Snow Assuages Rogel Alpher’s Guilt By Being Even Whiter Than He

“Snow, at least, is even whiter, and I am therefore not the most guilty thing in existence.”

Tel Aviv, January 25 – Haaretz columnist and self-hating Israeli Rogel Alpher expressed a measure of relief after Israel’s first major snowfall of the year, saying that he needed to be reminded that he is not the whitest thing on Earth, and therefore not as guilty as he had assumed, but still reasonably guilty.

Alpher, 48, told colleagues in the Haaretz newsroom this afternoon that after seeing images of the snow falling elsewhere in the country, he realized his measure of shame over the relative lack of melanin in his skin could be reduced somewhat, since the crystalline precipitation reflects even more light than his skin, and that he, therefore, is not as guilty for the suffering experienced by people of greater melanin production.

“I stand by my assertion that the run-of-the-mill expression of emotional attachment to the land, typical of national anthems anywhere, expressed in ‘Hatikva,’ is equivalent to bloodthirsty Palestinian calls for the violent removal of Jewish sovereignty,” he explained. “That is primarily a function of my deeply held ethos that being a product of European civilization – that is, being white – by definition makes me complicit in the colonialism at the root of all suffering, failings, and unfortunate events in non-white societies. The whiter one is, the more guilt he bears. So while I embrace my status as existentially responsible for all of the world’s ills, I admit to some sense of relief that snow, at least, is even whiter, and I am therefore not the most guilty thing in existence.” He added that he specifically used only the male third-person pronoun in his description of the phenomenon, since guilt attaches much more readily to the Y-chromosome.

Alpher declined to speculate on the litany of horrors for which snow is responsible given its extreme whiteness, but did note that it often conspired with the cursed IDF to restrict Palestinian movement. “Whenever snow descends on the hills of the West Bank, it threatens Palestinian welfare and drives home the humiliating extent to which their society is both oppressed by and dependent on those whiter than they,” he lamented, ignoring both the many light-pigmented Arabs among them and the swarthy Jews in Israel. “To make matters worse, IDF bulldozers, so reviled for their demolition of Palestinian homes, can sometimes be the only recourse to clear the snow from the roads of the West Bank. I cannot imagine the level of guilt and shame snow must bear over its sins and its whiteness – whiteness that renders sins unforgivable.”

The journalist also blamed the snow, which has not affected flights, for delaying his threatened departure from Israel if Binyamin Netanyahu won the March 2015 elections.