How do you say “same shit different day” in yiddish:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used a fence-mending session with President Obama on Tuesday to say that he intends to take “concrete steps” in the coming weeks to move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process “further along in a very robust way.”
Loosely translated, Israel will continue to DWTFTW and we will pretend they are doing something different and still keep writing checks.
The Dangerman
No translation necessary. I expect concrete steps (also concrete driveways, concrete walls, and concrete roofs).
General Egali Tarian Stuck
At least he is bothering to offer up some bullshit for Obama. If it was Clinton he would have either ignored him, or ignored him.
MattF
In fact, my not-a-nice-little-old-lady grandmother used to yell at people (in Yiddish) to “go shit in the sea.” Which is, most likely, what Bibi is actually thinking of suggesting to Barack.
bkny
concrete foundations for those housing developments …
Brian
Not sure, but great to see you conflating Israel (where they speak Hebrew) and Jews at large (whose elderly grandparents might speak Yiddish).
But Bush is soooo dumb for I-rack lolololol!
SiubhanDuinne
@Brian:
Oy.
Art
Why aren’t the tea partiers upset with the billions of dollars in military aid we commit to Israel every year?
meh
When did you first become aware that you were anti-semetic, John? Sometimes it’s better to keep on walkin…
Max B.
As Brian says, yes, it’s Hebrew:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliezer_Ben-Yehuda
And the expression I think MattF is referring to is “Gai kakhen afenyam,” which means exactly what he said it means.
joeyess
Handshake. Photos taken. Platitudes spoken. Doors closed. Then…….
Cha-Ching!!
joeyess
@meh: I do hope that’s snark or someone is going to get punched in the neck.
joeyess
@The Dangerman: don’t forget concrete walls.
Pancake
Good.
Annie
Netanyahu is just playing nice while he waits for President Palin. At that point, the “first dude” can help him build more fences….
joeyess
@Art: ‘Cause Israel’s ultimate destruction will result in their rapture and they don’t want to get called on holy carpet in the Kingdom of Jeebus if they had uttered a contrary word about the atrocities being committed.
Better to lay low, claim they love the people of Israel, while simultaneously and quietly praying for their destruction.
Oh, wait. Jeebus would know about that too. Damn! You can’t even have a blissful afterlife without a heavenly police state secretly monitoring your every move from Jeebus’ undisclosed location while you’re alive.
Can someone please explain to me why these people worship the Sadistic Sky Pilot again?
wengler
I’m guessing this meeting has more to do with Iran than the Turkish aid flotilla. Either Obama is trying to talk Netanyahu out of a strike or they are planning it together.
Mnemosyne
Yiddish is apparently having a bit of a comeback in Israel right now. It was banned for many years while they tried to establish modern Hebrew as the official language, but it doesn’t look like it ever quite died out.
Chyron HR
@Pancake:
When did you first become aware that you were a traitor to your country, Dave?
Silver
Concrete steps…I’m guessing the new plan is to entomb the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in concrete. Solve the problem the same way we took care of Jimmy Hoffa…
Just Some Fuckhead
Fence mending and concrete steps sounds like more settlements, more checkpoints.
stuckinred
Awright, another vindictive, nasty thread that will go where all the other ones on this topic do. No fucking where. AMF
meh
@joeyess:
it was but i could use a good punch in the neck…
Mike G
Loosely translated, Israel will continue to DWTFTW and we will pretend they are doing something different and still keep writing checks.
And Netanyahu will continue treating Obama like his house boy, knowing he can get away with treating him like shit because his dozens of other bought US politicians, Xtian fundamentalist Armageddon-anticipators and neocon lickspittles like Lieberman will always back him no matter how much he trashes US national interests.
Mnemosyne
@wengler:
Hard to say. Apparently the commission investigating the flotilla incident was granted broader powers yesterday and will be calling Netanyahu (among others) to testify under oath.
Note that this was announced by Israel before Obama’s meeting with Netanyahu today. I think they’re starting to dimly sense that they fucked up and have to mend fences.
Mark S.
Maybe Bibi can treat Obama to some mustard burgers before he leaves. He can put it on one of these cards.
dpolitico
In Yiddish that would be: Go F yourself Gaza.
wengler
@Mnemosyne
The rightwing Israeli government has got to be feeling weak right now. They lost the war in Lebanon in 2006. They lost Gaza to Hamas, Even beating the prisoners in their sweep of Gaza didn’t give them their confidence back, nor did blowing up an alleged Syrian weapons site. And now killing 9 aboard a civilian aid flotilla?
