This joke was put to the test when Israeli president Shimon Perez visited Egypt in November and told Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak that Israel’s government and people were standing by Egypt’s side in its row with Algeria. And what exactly happened between Egypt and Algeria to warrant political support from the Zionist state and its Nobel Laureate/War Criminal president?  If you haven’t heard about what happened between the two North African Arab/Muslim countries, you should kick yourself because you have not only been living under a rock, but also have missed out on the most exciting event in recent Arab and Islamic history. Two brotherly countries came within a hair of severing diplomatic relations over ... (you need to sit down for this) … a soccer game!!! 

If you don’t already know and want to know the particulars of this momentous event, you would have to do some research on your own. This writer won’t waste precious ink over the details of the brawl between the two grow-ups. However, the fallout from this vicious fight between two brothers is an enmity between two peoples that may take decades to forgive and forget. When Arabs hate, they hate like elephants. An article in the British newspaper The Independent pointed out that the soccer feud and bloodletting between Algeria and Egypt, both dictatorships, is one way for their rulers to let their oppressed subjects let steam off. It’s also a way for them to consolidate grip on power, unite their people behind the flag and stoke up the flame of nationalism that works like a charm on the sheep-minded masses. And what a better way to do it than a game of soccer!?

Ireland played France on the same day Egypt and Algeria played. France qualified but did it by cheating. Television replays showed a French player touching the ball with his hand before passing it to the goal scorer. The Irish were rightly incensed, and their prime minister no less demanded a rematch. However, soccer body FIFA refused and ruled the goal as legitimate. So what did the Irish exactly do since they were clearly cheated out of a place in world cup? Did they get rowdy and smash up and burn anything French? Well, not exactly. As the brain vendor would have put it, “The Irish didn’t have Arab brains.” 

Egypt and Algeria have proved to the world that Arab brains are truly of little use when it comes to things that matter and things that don’t. If two nations put the pride and be-all of their peoples in a game where 22 players compete on a green pitch to put a leather ball into an empty net, there is a lot to be said about these two nations and their peoples. 

At about the same time Egypt and Algeria were slugging it out in a media war (but truth be told that 90 percent of the media escalation lies in the Egyptian camp), Israel announced the building of 900 units in an illegal settlement in East Jerusalem, and Israeli settlers in the West Bank destroyed close to 100 olive trees that belonged to a Palestinian farmer. Israel also pounded Gaza with renewed air strikes and killed at least two Palestinians. Israel was very pleased that two major Arab countries were too busy hating each other over a game of soccer and forgetting about the Goldstone Commission’s Report that found it guilty of what amounts to genocide. 

Dubai recently announced that it won’t be able to repay its debt worth $60 billion until May of 2010. The debt was incurred in various investment made in Dubai’s real estate market. The Emirate has spent the better part of the last decade frantically building skyscrapers, pal-tree shaped man-made islands, structures that are the biggest and tallest in the world with borrowed money. The rulers of the tiny sheikhdom decided that building mighty structures in the middle of the desert where camels and SUVs compete for space was somehow a brilliant idea. 

Someone whispered it was perhaps a better idea to build technology research centers such as a NASA satellite center, a Silicon Valley complex maybe, or perhaps the biggest university in the world that could attract the brightest brains in the world to build a technologically advanced and a powerful nation? The Arab brain would have none of that mode of thinking. Maybe that idea was already acquired, developed and executed to perfection by the Jewish brain. That idea is called Israel. And all the ideas that Arab brains have produced is... tall bankrupt buildings, imported Louvre museums near camel stables, camel beauty pageants, blood feuds over soccer games, oppressive dictatorships and never-ending corruption. That, in a nutshell, is why the Arab brain costs more, Shlomo has found out... because it truly is barely used.