CAIRO — Shockwaves reverberated throughout Egypt today as an international court officially ruled the nation must begin making payments of financial reparations to Israel for hundreds of years of slavery in ancient times.
"This was certainly not expected," said Quadri Abdur, spokesman for the Egyptian government. "We were happy to hear about other governments looking to make reparation payments to minorities, but we didn't stop to think about our own history of horrible oppression and slavery against the people of ancient Israel."
Experts and political pundits around the world had initially hailed other reparations decisions like that of San Francisco to pursue making monetary payments to make up for past enslavement and mistreatment of African-Americans. Public sentiment took a turn, however, when people began to remember the plight of the Israeli people for thousands of years.
"It's about time! No one knows the level of oppression experienced throughout history by the Jewish people," said Rabbi Josef Gittelman. "We're just starting at the beginning here. Next, we'll be looking for reparations from the Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans, Germany, everyone! It's time to pay up, Gentiles!"
It was unclear if Egypt's reparations payments would be made to the Israeli government or to descendants of ancient Israelite slaves, which would effectively have Egypt making payments to a large percentage of the world's population.
At publishing time, reparations activists were reportedly rethinking their push after realizing ancient Israelites and their descendants had experienced far more oppression and slavery than any other people group in recorded history.
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