Tales from the Nakba II
Once upon a time
There follows a completely fictional story, for whoever has heard of two countries called Fillingstine and Bisrahill.
It would be both right and wrong to say that they were neighbours, because their statuses were not clearly defined. It is almost surreal. There was a time when there was no such country as Bisrahill, it was all Fillingstine, and when not under Ottoman rule, it was governed by the ubiquitous British. Was it a colony, a possession? Yes and no. They (the Brits) behaved as lords and masters, passed laws, ordered the inhabitants this one day and that the next. It is a long and complicated story. The inhabitants of Fillingstine were from a race of people called the Frabs, whilst the other lot was Ooish. The people were known as Oos.
A little history might help us understand the unfolding of the story a bit better. The Oos who mostly lived in a different continent, in Europe, had suffered a very huge injustice. Worse, a calamity. They had incurred the hatred and enemity of one powerful European country, which had taken the unreasonale and criminal decision to exterminate them from the face of the earth. A big world war had taken place and the Allies, comprising of nations friendly to the Oos had won. Over the last few centuries, the Oos had been living in various corners of Europe, but they naturally felt insecure after having suffered so terribly at the hands of their sworn enemy. Then someone remembered that centuries_ nay millenia_ago, their ancestors had lived in Fillingstine, and that the land was in fact called Bisrahill.
It is not necessary to know or understand all the details of the re-creation of the state of Bisrahill in order to follow the developments of the main thrust of this story. Suffice it to say that the Agency known as the Society of Nations, or SN for short, top heavy with countries of white world, but labelling themselves a neutral agency for the promotion of peace among all races, arbitrarily divided the land into two bits, like God taking out a rib from Adam to make Eve (which explains why men have one rib less than women, enabling an X-ray machine to identify the gender of the unborn baby, soit dit en passant), and declared to the two masses, Thou shalt be Bisrahill and shalt belong to the Oos, and thou shalt be Fillingstine, for the non-Oos. And indeed it was so, after nearly one million Frabs were forcibly driven out of their villages, by the Oos, with the backing of their many allies. Driven out of the land that once was theirs, their homesteads, farms, mosques, churches and all.
Unsurprisingly, this led to massive discontent, and unfortunately this did not stop there. Difficult to explain why displaced people feel so much resentment. More difficult to explain why, instead of accepting what powerful leading nations wanted, they would plot and conspire in dark and sinister corners in a futile attempt at regaining the land they claimed to have unjustly lost.
As a result there was a chronic state of war between the displaced Frabs of what used to be Fillingstine and the new prosperous state of Bisrahill.
The Oos had powerful backers, and were never short of money. The powerful nations readily helped them acquire modern technologies, and it did not take them long to become one of the richest countries on earth. This naturally gave rise to the envy and resentment of the people of Fillingstine and their fellow Frabs. Perhaps the fact that most of them were homeless, might go some way towards explaining that all they had left of their ancient homes, were the keys to the door. What use is a key when you have no door to open? They were living temporarily among other Frab nations, often in refugee camps, under tents. They found that their anger at being displaced never abated, and entertained the very unreasonable hope that one day they might re-open the doors to which they still had the keys.
The Oos, in the meantime, went from strength. They developed one of the most efficient armies in the world. Their allies the French gave them the nuclear know-how to make hydrogen bombs, the American arms industry with very much the defence of Bisrahill in mind, developed anti-missile missiles, which made the country nigh unattackable.
The Frabs of Fillingstine were not going to sit arms crossed and do nothing. They developed the unique skill of stone-throwing. The Fillingstine new-born babies would learn to throw stones before they learnt to walk. And this caused fear and panic in the hearts of Bisrahill. They knew that all their F-15’s, F-35’s, their Iron Domes would be of no avail agains the lapidary onslaught their enemies were darkly planning for them. This is where my tale is leading to.
They needed the best Security the world has ever known. Beit Shing, to deal with domestic security, to gather intelligence and channel it to enforcers, and Faussad, the central authority for collecting foreign intelligence, and covert operation. They were given carte blanche, and did not answer to anybody, except the prime minister, which did not mean that the latter was immune to their scrutiny.
We will not need to go into the activities of Beit Shing here, this is about Faussad. In recent times, Cossi Yohen was the chief of that outfit or the Spy Master as he was generally known. Appointed by Baby Shetenyahu the prime minister, his close friend. He had been sent to Reston, in Virginia to learn the trade from CIA masters, but a week there they found they had more to learn from him. That’s right, he was a natural. Back in Let-Havir he was soon seen to be the greatest asset the Oos of Bisrahill had, president, prime minister, the Sennet, the top arms manufacturer included. He even had his personal plane, a private pilot and hand-picked hostesses. The latter were highly trained Faussad operatives, schooled in the art of seduction which Cossi planned from the beginning to be one of his trump cards. Without going into details, we will just say that Bisrahill owe these admirable women big time, for the preferential treatment, including advantageous contracts with a good few African countries, involving bauxite, oil, copper, uranium, wood. Interestingly, one country known for its citrus industry agreed to buy their Shamouti oranges.
