With friends like these…
Op-ed: Visiting comedian Sarah Silverman should take responsibility for foolish Obama endorsement
Jewish Comedian Sarah Silverman will be arriving for a show in Israel. Indeed, a constitutive event. The popular American standup comedian did not shy away from smalltime politics in 2008, posting a YouTube clip urging Jewish grandchildren to threaten their grandparents in Florida that there will be no visits unless they vote for Obama, as he would be “much better for Israel.”
The video clip portrayed Jewish families in a disparaging, humiliating manner while making use of every stereotype from the past; all in the name of “satire,” of course.
My late cousin, Dr. Zoli Zlotogorski, a traditional American supporter of the Democratic Party, a Zionist and a socialist who made Aliyah to Israel in 1973 based on pure Zionism, was shocked by the clip and sent numerous letters condemning it. It appears that only in the US can such blatant anti-Semitism be marketed as “Jewish comedy,” he wrote.
It would be hard to imagine a similar clip about Uncle Tom that would use the same kind of humor and focus on the Afro-American community, my cousin added. After listening to Ms. Silverman’s humor time and again, he said that he was convinced that his move to Israel 35 years earlier was the right move, noting that whatever choice Americans make, Israelis will bear the results.
Most hostile since Carter
Since then, as my late cousin wrote, we are indeed bearing the results. Obama was elected and his Administration has proven to be the most hostile to Israel since Jimmy Carter’s era. There is no shortage of recent examples: Professor Daniel Pipes, for example, posted a photo in his blog of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton currying favor with the Turkish foreign minister with an especially friendly “high five” at the outset of their meeting in Dubai. Indeed, the Turkish minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, is a distinguished “friend” of America, the Jewish people in general, and Israel in particular.
Pipes, who for years now has been sounding the alarm over a Turkish takeover by Erdogan’s Islamist party, which is tirelessly working to turn Turkey into a softer version of Iran, also via anti-American, Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric, wrote the following: “Clinton should be ashamed of herself, horsing around like this with the representative of a hostile state whose government is just three days away from elections. This sends precisely the wrong message of endorsement by the US government. “
We shall note that according to recent reports, Clinton avoided a meeting with Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, in Brussels.
The same thing happened during the Iran riots in the summer of 2009, when Obama refrained from uttering a word in the face of the regime’s massacre of protestors; yet he later turned his back on President Mubarak, America’s longtime ally whose regime, compared to the Iranian dictatorship, was a “model of human rights.”
Obama’s ridiculous speeches
And now comes Obama’s ridiculous demand of Syrian President Bashar Assad to undertake reforms or quit. Which reforms exactly can the little Saddam Hussein from Damascus undertake when he heads a Stalinist dictatorship, among the worst in the world, relying on a small minority that commands all positions of power?
And the list goes on: After his Administration wasted two years over a ridiculous demand to freeze settlement construction, President Obama now chose to prompt the Palestinians to make yet another demand – the 1967 lines as basis for negotiations. There is no government in Israel that could accept such condition, without any attention to the right of return problem and the recognition of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.
What kind of politics is it, where the principles of diplomacy and art of sensitive, secret negotiations are being replaced by ridiculous speeches in Ankara, Cairo and Washington? Utter inaction and great impotence coupled with baseless slogans read from a teleprompter do not advance the sides anywhere. Even figures who are closely associated with the Democracy Party harshly criticized Obama’s speeches, including Professor Alan Dershowitz, former New York Mayor Ed Koch, president’s Clinton former special counsel Lanny Davis and others.
Given these difficult circumstances, it would be appropriate to remind Ms. Silverman and others like her that they erred gravely by enlisting for Obama’s cause in 2008 and would do well to take responsibility for their actions. We should tell them “thanks, but no thanks.” Or in other words, save us from dubious friends, including those who come for a visit; we’ll take care of our enemies on our own.
The writer is a member of the Central Committee of Israel’s Bar Association
- Follow Ynetnews on Facebook
