The New Republic’s Marty Peretz and the Zionist Organization of America smell something fishy in Preisdent Obama’s failure to mention Israel when he praised other nations for their cooperation in Haiti.
Here’s the original quote from Obama:
At the airport, help continues to flow in, not just from the United States but from Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others. This underscores the point that I made to the President this morning: The entire world stands with the government and the people of Haiti, for in Haiti’s devastation, we all see the common humanity that we share.
It’s not that Israeli participation in the Haiti horror was being kept secret. I myself saw it reported several times on television—on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN.
So didn’t Obama notice? For God’s sake, everybody noticed the deep Israeli involvement. I understand that Obama doesn’t like Middle East narratives that do not contain "one side and the other side" equal valence. But he couldn’t have that here. The Arabs don’t care a fig, not for their impoverished and backward own, and certainly not for strangers.
In seconding Peretz, the ZOA noted that President Bill Clinton did give props to Israel.
Paranoia or astute political analysis? We’ll let the readers decide.
[UPDATE: Looks like I picked the wrong set-up for our "Lost" routine: Eric Fingerhut points out that when Obama gave the speech in question, the Israelis were only just arriving on the scene. So unless the president had "Lost"-like abilities to see the future, he couldn’t have been expected to know about everything good that the IDF would soon be doing.]
More importantly, with the final season of "Lost" set to kick off Tuesday night (not to mention everyone going ga ga over "Start-Up Nation"), the JTA staff started wondering: What if it had been an El Al flight that crashed on the island?
- In the first place, the plane would have never crashed because the pilots would have been able to perform evasive maneuvers. But if it had…
- Jack would not have been the only doctor.
- John Locke would have been named Yeshayahu Leibowitz.
- Sayid would have never made it on to the plane.
- Instead of his makeshift radio, some of the Israeli passengers would have set up a high-speed Internet link.
- Some Lubavicther would have shown up before long to open up a Chabad house.
- There would be more than just one recklessly driven, German-made vehicle on the road.
- The existence of a nuclear weapon on the island would never have been acknowledged.
- Gratuitous shots of Kate in her underwear would be replaced by quick peeks of haredi women sans sheitels.
- The island would suddenly have attracted the attention of the entire world, with the U.N. accusing the passengers of illegally occupying territory and using disproportionate force to fend off attacks by the Others.
UPDATE: A friendly rabbi adds: " The back fuselage was what stayed intact, so all the people davening in the back would have made it. Breakaway minyan, anyone?"
