Egypt wants $500B from Israel for Sinai damage

This story is not exactly new, it is just that it surfaced again recently, on a Middle Eastern Internet site of unclear provenance (but based in London by its domain information). According to the article:

In December of 2011 Egypt sent the United Nations a report detailing the reasons for which Israel owes the government of Egypt $500 billion for damage sustained by the Sinai Peninsula when it was controlled by Israel between 1967 and 1982. Following one year of inaction by the UN, the report has now been sent to the US administration in the hopes that it will press its ally, Israel, into paying the debt.

The article doesn't contain too many details on the breakdown of the charges, so the outstanding ones are $50 billion worth of stolen sand and the Egyptian air force destroyed in 1967 (price not mentioned).

I was somewhat surprised that the list of charges doesn't include accommodation, food and services during the prolonged stay of Jews in Egypt in earlier times, but, upon second thought, there is a good reason that our neighbors didn't want to go into this one. Because I will, in a few moments.

Of course, the amount of that charge, even as puny (for the Elders) as $500bn, shouldn't be taken lightly. So here comes our counter-charge. It is based on a well known historical fact of Jews building the pyramids back then and on the associated income from tourism and tourism-related industries. The amounts are adjusted for inflation and interest, of course, according to the accounting rules.

• Design of the pyramids: $65bn
• Stone cutting and transportation: $45bn
• Earthworks: $30bn
• Actual building price: $100bn
• Change management: $50bn
• Income from tourism for 3000 years (conservative estimate): $150bn
• Total: $440bn

Now, of course, there is another school of historians that says that no Jews never built no pyramids in no Egypt. In this case, I am afraid, the charges are even higher:

• Failure to award the building of pyramids to a minority business and associated loss of revenue: $440bn
• Punitive charge: $150bn
• Total: $590bn

But we will be ready to overlook the second option, if so agreed out of the court. And we are ready to forget the related legal expenses, which, all things considered, could be substantial (hint).

You have noticed, of course, the $60bn discrepancy between the $500bn amount demanded by Egypt and the $440bn counter-charge. This is where we (the Elders) are ready to compromise.

First of all, the destroyed Egyptian air force. We are valuing it at $10bn, generously throwing in the one destroyed in 1973. To compensate Egypt for the loss, we are ready to part with a shitload of old Soviet tanks captured during the same two wars. Granted, their flying capabilities are a bit limited, but still better than the flying capabilities of the pigs. Why do I mention flying pigs? Oh, yeah, re your expectations of that compensation otherwise, you know...

Now to the sand. Frankly, we didn't keep any records, so to estimate the quantity of sand stolen during the period in question, we'll use the current market prices. Sand for building is priced anywhere between $20 and $80 pet ton, so I am using a conservative figure of $50 per ton (easy for me to apply in my calculations). This price means exactly one billion tons of stolen sand. Quite an amount, and it inevitable raises a related question: dear Egyptian folks, have you looked recently at Sinai? I mean, judging by that quantity of sand, there is hardly any Sinai left by now...

But this is not our business. We, upon mulling on this issue, have decided to start shipping the whole one billion tons of sand back to Egypt*. To streamline (I purely love that word, don't you?) the process, we will carry it to one location only: Cairo. So please make sure you have enough room cleared for the delivery.

Now we can consider the issue closed, OK?

(*) We need to free some room in the Arava desert to display our own cache of pyramids, built on our own time, I haste to add, spirited out of Egypt back then and temporarily kept in... no, that will be telling too much.

A separate opinion on the whole issue here.


Hat tip: Texas Scribbler.