Had lunch with the Knights' Raid Commander today. Per usual Iraqi luncheon operations, we huddled up over a big plate of chicken and rice with various veggies and sauce bowls piled around the edges and dug in (with hands). Being a southpaw, this is kind of a bitch for me, as I've got to use my right hand for most of the tearing and sundering going on in the middle of the plate.
The news was on while we ate. Not sure which station (whether it was an indig Iraqi program or from some other Arab state). The show's anchor had a young IDF officer on to discuss Israel's retaliatory strikes into Gaza. The young man was bright and articulate; his Arabic was, as far as I could tell, flawless MSA (I'm not a subject matter expert, here, I'm only qualified to give my impression). Interestingly, the spokesman was an Arab Israeli. The discussion between the Muslim anchorman and the IDF spokesman was measured, congenial, and truly looked like a no shit dialogue. Never expected that.
Later, the anchor cut to Hezbullah's Nasrallah stating that Israel had better not try to export its shenanigens to LH and southern Lebanon and protesting that Israel's "indiscriminate" attacks had killed three girls in the Gaza strip. Around our chow (the cadence of which is best described as grab, rend, scoop, squeeze, stuff) both of my lunch companions, one a Sunni Kurd, the other a Shi'i Arab, expressed these sentiments:
-That fat asshole, children get blown up here all the time by "Muslims" and I don't hear him saying anything.
-Yeah, I'd like to beat that fucker like a dog in a mosque.
Interesting. My counterparts aren't shy about voicing thier criticisms of the US, the nascent Iraqi political system, Iranian interference in Iraq, or any other subject. Some of their opinions are wildly off base, some hit pretty close to the mark, and all are delivered with the passionate yelling and gesticulations that invariably accompany any Iraqi conversation. At no point during the newscast was there any vehemence or vitriol directed at Israel.
There are itty-bitty, teeny-tiny cracks appearing in my own perception of Monolithic Bloc Muslim anti-semitism.
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