But is it funny?*

Jerusalem's a strange place, primarily because it's so close to the edge of chaos. It's a place where entire civilizations regularly collide and occasionally have been known to collapse, and everyone here is aware of that. So in general Jerusalem is a gentle place despite all its hard edges, because the option is to be totally unforgiving; totally prejudiced; totally in fear of 'the other'. And that means that here - maybe even more than in Europe - people tend to be very careful when it comes to respecting each others' religious sensitivities.

So tonight I'm in a bar I tend to regard as Jewish, and I'm on a roll, I'm mouthing off about that whole thing with the Mohammed cartoons, and I'm demanding loudly to know exactly where these impoverished Arab street types get all their flags from? I mean, it's not like it's warm in the winter here and we all know there's not a lot of money in the Palestinian controlled areas... so what's this all about, when you look in the linen cupboard and there's nary a blanket in sight but there are hundreds of flags just in case some new Jihad's declared? Do Islamic fundamentalist mamas sell their hair to buy a new multi-pack of international flags just in case little Ahmed needs to burn one at some point? Or do they walk into the mosque and the imam hands out new flags and tells them this is the latest enemy? Y'know, I kind of almost, nearly, understand the hysterical hatred of one warring side for another, but that whole thing of where the flags come from somehow passes me by...

So that was my theme, and it seemed to be going fairly well, except that the Israelis working in the bar tonight were glancing across at a co-worker and then back at me, and they weren't laughing.

These are the people that renamed their Brain Haemhorrage cocktail in honour of Ariel Sharon recently, so it's not like they're delicate or anything.

These are the guys that came out with "Knock knock/Who's there?/Interrupting cow/InterrupMOOting cow MOO who?" - they're fine with 'silly'.

Their cook's from East Jerusalem. Ah. And it's way too late for me to pretend he just misheard me. So I asked him outright whether he keeps any flags in his linen cupboard at home, and thankfully he laughed and said he only keeps a single white one for emergencies. Better still, he told me this true story. He was walking down the street in East Jerusalem a week or so back and there was a flag stretched across his path. "So did you walk on it?" I asked, interested. "Of course..." - and the way he said it, you could hear how much this is 'expected behaviour'. It would've been a problem for him to ignore it. So he was walking over this flag in the street and, as he was trampling it, realised he had no idea which country it represented. So he went home and turned on the news, and now he even knows where Denmark is...

And now the Israelis in that particular bar are allowed to talk about all that stuff too, so I guess something good came of my big mouth for once.

*Of course it's not funny, these are Danish political cartoons!

No future

OK so here's the way I'm seeing things right now.

Hamas got into power in the Palestinian Areas a couple of weeks ago, and I genuinely believe that most of the people that voted for them did so because they're good in local government. Most of them.

I also believe that most of them would _not_ have voted for Hamas if they'd anticipated their being in control of their 'national' government.

Doesn't every place screw up this way, some time or another?

But the problem is Hamas themselves, who now have a mandate, and whose external ticket is pure homicide - toward Jews in particular, but also toward anyone else not part of Islam.

And the Arab states are wetting themselves through joy, and the rest are wetting themselves through fear.

If the West drops PA funding because Hamas is what it is, Muslim fundamentalist states will pick up the tab. And I truly believe that will lead us all directly to World War III (the official version).

If the West doesn't drop PA funding because it thinks Hamas doesn't really mean it, there will be a localised war between Israel and the PA areas. Maybe not immediately, but very soon. This will eventually lead to World War III (the official version).

So call me an optimist...