The turd of the Nile

It can be difficult, sometimes, to spot the difference between:

a) an Islamic fundamentalist earnestly bent on mass murder, and

b) a character from a 1980s action-comedy starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

Is Anwar al-Awlaki, al-Qaeda’s man in Yemen and suspected mastermind of the recent parcel bomb plots, related to the Jewel, the title character in The Jewel of the Nile portrayed by Avner Eisenberg?

Al-Awlaki and Eisenberg were both born in America and Eisenberg is a clown, which, as we all know, is an indicator of evil. On the other hand, Eisenberg is Jewish, which suggests that he and al-Awlaki would struggle to maintain a temperate conversation once talk drifted away from their mutual distaste for pork.

I’m not ruling out a Jekyll and Hyde scenario, but on balance it seems more likely that al-Awalki simply based his image on the Jewel after watching the film as a child. The Jewel is, after all, a religious leader, albeit a humble, peaceful one rather than a self-aggrandising wankpot.