Sometimes The Onion and Satirewire just can’t compete with the actual goings on in Arab world. For instance, check out this story (via the Arizona Republic):

A few months into the first series of ‘Al Halka Al Ad’af,’ the Arabic version of the hit global quiz show ‘The Weakest Link,’ the petite Lebanese presenter [Rita Khoury] is a television starlet, but almost no one likes her.

With her school mistress spectacles and scathing one-liners, Khoury has caused outrage among Arab audiences, especially men, more accustomed to a bland diet of political rhetoric and dubbed South American soap operas.

Khoury’s curt ‘you are the weakest link — goodbye’ has become an infamous put down among the Arab masses who tune in twice a week to watch the program on the Beirut-based satellite channel Future Television.

Appearing in suits and veils, nine contestants drawn from all over the Arab world must vote off one player — ‘the weakest link’ — at the end of each round.

Khoury promptly follows each vote with a sharp review of the contestants’ performance. Her quips have added resonance when directed against men from Saudi Arabia, where women have fewer rights, unable to vote or drive cars, for instance.

‘She’s a bitch,’ said Dabbah, a barman in Beirut. ‘There’s no need to humiliate people just because they don’t know the answer. God help her poor husband.’

Of course, this would be a whole lot funnier if it weren’t so painfully real. How long before some backward-ass cleric issues a fatwah on her brain?

Yup. 3-1 Khoury finds herself stoned to death inside a year…

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