Israel’s southern cities?

A: It was provoked.

Q: Couldn’t they have responded differently?

A: No, because the other side understands only force.

Q: What did Israel achieve?

A: All its goals.

Q: And what did Israel fail to do?

A: Finish the job.

Q: When will Hamas stop attacking Israel?

A: When it destroys the Zionist entity and liberates the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Q: And what did it inflict on Israel in this engagement?

A: A decisive loss.

Q: And what has Israel regained?

A: Its deterrence.

Q: What was the outcome of the war?

A: A cease-fire.

Q: What was the immediate cause?

A: The end of a cease-fire.

Q: Hey, where are you going?

A: Back home to a place where clichés don’t kill so many people.

Read more by Haim at South Jerusalem

Apropos of my Chomsky post, Tahl and I were discussing the multiform art of persuasion and who uses what tactic in order to turn a crowd. Orwell's classic essay, "Politics and the English Language," needs updating. What is one to do about a creature like Noam Chomsky, whose mechanical style and permanent calm seem to many the wardrobe of objectivity and universal moral principles.

With born writers like Martin Amis, it's all about getting the language to out-perform itself at every opportunity. There is no such thing as a synonym, and cliches of expression are insidious for their confirmation of cliches of thought and feeling.

For instance, you can bang on about genocide and mass murder. You can trot out all the old adjectives to describe the gulag or Auschwitz -- "horrific," "nightmarish," "incalculable," "unfathomable" -- but watch what happens to the furniture in your head when you deploy a term like "species shame" to account for events that have been accounted for an, well, "incalculable" number of times already.

Here's a clip of Amis discussing his ongoing war against cliche with Charlie Rose. It's not just instructive. It's quite funny, too.