Cossi developed a close friendship with president Bakila of the Bongo, and they even went on holiday together on occasion.
Bisrahill had always felt untouchable. Over the years they had acted with impunity when dealing with the stone-throwers of Fillingstine, detaining them without trial, subjecting them to beatings, and often coercing them into becoming their informers. It has happened that some of these unfortunate youths had ended up dead, certified by Oos doctors as from natural causes.
However there is much worse. In the many skirmishes, or wars between the two ill-matched adversaries, the deaths on one side was a few hundred times more than on the other. Little by little, Bisrahill had been losing the great sympathy it had earned over the years on account of the persecution, and extermination that they had endured. Some international bodies had been watching how events panned out, and one such body, the IHRCOJ, had often expressed concern over the disproportionate number of death of the Frabs.
Unsurprisingly, although Bisrahill did little to promote this view, it was keen to be seen as a nation ploughing the fields of justice, fairness and reason. Although the bottom line was absolute denial of unethical practices, come what may, they would deny whatever was thrown at them, in the certain knowledge that their powerful backers would stand by them. But they did not wish to be given unflattering labels. Bisrahill did not commit war crimes, they proclaimed. Genocide was what was done to them. If it seemed to the rest of the world that they too were indulging in it, then the world had better look more closely, when they would see that it had been the exercise of the right of self-defence.
However the IHRCOJ was being sent fresh evidence of serious wrongdoing daily, and they had little option but to take the matter further. Cossi had always known that the day would come when he would be called upon to defend the good name of his country. And his weapons were already positioned to counter the onslaught. He had nurtured some good allies, who all owed him one, and he was going to demand payback. The chief of the IHCOJ was a Mambian born legal eagle, a lady called Saida Benfatou. Cossi who had many crystal balls had cultivated one, Felix Benfatou who happened to be the husband of the aforesaid head of the IHRCOJ. He had flown him in his private plane from Washington to the Maldives, during which trip he had been personally looked after by one Richelle Hevy. They had had so much fun together with lots of photos to remember the good times.
Cossi expected that a phone call to Félix was all that was required to bury the enquiry, but the Mambian man admitted that his wife did not want to know. Clearly he needed to fine-tune his techniques. He asked for moolahs from the secret funds, which Baby Shetenyahu immediately approved.
Cossi asked his good friend from Bongo, President Bakila to use his good offices to arrange a visit between him and Madame Benfatou, and he was going to treat her to the most lavish restaurant in New York, but not before buying a Philippe Patek Heure du Diamant for his esteemed guest.
The lady was absolutely ravishing and Cossi felt a little fluttering under his silk waistcoat. The maitre d led them to a discreet corner of his establishment. One triviality: there was a waiting list of months if you wanted a booking in the place, but the proprietor owed Cossi one. We will not go into details. Bakila had told him that Saida Benfatou was delightful company, and was quick to laughter. The Faussad man began to explain that it was an Ooish tradition to offer some modest gift on first meeting a foreign dignitary, and produced the Heure du Diamant. Madame Benfatou exploded with laughter. As you know, she chortled, we Africans are never on time, so I really don’t need a watch, but I will accept it for my country, perhaps they will display it in a museum, she managed to say when she had put a brake on her excessive hilarity. I am not allowed to take bribes you see. Bribes? asked Bohen shocked, you got me wrong. But the chief of Faussad did not get to where he was by not having learned to rein in his negative vibes.
He found that he was rather intimidated by the lady, but after imbibing enough Château Margaux, he launched into the many misfortunes his people had been subjected to, and began explaining in detail the many attacks military as well as verbal the country endured durng its short existence. I’ll never understand why the world hates us. Saida Benfatou listened carefully, and simply said, I do.
Time to act, decided Bohen. I spent a wonderful holiday with Félix last year, did he tell you? Did he show you the pictures? And he produced an envelope from his breat pocket. She stopped him. Oh, I’ve seen them, she said, Félix showed them to me. If I give them to the National Enquirer, it might_. She interrupted him with her explosive cackle. He’d love that, he’s so vain. Don’t you think it would cause him serious prejudice in his_. Oh not at all. Mind you it would surely cause jealousies, which he might not like. But what about you? Aren’t you shocked? Why would I? You can’t be a very good spy if you didn’t know that Félix and I have an open marriage. Woud you like to see pics of my holiday in South Africa with Balil Touré, my country’s top musician?