Likud are feeling the walls squeezing in. Only one thing to do: change the conversation.
Zifnab
You are in a country where half of us go into fits at timetables and benchmarks for IRAQ! And you want that shit for Israel? Hahahahahaha. No freak’n way, buddy. No freak’n way.
Besides, we’re not giving money to Israel. We’re giving permission for Israel to spend our money on our military contractors, then letting them keep the weapons.
demimondian
@Annie: You’re joking, but I suspect you’re right. Bibi has misread American politics catastrophically twice in the last two years, and he’s increasingly desperate. He can’t bend to American pressure, because that will end his career in an instant. Conversely, though, he can’t *not* bend to pressure. His current plan is to stall, betting that the Republicans take the Congress in November and take the heat off him until 2012, when Sarah Starbursts can come in and make things all better.
jwb
@stuckinred: Look on the bright side: we’re already 30 comments in and the thread hasn’t yet been Godwined.
stuckinred
@jwb: Soon come mon. Arie
demimondian
@jwb: Godwin! Godwin damn it!
demimondian
@jwb: That’s G*dwin, damn it. You wouldn’t want to spell out the Name of the iDioty…
burnspbesq
@dpolitico:
I think you meant “go shtupp yourself Gaza.”
Corner Stone
@jwb: You know who else made concrete steps?
That’s right.
OriGuy
@The Dangerman:
Not in Gaza, though. Portland cement for making concrete is one of the things on the embargo list.
Mr Furious
@jwb:
Yeah, but it only took 13 to get pancaked.
robertdsc
Fuck Israel.
cleek
@robertdsc:
“
El Cid
It’s getting to the point where the ultra rightwing violent religious fundamentalist settlers are raising alarms not only among Israeli politicians and publications, who actually use the term “fascists” to describe them (many of them recognize no Israeli secular authority and only their religious leaders), the Israeli military are disturbed at being asked about the massive US-based tax-free donations helping to fund this illegal expansion into the occupied territories.
That military commander knows that it will be his military sent in to deal with these vile, violent, law-breaking nutbags (and I mean defiance of Israeli law and Supreme Court rulings), so, he knows where the shit piles are being pushed to.
I think the suggestion, though, that this would ’embarrass’ the Obama administration is ludicrous. If anything there would be complaints about why Obama isn’t matching the donations dollar for dollar else he hates Israel and wants it thrown into the sea by Bill Ayers Kenyonesian Caliphatists.
300baud
@Brian:
That’s one interpretation of what he wrote. But the way I took it is that there were a commonly used Yiddish phrase for “same shit, different day” he would have used it to intro the quote. Not because he thinks that’s what they speak in Israel, but because a lot of Americans know Yiddish phrases, but few know Hebrew ones.
For example, if Cole had said, “Oy vey”, or referred to Netenyahu’s “shtick”, nobody would have thought he was suggesting that Yiddish is the dominant language of Israel.
Corner Stone
@robertdsc:
Well that’s a little harsh but I will cite two clear examples.
1. The girl in Sneakers, at the end where River Phoenix asks for her phone number
2. The girl in the coffee shop Chandler meets who was in the Israeli Army at one time. She has like 3 boyfriends and he wants her to choose him. Ultimately he Chandlers out and tells her goodbye
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Corner Stone:
Sergey Eisenstein?
Corner Stone
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Actually, in this case I was looking for “Hitler”. Hitler.
But we would’ve also accepted my ex-FIL because that dude can and has built about anything you can imagine on the single family home scale.
And if it means he doesn’t have to spend time with his wife, he would certainly build you some concrete steps.
cleek
Bob Vila !
Corner Stone
Barney Frank should just not wear short sleeve shirts.
Just no.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
That piece claims, further down, “Due to the limited scope of the inquiry, it is seen as unlikely to pose any political threat to Netanyahu’s government.”
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Q: Bibi, we remind you are under oath.
Bibi: Yes, of course.
Q: Bibi, which of all the Thundercats presents the greatest threat to Israel?
Bibi: Hmmm, great question. Snarf?
liberal
@demimondian:
What pressure would that be?
Both parties in Congress overwhelmingly support Israel (meaning, as usual, the Israeli state, including as currently governed), so that is a strange speculation.
liberal
@El Cid:
Yes, it’s sickening that tax breaks are going for ethnic cleansing.
