Over at the MSNBC website, Michael Isikoff is flagging a YouTube video of a 2010 speech by Sheldon Adelson in which the casino mogul and Newt Gingrich-bankroller talks about his dream of serving in the Israeli military.
Isikoff suggests such talk will prove embarrassing for Gingrich, who after all is running to be commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.
But before you go all Mondoweiss/M.J. Rosenberg on Adelson and suggest he puts Israel’s interests ahead of the interests of the United States… be sure to watch the portion of the tape starting at the 1:10 mark.
Adelson tells the crowd that the reason he started his Israeli newspaper, Yisrael Hayom, was because the political views of all his Israeli friends were disconnected from reality.
In other words, it’s just as easy to look at this video the other way — as evidence of an American bent on influencing Israeli politics.
