The US State Department were quick to dismiss the alleged error as a 'democratic hoax perpetrated by the enemies of freedom and democracy to diminish the standing of the President in the eyes of the world.'
The twenty-seven mourners who had turned out to honour what some called their 'spiritual father' and others, 'a money-grabbing bully boy with a face like a sheep's arse', listened with mounting incredulity as spokestypeperson, Bob Bishop, read out what quickly became apparent was not the Presidential eulogy they had been expecting from Mr Bush.

"The death of that motherfucker will bring the fulfillment of my plan for the creation of an independent god-fearing, democratic, Palestinarian state in Guantanamo Bay. Arafat was just a whiny weasel and I knew that if I slipped Ariel Sharon a few more million barrels of Texas Tea, the greasy little shit-stirrer would die of completely natural causes, like anthrax . The Palestinarians are terroristical insurgentaries, and anyone who says different is an unpatriotic, libertorial apologist for faggots and baby killers. Blowing themselves up is just their way of getting a fast track ticket to US Medicare easy street. Hell, I wish I lived under a benevolent dictatorship like the guys in those West Bank summer camps. Barbed wire fences, 24/7 security and re-runs of American Idol sure sound like some kind of paradise to me, Karl!"

The crowd stood in stunned silence as Bob Bishop frantically sought for the official statement among a dog-eared pile of White House memos, shopping lists and Presidential emails. "Ah — um, wait a minute," he floundered: '..Arafat's death is a turning point for peace in the Middle East.' Yes, this is it! Ahem — 'Yasser Arafat's death is a turning point for peace in the Middle East. Now we can send our boys in to nuke the asses off those goddamned insurgentaries..' Oh, shit. No, that doesn't seem to be it. Ah, maybe this is it — it's dated November 10th. 'Gimme ten cases of Bud lite and a dozen Chicken Kiev’s. No, wait, he's clinging to life? OK cancel the party, just send up a tray of pretzels. At death's door, y'say? Ah - shucks, better make that two dozen cases of beer and book Britney — no, what the hell, get Jessica Simpson, Karl's allergic to silicone. Certified dead? Yee-haw! Scratch that order, we'll move the whole danged party to my ranch."

"Oh fuck it!" snapped the sweating spokestypeperson, grabbing the first statement he'd started with. "The White House isn't paying me enough to lie for that double-dealing megalomaniac. Here's what the leader of the Free World really thinks of you heathen camel herders: 'Since I got Spot to eat that half-assed Middle East roadmap Tony Blair dreamed up I've laughed my ass off watching those trigger-happy Jews and Islamiacs blow the fuck out of each other. As someone who always figured the Gaza strip was what Islamiac crack whores did in Vegas, I couldn't give a flying fuck which group sits at the top table, just so long as they keep the hell away from my oil wells in Eyerack. Now that old Tea Towel Head has finally croaked I've got a boner the size of Ohio and can get back to slaughtering all their infidel asses in time to fulfil my promise to our patriotic Evangicals that the second coming is just around the corner. Well, maybe a little later, as I promised to give Laura the first coming and that could take a while unless she remembered to order more Viagra."

Meanwhile, at branch of the HSBC Bank in Cairo, Arafat's wife Suha wept as the cashier stuffed 100 dollar bills into two large suitcases. "If only he'd lived a few more days," sobbed the heartbroken widow. "I wouldn't have to pay a fucking Nigerian all this money to transfer 57 million dollars into my Swiss bank accounts."

Back in Ramallah, Israeli forces moved quickly to seal off the West Bank and Gaza Strip Post Offices, fearing a sudden run on the Shekel as outraged mourners rushed to withdraw their savings to buy up surplus US military hardware in preparation for a new Intifada. The militant Islamic group Hamas, sworn to Israel's destruction, and the driving force behind a campaign of vicious graffiti attacks on the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, vowed to keep up attacks against the "Zionist Pigs."

Within minutes of the mourner's dispersal by Israeli helicopter gunships and tanks, feminist militants from the Fatimah movement debagged a Jewish businessman in a Gaza strip club in what many fear may be the start of a new round of clashes with Israeli pimps who control the profitable sex-slave traffic in teenage Albanians. In another incident, Israeli soldiers shot dead three Palestinians, at least two of whom were armed with water pistols, blew up an Action Man doll and wounded twenty-three students who were defacing a poster of Ariel Sharon.

Business as usual, then.

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Story © 2004 utterpants.co.uk /121104