In a breakthough for the peace process, Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon have come together for a dinner party. The event was held in Abbas’ house in Ramallah and the arrangements got of to an inauspicious start, with the Israeli government office insisting “he’s the one who wants a Palestinian state, he should do the cooking”.
Despite this setback, both sides felt optimistic when they sat down to dinner. Unfortunately, Sharon immediately launched an occupation of the dinner table, commandeering all the bread, pies, meat, wine and cakes, leaving Abbas with salad and some rotten fruit. “The food was given to me by God” explained Ariel. “Its an esoteric teaching of the kabbalah-only obtainable by scanning the Zohar and meditating on the mantra who…ate….all…the …pies…. “Also”, added the Israeli Prime Minister, “after centuries of anti-semitism, we Jews have the right to eat as much as we want, when we want. That’s how I’ve achieved this impressive size”. The Palestinian president considered his own slim figure and realised his tactical error. Yasser Arafat, he recalled, had achieved much more success by being slightly on the portly side. “Here’s a concession” said Sharon “ theres a small piece of cake with no cherries or raisins on. You could have that”. At the dismayed reaction he added “If you don’t like it you can piss off. Lots of other people are having dinner parties tonight-go and eat with them”.
At this juncture, Abbas felt he had exhausted all avenues of logic and persuasion, and felt compelled to launch a food fight. Beginning with a glass of wine to the face, he moved on to more militant moves such as throwing fish and some rather hard bagels. Sharon immediately moved in for the kill and sat on his opponent, exclaiming “bet you wish you’d eaten a few more chocolate eclairs now Abu Mazen”. Before leaving, the PM handed a few squashed olives and some houmus to Abbas as a token gesture in the process of ‘food for peace’. He commented “Mahmoud, I am giving you the starter. Some day I may even given you the soup and the bridge rolls. But the most important prize will not be divided. I will never, ever, give you the cheesecake”.
