PrintApril 27, 2010
Obama and the Anti-Semites
The most politically correct President (I still recall his using the term ‘First Americans" instead of Native Americans) in history has one big blind spot: insults towards Jews. The latest example is an anti-Semitic joke told by his National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, in a speech. The joke was summarized by Nathan Guttman of The Forward:
A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn't have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban, the jokes goes on, begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he's back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: "Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant."
You can watch the actual telling of the joke below:
Mark Hemingway in the Washington Examiner notes that someone at the White House evidently found the joke dangerous:
However, the White House felt it was inappropriate and left it out of their transcript of the event. And obviously some of the people at the event felt that a joke about greedy Jewish merchants was not okay and told The Forward as much.Somehow I can't envision a scenario where the White House would make a similar joke about Islam. This is doubly true since Jones has a reputation has prominent Israel critic.
Of course, this takes place in the context of a concerted effort to soothe pro-Israel Americans regarding the shabby and geopolitically stupid way Barack Obama and his team have treated our only true ally in the Middle East. I have written about Jim Jones and his checkered relationship with Israel.
Often one's true feelings towards a group come about as such gaffes (a gaffe in DC-speak is when a politician tells the truth about how he feels). Recall, this is an administration that has banned the term Islam or Muslim when it is paired with violence or extremism. This is an administration that has stonewalled Senators when they have asked to see documents related to the Ft. Hood massacre. If Jones had said such a joke about any other minority group he would have been fired or been forced to step down.
Jones's joke is part of a disturbing pattern in the Obama Administration:
An administration official accused Dennis Ross of dual loyalty;
Barack Obama linked American lives lost and money spent to conflicts that involve Israel;
Of course, there is also his railing against Goldman Sachs and Wall Street-traditional targets of anti-Semitic screeds;
Obama puts the onus of blame on Israel for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and has not held the Palestinians to any standards regarding their efforts to make peace
Obama is preparing the groundwork for scapegoating Israel as the problem that led to Iran having a nuclear bomb since he kept repeating the fallacy that Israel's problems with the Palestinians has made it difficult to gather an alliance to deal with Iran (an absurd and illogical position, skewered by foreign policy expert Richard Haas in today's WSJ)
At the same time, Obama has elevated Al Sharpton (who provoked an anti-Semitic pogram Harlem a few years back; a man who used "diamond merchants" as a code word to slur Jews) to being a partner of his in urban affairs.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
