In Brüno, Cohen arranged a sit-down with Ayman Abu Aita, whom he identified as the leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an honest-to-goodness suicide-bombing Palestinian terrorist group that's responsible for dozens of murders. It was funny because he made fun of Osama bin Laden and pretended to be gay.

But Aita, who claims he's no longer affiliated with the Brigades and doesn't like the idea of being seen paling around with an Austrian gay man in a feature film, is threatening a lawsuit:

Mr Abu Aita's lawyer, Hatem Abu Ahmad, said that he is preparing a legal action against Baron Cohen and Universal Studios alleging that the Martyrs' Brigade reference could get his client in trouble with the Israelis and the homosexual association could get him killed by the Palestinians.

Of course, one way to avoid getting mixed up with gags like this is to not affiliate yourself with groups that launch suicide bombings in the first place, so—wait, that didn't work for Ron Paul, did it?

What's worse, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade is making its own threats against Cohen—bafflingly enough, via the "Jerusalem bureau" of WorldNetDaily, the birther outfit that's rapidly overtaking Lyndon LaRouche's place in the taxonomy of American political paranoiacs. WND's Aaron Klein, whom we last saw engineering a fake Wikipedia scandal designed to promote his noxious and fanatical beliefs about Obama's birthplace, obtained a statement from the group:

We reserve the right to respond in the way we find suitable against this man. This movie was part of a conspiracy against the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Islamist nutjobs complaining to right-wing nutjobs about a Jewish comedian.

[Via Intelligencer.]

Supposedly furious that he was unable to secure a new TV deal, Topaz enlisted three henchmen to attack the CEO of the Keshet Broadcasting Network, an exec at Reshet Television, and a bigtime agent. Bones were broken, and eye sockets fractured. Topaz has been in trouble before, after being accused of sexually harassing an actress on his TV show.

So basically he's Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, and Bob Barker all rolled into one, with maybe a little Ari Emmanuel thrown in for good measure.

Sheikh Mohammed Al-Munajid told Saudi Arabia's Al-Majd Television that his beef with Mickey is that he is a mouse, a creature that Islam sees as "repulsive and corrupting."

Al-Munajid explained that Islamic law refers to the mouse as "little corrupter" and a creature that is "steered by Satan," and grants permission to all Muslims to "kill [mice] in all cases."

Therefore, according to Islamic law, insisted the sheikh, "Mickey Mouse should be killed."

The fatwa has since proven deeply divisive to Palestineans, who only last year were treated by Hamas to a powerful "Martyred Mickey" episode of the popular children's show Pioneers of Tomorrow — a crisis of allegorical politics that now stands to shatter the rodent relations so painstakingly advanced over the years. We pray for a swift, peaceful accord; it would be a shame to see Sarah Palin's foreign-policy skills wasted on such a trifle somewhere down the line.

• Muslims: We must kill Mickey Mouse [Israel Today via THR Esq]