Obama Cancels Failed Program To Get All Israelis To Drown Selves In Sea

Washington, DC (AP) – President Obama has instructed the State Department to end its four-year-old attempt to convince Israelis to resolve the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians and other Arab nations by voluntarily drowning themselves in the Mediterranean Sea. The decision was greeted with disappointment by representatives of Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority.

Four years ago, Obama directed then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to embark on a subtle publicity campaign aimed at engendering among Israeli Jews the resolve to drive themselves into the sea, as a way of ending the deadlock overterritorial and other disputes with the Palestinians. At the base of the program lay the rationale that no peace settlement could realistically be imposed, making it necessary to prompt Israel to voluntarily self-destruct. Decades of armed conflict and diplomatic sparring had failed to dislodge Jews from the area that became Israel. In fact, repeated attempts by surrounding Arab nations to accomplish that only resulted in an even greater area under Jewish control.

The program, called Just Urging of Demographic Egress Northwestward for Resolving Existence of Israel Nonviolently (JUDENREIN), involves sowing just enough doubt in the Israeli public regarding the reliability of the US as a guarantor of security that large numbers of Israelis would abandon their homeland. The removal of solid security for those Israelis – and thus for Jews in general – would spark the realization that nowhere in the world could Jews hope to find security, and they would simply drown themselves in the Mediterranean as a result.

JUDENREIN features a number of other more subtle elements, including an augmented pitch for American pop culture in Israel, cumulatively making the oppressive presence of such entities as Nickelback inescapable, and continued life in Israel a living hell. This track of activity involved greater visibility for existing American icons in Israel, such as McDonald’s, the experience of which, it was calculated, would induce large numbers of Israelis to deem life a bland, soulless trek from one unfulfilling consumer experience to the next, culminating in a longing for blissful death.

However, certain unforeseen developments hindered the effectiveness of the JUDENREIN program from the start. Chief among them, said program director Ara Bist, was a failure to account for the effectiveness of Byzantine Israeli customs regulations in stymieing the penetration of American products beyond a nauseating, but ultimately tolerable, level. Similarly, the unreliable internet connections of most Israeli homes and offices made downloads of American movies, shows, and music impractical. Meteorological phenomena, such as sunrise, would render more than half of all internet connections useless, cutting out a hefty portion of the materials crucial to the fomenting of suicidal despair that JUDENREIN aimed to create.

Palestinian and other Arab officials acknowledged the limits of the program, but regretted its cessation nevertheless. “We’ve been trying to create similar phenomena in Israel for decades,” said PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi. “Perhaps we were naïve in thinking that if it’s American, Israelis will devour it, and the work would be half done.”

“I guess we should have seen how well that worked with separation of church and state.”