So first Ed Koch spends two months urging the Jewish voters of the 9th Congressional District to vote against the Democratic candidate, David Weprin — an observant Jew whose positions on Israel and record of service to the Jewish community are indisputably solid.
Koch’s goal was to “send a message” of displeasure with the Obama administration’s Middle East policy.
Then, only two weeks later, after Weprin has been defeated, Koch suddenly proclaims that Obama has received the voters’ message and changed his policies in the Middle East, so Koch endorses him for re-election.
The only rational explanation for Koch’s behavior is that the notion of “sending a message” about Israel was never anything more than a pretext. What Koch actually did was to enlist the district’s pro-Israel Democrats — at least those of them naïve enough to take him seriously — as unwitting accomplices to his effort to repay a political grudge against the Weprin family that dates back to the days of David Weprin’s father, the late Assembly Speaker Saul Weprin. We can only hope that the next time Koch tries to share his political “wisdom” with voters, they will remember this escapade and discount it accordingly.
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