You might have seen this today: “Mickey Mouse magic: Disney plans Israel theme park“.
This is kind of not true.
Kind of.
The “Disney” in this case is not “The Walt Disney Company” but rather “Shamrock Holdings” – the investment firm set up by the late Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt.
And the “theme park” is not a full park it’s going to be a movie theater and a mall.
But pictures of Mickey Mouse with “Israel” in the title sure sells more papers …
Uh-oh. Retaliation begins: “Dubai: Israelis Will Be Denied UAE Entry.”
Of course, we’ve talked about Israelis and Dubai before (see Shahar Peer and Dubai).
But this is different.
The Emirates will now ”deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship,” Tamim said at a security conference in Abu Dhabi Monday.
So if my name sounds Jewish I’m not allowed in?
Huh.
Of course it still amuses me that Jeffrey Katzenberg and Stephen Spielberg are building a DreamWorks Animation theme park there (see News: DreamWorks Animation Theme Park in Dubai).
UPDATE: The article has a little more meat on it now, including this very interesting note:
[Dubai police Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim] did not explain what procedures would be used to identify the Israeli visitors, except that the police will ”develop skills” to recognize Israelis by ”physical features and the way they speak.”
Yes, you heard it here, they’re going to use sci-fi to keep the Jews out.
We were talking about “what if Iran finished a nuclear bomb” at work the other day, and I was all over the map with what I was saying. Then yesterday I read this quote from a blog by Scott Thomas that sums up my point better than I:
That being said, the results of a Nuclear Iran would probably be a lot less spectacular than people making both pro and con arguments realize. Israel will always have its second-strike submarine based arsenal, and attacking Israel wouldn’t further the Iranian agenda in any way. And as North Korea has found out, having a nuclear strike capability isn’t a golden ticket into the First World or make you the baddest kid on the block. Of course, all this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep trying to dissuade them diplomatically and economically from arming themselves.
Josh finally lives in Maine again
after four years at Boston University, a stint in Southern California with
Walt Disney Feature Animation,
and two years in Dubai, UAE,
where he created and wrote
Newlywed in Dubai.
