Inch @sem, Inch Badmem? III

Shant Norashkharian

Two Armenians meet at the local agoump for a game of backgammon. As soon as the "doo shesh" and the "shesh besh" start getting louder and the faces get redder, another fellow player walks in holding an open letter in his hand and says:
"Read this, guys, read it and cry!
You ain't heard nothin' yet!"
"Don't interrupt us, Margos, this is a critical moment", says one.
"Not now, please, this game needs a lot of concentration!" says the other.
"You must read this, I am telling you, it's from my brother in Jerusalem, all the Armenians there are talking about it."
"OK, OK, go ahead read it to us. I can teach this guy another lesson anytime."
"My brother wrote: 'the Patriarch here is selling Armenian properties which had belonged to the Church for hundreds of years with prices way below market, and no one knows where the money is. Whenever we ask about them, they say these are only 99 year leases, so there is no money from a sale.' What the hell is going on?"
"Margos jan, that is why we have two catholicoses, with the greatest salaries and perks in the world. Why don't you take that letter to them and let them worry about it, and let us finish our game?"
"You think they don't know about it? Everyone in Jerusalem knows about it. When was the last time that you heard a bishop who stole from the Church was fired?"
"Well then, let the Armenians in Jerusalem worry about it."
"They did. But their numbers have shrunk in the last decade and they have little political clout. Beside, the Jews are "leasing" these properties, so you think they will have any fair hearing in the courts?"
"Well, Margos jan, at least we are getting something for our lands.
The poor Arabs have deeds and houses and families living on the lands, and yet without warning the Israeli bulldozers show up one morning and pull everything down, and the whole family ends up living in tents on their ancestral lands, until they are evicted from there as well to make room for new Jewish settlements. Who said the bulldozer is not a weapon of terrorism?"
"That's a different story. No one is forcing us to give up our properties for pennies on the dollar."
"Pennies are better than nothing.
Play backgammon, drink your oghi and eat your kebab. Is it up to you to fix the world?"
"Did you hear that a Jewish-American businessman offered millions of dollars for a small property owned by an Arab shopkeeper close to the Wailing Wall and he refused to sell?"
"That Arab may be a true patriot to you, but to me he is a fool! Millions of dollars? That's more than all the welfare checks I will be getting until the day I die, and I am only 42."
"What happened to you, man? You were a proud, caring Armenian when you came here.
Now you are nothing more than a glorified beggar".
"What do you say? This is America, eat, drink, have good time. Have fun, hahaha, have lots of fun, aghper jan."
"Inch, @sem, inch badmem!"