Israeli's Gadhafi remix is an Arab hit

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TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A parody of Moammar Gadhafi's rants is a YouTube hit in the Arab world -- even though it was made in Israel.

Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist and musician, told The New York Times he watched the Libyan dictator's speech vowing to hunt down opponents "inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway," and saw its potential.

He used Auto-Tune to set the speech to the music of "Hey Baby," a hip-hop number by an American, Pitbull, and titled it "Zenga-Zenga," echoing Gadhafi's repetition of the word zanga, Arabic for alleyway.

Alooshe uploaded the remix to YouTube Wednesday, and began sending it to the pages of young Arab revolutionaries via Twitter and Facebook. It had more than 400,000 hits by Sunday.

Alooshe did not identify his nationality on the clip, and when people discovered his identity from his Facebook profile, some Arabs turned against him.

But he said most reactions have been positive, and a Libyan told him that if and when the regime falls, liberated Libyans will dance to Zenga-Zenga.

One Web surfer wrote in an Arabic forum, "What's the problem if he's an Israeli? The video is still funny."