Here’s a pretty ugly video that’s been circulating on many of the blogs that I read. It shows a bunch of drunk, stupid American Jews in Israel incoherently trashing President Obama and his Muslim sympathies.
For someone like Phil Weiss or As’ad Abu Khalil this, can be pointed to and treated like a serious example of Zionist racism or Jewish chauvinism or whatever. But let’s be honest here. Drunk assholes are drunk assholes and you can find them anywhere in the world saying equally stupid things. I remember seeing a lot of these types when I was in Jerusalem, nineteen year olds stumbling down Ben Yehuda Street trying to pick fights and hitting on other people’s girlfriends. They are not worth making a point out of.
I see that video as very sad. The ignorance of the American kids is overwhelming, including the American political science major who knows her stuff, but is not sure who “Benjamin Yahoo” is. But these kids are regurgitating learned values and beliefs. From parents? Peers? Israelis? Are they living in Israel with their families, studying there, or on some tour? All three? They are not worth making a point of, I agree, but the broader cultural climate from which they get their talking points is. What more did you see? What do you know?