Remember this joker?

To the Arabist street he was the “Iraqi Information Minister” during the second gulf war. To the rest of us he was a comedian put on air for our amusement. And amuse us he did.

Hizbollah is employing similar comedy tactics in the shape of their leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah (now hiding like a scaredy cat from Israel’s IDF but talking tough via his pay-as-you-go mobile phone).

Let’s set the scene: South Beirut is bombed, Hezbollah offices and homes are levelled by the Israeli Airforce and Lebanon is cut off from the outside world. Comedian Nasrallah wants us to believe that Hezbollah is a serious opponent of Israel so Nasrallah treatens an “all out war” and what happens next?

They fire and hit an Israeli warship and accidentally an Egyptian civilian cruise ship.

Wow! That sort of attack makes Hezbollah the new daddy in the middle east. It’s not every day that Hezbollah aims a rocket that actually hits its target, and even this one only partially succeeded. Perhaps any award should go to Iran as Hezbollah can’t fight their way out of a paper bag without full funding and training from the fanatics who hold Iranian democracy hostage.

If the pro-Arab media was anything to go by, you’d think this pitiful attempt at warfare was some kind of turning point in the 60 year conflict. Of course the Arabist street is in uproar as if it were Victory in Europe day, but when you have as little freedom as they have, it’s easy to get excited over anything.

So what’s next in this Hezbollah comedy series? Nasrallah on his mobile telling us that by the hot air coming out of him from both ends he singlehandedly has Israel on the run while in the background reality Israeli tanks roll into downtown Beirut?

No, Nasrallah, it’s been done before. It’s time for a new comedy sketch.

Perhaps a “Nasrallah’s only got one ball” sketch with the theme tune “I ran and I ran as fast as I can” - his SS certainly have the salute down to a fine art (click on image for source). Oh, and have I mentioned the Rise of the Fourth Reich?