Claudia Rosett
pajamsmedia.com
09 July '10
Posted before Shabbat
As part of his public reconciliation with Israel, Obama for the first time in the almost 18 months since he became president just gave an interview to an Israeli TV station (this from the same American president who gave his first interview in office to Al-Arabiya — remember that ?). Speaking Wednesday to Israel’s Channel 2 News, Obama struck a friendly tone.
And yet, as if he can’t quite help himself, out comes this astonishingly crude remark. As reported in the New York Times, he was asked about “the anxiety of many Israelis who feel that he does not have a special bond with Israel.” Obama replied — get ready for it: “Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”
Come again? There are Americans who have wondered about that middle name, less because it is “Hussein” than because it has lived a strange life of its own, fading in and out depending on the audience – disappearing during Obama’s 2008 election campaign, reappearing during his outreach to the “Muslim world,” coming and going as if it mattered in some malleable way to Obama himself. Has he ever considered that public worry about his middle name might have more to do with the slippery nature of its use, and the too often disturbing policies of its owner, than with the name itself?
And for Obama to impute Israeli anxiety to his Cheshire Cat of a middle name is grossly dismissive and insulting to the Israelis. Does he really believe they are such bigots as to judge him — other things equal — by his middle name? Does he have any evidence for that? Or was he drawing on his own stereotype of Israelis? How exactly was he judging them, when he tossed out that remark?
(Read full article)
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As part of his public reconciliation with Israel, Obama for the first time in the almost 18 months since he became president just gave an interview to an Israeli TV station (this from the same American president who gave his first interview in office to Al-Arabiya — remember that ?). Speaking Wednesday to Israel’s Channel 2 News, Obama struck a friendly tone.
And yet, as if he can’t quite help himself, out comes this astonishingly crude remark. As reported in the New York Times, he was asked about “the anxiety of many Israelis who feel that he does not have a special bond with Israel.” Obama replied — get ready for it: “Some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”
Come again? There are Americans who have wondered about that middle name, less because it is “Hussein” than because it has lived a strange life of its own, fading in and out depending on the audience – disappearing during Obama’s 2008 election campaign, reappearing during his outreach to the “Muslim world,” coming and going as if it mattered in some malleable way to Obama himself. Has he ever considered that public worry about his middle name might have more to do with the slippery nature of its use, and the too often disturbing policies of its owner, than with the name itself?
And for Obama to impute Israeli anxiety to his Cheshire Cat of a middle name is grossly dismissive and insulting to the Israelis. Does he really believe they are such bigots as to judge him — other things equal — by his middle name? Does he have any evidence for that? Or was he drawing on his own stereotype of Israelis? How exactly was he judging them, when he tossed out that remark?
(Read full article)
If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.
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