Sarcasm, Middle East Monitor and the Elders

Sarcasm doesn't register with some folks. For instance, so called MEMO (Middle East Monitor), that bills itself in this, slightly pompous way:

The use or misuse of information is central to the conflict in the Middle East. There has been a growing need for supporters of, in particular, the Palestinian cause, to master the art of information gathering, analysis and dissemination. This requires well organised, focused and targeted operations. Such initiatives are virtually non-existent in the West today.

The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) was established to fill this gap.

ETC. (Check out the personnel list of this institution, and much of the above will become clear-er).



The latest pearl of MEMO was born by the significant fall of Turkish lira. I just cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting this opus in full.

Edy Cohen, an Israeli academic and analyst, has blamed the Jewish lobby for the recent volatility of the exchange rate between the Turkish lira and the US dollar.

Cohen, a faculty member at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and an analyst at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, tweeted the remarks in Arabic accompanied by the hashtag, “support the Turkish lira”.

“The Turkish lira has fallen to its lowest level in Turkey’s history,” Cohen said, going on to claim that the sudden decline had happened shortly after the Israeli ambassador was insulted at an Istanbul airport as he prepared to depart the country.

Addressing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cohen said: “Don’t you know that half of the world’s wealth belongs to only one Jewish family, which is Israel’s primary supporter?”

Cohen went on to warn that the Turkish economy would experience further losses as a result of the lobby’s manoeuvres.

The hullabaloo around this story was even picked up by the Times (paywall) - probably a slow day in the office there.

As a duly authorized representative of the Elders, I have to correct the numbers aired by the good professor. He is not an economist and, probably, doesn't know that the family in question owns 63.5% of the world’s wealth by now.

So there.

As for MEMO: keep up the good work, folks. With friends like you, Palestinians (and Turks) really don't need additional pain in their backside.