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Not overly sentimental towards Israel. Obama
Photo: AP

In praise of Barack

Raanan Shaked explains why he cast his fears aside and started adoring Barack Obama

I too, just like my friends Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Kennedy, Toni Morrison, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Halle Berry, Sharon Stone and George Clooney, have been able to overcome my natural tendency to chuckle when I hear about politicians called “Barack” talking about change. Yes, I’m throwing my full weight behind Barack Obama for president of the United States.

 

Let him be elected, I say. It’s good for Israel, because it’s bad for Israel. Just like anyone who had a rough childhood, Israel too needs someone who will be tough with it at least some of the time.

 

For Israel, he is indeed some kind of an unknown entity, stemming from the fact that Obama’s middle name was and still is “Hussein.” Indeed, leading commentators in the Channel 2 studio repeatedly say that George W. Bush is Israel’s best friend and that it would be best if he just stayed in the White House with all the other furniture.

 

Well, you saw what happens when such a great friend of Israel is ruling Washington: Nothing. Any president who resides in the White House without aiming a double-barreled rifle to the heads of Israel and the Palestinians so that they get down on their knees and put their hands up is not quite a friend of Israel. Yes, there’s plenty of love there, but something gets screwed.

 

It doesn’t matter where you had a chance to watch an interview with Barack Obama, you know with certainty that this man is the most charismatic phenomenon in American politics since, apparently, John F. Kennedy – yet as opposed to President Bush, who always sounds as if he just walked out of an intermediate-level English class at Berlitz, Obama commands the English language instead of the other way around. He is coherent, captivating, and tells the truth.

 

Aunt Hillary

It is indeed possible that the rumors are right, and that he is not overly sentimental towards Israel. We can only hope. An over-abundance of sentimentality in Washington has been hindering us for decades.

 

There is, of course, Hillary; the woman who stayed with her husband even when he developed greater intimacy with the family dog than with her. I suspect that this distinguished student, who grew up to be the aunt you would not invite even to the Passover meal, is far from being the great white hope of a nation that is in much greater need of a small black hope – and I’m still talking about Israel here.

 

In any case, when even the West Coast Spielbergs throw their support behind Obama, I’m with them. Those are the people who treat the name Clinton as a magic flute, and if they moved over to Obama’s spaceship, there is nothing left to do but wait for the dramatic landing while expecting an encounter of the third kind – the kind Spielberg loves to direct. Now let’s wait for Barack to strike.

 

Raanan Shaked is a Yedioth Ahronoth commentator and TV critic

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.17.08, 17:23
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