Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower

In his life he neither wrote nor read. In his life he didn’t cut down a single tree, didn’t slit the throat of a single calf. In his life he did not speak of the New York Times behind its back, didn’t raise his voice to a soul except in his saying: “Come in, please, by God, you can’t refuse.” — Nevertheless— his case is hopeless, his situation desperate. His God-given rights are a grain of salt tossed into the sea. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: about his enemies my client knows not a thing. And I can assure you, were he to encounter the entire crew of the aircraft carrier Enterprise, he’d serve them eggs sunny-side up, and labneh fresh from the bag.