president recognizes Palestine

In a long-hoped-for gesture of respect for the existence of more than four million people, Mr. Barack Obama today officially recognized the State of Palestine. “For an ancient and proud people such as the Palestinian people to be forced into massive open-air prison camps and kept there without access to the infrastructures we’ve come to recognize as those necessary to live a fulfilling human life, that is a tragedy that defies the kind of basic decency we look for in one another,” the president said from amidst rows of frost-tipped roses planted near his residence. Speaking just after the crack of dawn on 8 November 2016 - election day, in America - Mr. Obama went on, saying. “I mean, people in positions of power here in the U.S.A. started calling the terrorist organization known as Daesh ‘Islamic State’ after those murderous thugs had been around for only a couple years and captured themselves a city or two.” At this point, the president chuckled, shaking his head and looking down. “And here we have the Palestinians, who’ve been living in the Middle East since biblical times, and for seven decades I and the presidents who came before me have not once recognized the right of Palestine to exist - nay, the right for it to be recognized as a state? And for what? So that religious zealots of a different stripe can occupy land and build settlements on that land with impunity and in stark violation of international law? If we can bring ourselves to call Daesh 'Islamic State’, then we can bring ourselves to refer to the self-organized people living in Israel’s concentration camps by-the-sea as the State of Palestine. It’s that simple.”

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Grigovia issues awards

Following Germany's courageous decision to award its highest whistle-blower prize to Edward Snowden for his willingness to expose tyrannical and unjust actions perpetrated by the federal government of the United States of America, the Glorious Republic of Grigovia announced it would select for Outstanding Champion of Liberty Award (OCLA), an annual recognition ceremony. Entities that win this prestigious prize receive asylum anywhere within Grigovia's borders, the right to stay and be freely productive in any of Grigovia's fine cities, as well as two kilograms of 14 karat gold or a two-acre plot of land in the foothills of the Yiptlong massif, which lies north of Grig, this small, landlocked nation's capital. Among the selections for this year's OCLA prize are America's Edward Snowden, China's Ai Weiwei, Bolivia's Evo Morales, the children of Occupied Palestine, and the inhabitants of Egypt's port cities along the Suez canal. “2013 has been a good year for the fight against tyrannical overreach,” said Eyohwah Thrask-Ullyennd, chairwoman of Eastern Grigovian University's department of social upheaval and revolutionary studies who sits on the board that makes the final decision on who will receive OCLA. She continued, saying: “So long as there are individuals and groups who will risk Life, Liberty, and sacred Honor to safeguard the freedom of others, standing up to the oppressive and violent regimes under which so many people around the world silently suffer, there is hope for mankind. With the Outstanding Champion of Liberty Award, we aim to encourage people to keep demanding of their governments upstanding and just behavior and to keep exposing injustice and corruption wherever these twin evils should raise their ugly heads.” Reports indicate that the Grigovian people danced in the streets upon hearing about OCLA.

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Grigovian son shines

Abdul Hazim Ishumayal, 34, started life in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His parents were loving and kind, his father a baker and his mother a nurse; they were killed during an Israeli clearing raid while sleeping in their beds, blasted to pieces by a trigger-happy teenager who to this day is plagued by the images of their slaughter. At the time of their deaths, Abdul Hazim had been visiting his aunt and uncle in the West Bank, poor people who could not afford to keep him and raise him as their own. He was sent to an orphanage, but while making his way to it the building was bombed, and destroyed. Then – thank Allah – a member of one of Grigovia's Roving Hospitality Teams of Magnanimous Mercifulness heard of the young boy's plight and arranged to have him housed in Grig's own Home for Children Orphaned by Imperialistic Warmongery.

Abdul Hazim thrived in his new home, excelling at maths and languages and showing from early on a propensity for political dexterity. (It is rumored that he once talked a pack of rabid hooligans out of pummeling him and into giving him a lift in their jeepney all the way across town to his favorite bakery.) He spent his teenage years in Germany, attending the Dr. Frederik Meyer Gymnasium für Fortgeschritte Mathematik in Nürnberg and graduated 2nd from the top of his class. Thereafter, he studied at the acclaimed Teknikskol in Arhus, Denmark and at the Polytechnical Institute for Game and Numbers Theory in Houston, Texas.

Having seen enough of the rest of the world, Mr. Ishumayal returned to his old neighborhood in Grig, moving into a modest flat a few blocks from the orphanage where he was housed as a child. Now, he splits his time between volunteering with various local charities, working on his doctoral dissertation (he is providing – in painstaking detail - a half-dozen possible solutions to the Goedel Paradox), teaching at the Ɣȅrȡȫҩӑsɀt (Grigovia's premier institute for mathematical study), and hiking with his girlfriend, UN-embassador Erya Rovend. The people of Grigovia thank Abdul Hazim for his kindness, his gentleness, his passion, and honor him as one of their own, a native son born abroad. Huzzah!

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Grigovia severs ties

Israel's wanton shelling of civilian areas and its stated objective of bombing Gaza back into the Stone Age were cited as some of the reasons behind the Glorious Republic of Grigovia's (GROG) move to withdraw its diplomatic mission to that Middle Eastern nation. Additionally, Grigovia's legislative body issued a decree condemning the hostile acts perpetrated by the land-grabbing, toddler-bombing Israelis, asking kindly that they remove their ambassador and shutter their embassy on Embassy Row in beautiful downtown Grig. Regarding a potential loss of productivity resulting from these actions, all citizens we interviewed and every politician with whom we spoke agreed that belt-tightening and personal privation were preferable to hands stained with the blood of innocents. Many Grigovians are employed in the extraction and refinement of rare-earth-minerals, which are much sought-after by armed forces and weapons-technology companies around the globe.

The severing of ties extended beyond Grigovia's legislature and foreign ministry as scores of businesses throughout Grig's industrial belt canceled contracts or withdrew bids with Israeli companies involved in the latest bloodshed, with the Zionists' heavy-handed military actions against highly populated areas being given as the primary cause. The local organization Home for Orphans of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine (HOIOP), which maintains not only hospitals in the Gaza strip and the West Bank but also numerous full-service complexes across Grigovia has announced a drive to raise funds to provide newly homeless Gazans with food, shelter, and medical attention. (Persons interested in donating to HOIOP are asked to phone its national headquarters at 772 0198-233.)

While he was packing up his few belongings, Tharmol Cheuryind, Grigovia's (now) former ambassador to Israel, underlined the delicacy of the situation, blaming, in part, the Israeli news-media for heightening the state of alarm. “Over the last few weeks, I have been watching stations such as al-Jazeera and al-Aribiiya on satellite TV as well as local Israeli newscasts coming in on the airwaves. I am not surprised that the vast majority of Israelis support Operation Pillar of Defense; Hebrew-speaking newscasters have been hurling vitriol and abuse at the Palestinians for months now, casting them as sub-human and blaming them exclusively for the deterioration of the peace process, regardless of increased Israeli settlement activity.” (During the course of our interview, it was announced that the government of Egypt had arranged a cease-fire between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces.) “My orders have not changed,” said Tharmol, zipping up his carry-on duffel bag and walking through the embassy one last time, turning off lights and setting the thermostat to away. “I am a student of history,” he said while waiting for a taxi to take him to Tel Aviv International Airport. “And, therefore, I know that peace deals around here never last. If I get a call on my satellite phone telling me to come back, I shall, but, until then, I am going home.”

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