Reality: Sadder, Funnier than Marketing

One time a thing occured to me
What's real
And what's for sale
--STP

From Andrew Sullivan's Blog, comes a comparison of an Israeli phone company ad, depicting Israeli soldiers playing football with the Palestinians on the other side of the security wall:

The scene is recreated by the Palestinians, and...

The scene is funnier given the background music is from the original ad.

Of course, the original ad is ridiculous on a couple of different levels.

The first is that the wall, obstensibly a security measure, but also a consolidation of land grabs since 1967, is made to be something of a funny joke that serves as a prop between the two groups of obviously like minded adversaries. Hey! Everyone likes football!...AND a joke between the military and a demoralized minority, deprived of voting rights in a de facto Israeli/West Bank state that has cordoned Palestinians off into hundreds of open air prisons.

The other thing is that this is ad is obviously for only Israeli consumption. The ad takes the most aggressive of ME armies and a controversial security measure and turns them into non-aggressive play things. Anywhere outside of Israel would this farce been ridiculed out of existence for its cruel mangling of reality.

However within Israel, you can imagine the ad is retail therapy. An Israeli consumer, possibly feeling at odds with the measures of the government and settlers and upset by foreign disgust with the occupation gets relief by a moment of levity regarding these burdens. The Palestinians, those baring the brunt of the crushing policies, never make an appearance, allowing the imagination to envision a people having the time of their lives playing football with their oppressor.

It is a purely psychological manipulation by a marketing PhD's, juicing demand through addictive, reality warping advertising.

Which is why the second video is so funny. It is an act of genius, blowing apart the happy take on the Palestinian/Israeli divide, and destroying the ridiculousness of the marketing schmaltz.