Jerusalem, November 16 - No date has been announced for the trip to Israel President-elect Donald Trump has promised to make once he assumes office, but the country's Arab lawmakers are already preparing to greet the controversial leader with a traditional display of disrespect, modified to suit the particular recipient of the treatment.
Members of the Joint List parliamentary alliance of Arab parties decided unanimously today that if and when Trump makes his official visit to the Knesset, instead of throwing shoes at a man perceived as hostile to Muslims and Arab interests, they will throw gloves and mittens sized for small children as a reference to his supposedly tiny hands.
Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh and his colleagues agreed at a delegation meeting today to coordinate the move, and named MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi as supervisor of the effort to obtain, store, and, when the time comes, distribute the gloves to the other twelve members of the alliance. Tibi told reporters he felt honored at being selected, but that the occasion for the honor removed any other positive feelings.
"Trump is a bigot," proclaimed the legislator, whose party supports homophobia and misogyny, and denied the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish State. "We will protest his attitude and the statements he made throughout his campaign by subjecting him to the dishonor of being pelted with shoes, but instead of shoes, we will throw small gloves to fit his tiny, tiny hands," added Tibi, who, along with his Joint List colleagues, never feels the need to compensate for shortcomings.
Odeh revealed that he instructed Tibi to get his hands on specifically on gloves manufactured in China, whom Trump has blamed for many of the US's trade and employment woes, as well as for global warming. "I also told him that if he could find gloves emblazoned with the Mexican flag, that would be perfect, but that's probably not going to be easy. I suppose we could commission something from Etsy, but that's going pretty far, and the Communist-leaning members of of our alliance wouldn't be so happy about that."
MK Taleb Abu Arrar supported the decision but nevertheless confessed misgivings about its wisdom. "Given Trump's experience with hecklers, and the way he assumes they're out to harm him physically, this could backfire against the entire Arab and Palestinian community," he explained. "But in the end I decided to go along with it, because doing things that backfire against the Arab and Palestinian community is basically our thing.