DEPENDS ON WHO TELLS IT

Here's a version of a joke you may have heard recently........


A Belgian is wandering around the desert, quite lost – Belgians are not very bright and don’t read maps, so getting lost happens fairly often to them.
He’s parched, nearly dying of thirst, getting desperate.
But what does he see? Huzza, a merchant with a pushcart! Surely the merchant will have water!
The Dutchman (for that is what the wandering merchant turns out to be) offers that 'no, he doesn’t have any water, but he’s selling ties, wonderful silken ties, for which apparently there is an enormous demand – consequently (and he apologizes for this), they’re a little expensive ………'.

The Belgian scoffs – “these ties are vodden (shmatte), good heavens, I wouldn’t even wear any of these if you paid me!” He sniffs disdainfully (painful, what with dried out mucous membranes), then renews his queries about water.
The prospect of a sale being negligible, the Dutchman grudgingly offers that there’s a restaurant about two hours away, over that hill there. The Belgian takes off in the direction of the hill.

Four hours later the Belgian is back.
“So did you find the restaurant?”
“you’re a**hole brother won’t let anyone in without a tie!!!”


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There are unfavourable opinions about that joke.
http://muqata.blogspot.com/2010/04/obamas-national-security-advisors-joke.html

Understandable, because depending on who is telling it, and what ethno-cultural details are highlighted, it can be horribly offensive.
Even in the version above, a humourless Dutchman (Mijnheer Batavus Droogstoppel, for instance) might find something objectionable - though we would automatically elide over his indigation.

As you can understand, given the rivalry between the Dutch (savvy merchants) and the Belgians (good-natured fools), back when I was a youth we thought this joke hilarious.
Our Flemish friends never appreciated it.
Inexplicable.
But then, they're Belgian.
And that's a huge handicap.