NobodySpecial
What do you mean, we’re going to pretend they’re doing something different?
You mean, we’re going to send sternly worded letters along with the checks.
Corner Stone
@NobodySpecial:
That way the dirty blackies at the Post Office can’t see inside the letter and tell if there’s a check in there they should steal.
Because they do you know.
Granfalloon
Hebrew is the national language of Israel. Not Yiddish. Yiddish was created by Eastern European Jews as a lingua franca to identify a people united by religion and culture. Israel is a country and not, as you seem to suggest, a bunch of kvetching shtetl Jews worthy of your contempt.
If Obama makes empty promises in the state of the union, would you ask in your piece how to say “same sh!t different day” in Swahili?
goatchowder
They don’t speak Yiddish in Israel, they speak Hebrew.
Josh
The people who’re saying, “Ha! Cole doesn’t know they speak Hebrew in Israel!” (As though most Israelis wouldn’t recognize Yiddish words and phrases) are engaging in the good ol’ Amurrican pastime of placing the most uncharitable interpretation on the other fella’s words and then saying “Look how stoopid!” Then, if the other fella tries to explain that he couldn’t have meant what he’s accused of meaning, he gets accused of backpedaling and condescension and generally being a wise guy. Powerful California Republican John Searle did this to Jacques Derrida back in the early seventies, and then it became fashionable, leading to “Gore says he invented the Internet” and all that (see also, from the other side, misinterpretation of Dan Quayle’s joke about Latin America).
Granfalloon
And Josh, how is what you’re doing not the same?
Why don’t we let the writer explain?
Personally, I agree with everything John said – except the gratuitous inaccurate statement. I’m Jewish and don’t support all of israel policy (like many). Nor did my grandmother who did speak yiddish. Setting aside the fact that it’s inaccurate, there’s no need for it. I don’t get how any sarcasm like that means anything or advances anything.
So now I’m backpedaling I guess. So I guess you win.
MTiffany
If we were to ask Bibi I do believe he’d say “schvartze.”
ellaesther
As everyone has already taken you to the woodshed over the Hebrew/Yiddish thing, I’ll not hop onto that pile-on.
However, I will answer the question!
In Hebrew, you would say: “Hakol oto chara” (“everything’s the same shit”) or “ein hadash me’tachat la’shemesh” (“nothing new under the sun” – it’s from Ecclesiastes, and people in Israel do actually quote the Bible rather nonchalantly!)
In Yiddish you would say something along the lines of: “Dee zel b’dreck” (“it’s the same old shit” – this is something I picked up from people who said it regularly but weren’t actually Yiddish speakers — it would be like picking up widely-used Spanish phrases from Americans. Which is to say: I may be saying it very wrong).
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Honestly. There is no one here who will give me a fucking “schnarrrrff” ?
What is wrong with you people?
Cris
3. Daphne Rosen.
Steeplejack
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Heh. Good one. But those were fake concrete steps. Like a, um, Potemkin village of concrete steps.
JL
European Jews were victims of state sponsored genocide 1939-1945.
Israel possesses nuclear weaponry.
American politicians are terrified to criticize Israel, much less consider weaning it off Uncle Chump’s tit.
Why is that?
goatchowder
@JL: Cowardice.
Pat
I think everyone is getting a bit tired of this exclusive Mutual Admiration Society and the I love you no I love you more routine.
IMHO aid to Israel should also be looked at and on the chopping block of the President’s Deficit Commission. Let’s take a look at every way we can to reduce the deficit shall we, instead of just taking away from our own.
Svensker
@joeyess:
As someone who has family members who are born again Israel supporters, I’d have to disagree. (Of course, maybe other people know rapturists who feel the way you describe.) My family members really love Israel and think that God also loves these people who have bravely taken back the land that the shiftless
darkiesArabs were sitting on. Also, too, the Israelis are the Only Democracy in the Middle East and so they are like Us, which is akin to perfection. Also, too, the Israelis are fighting the Mooslems who are Satan’s brothers who want to Wreck Everything. Poor plucky brave Israel in a sea of dark skinned evil doers plus God loves them — sweet deal, huh?Some evangelicals think only the Jews who convert before the End Times will be saved, but some like my family believe that most Israelis and Israel-supporting Jews will be saved because they are God’s Chosen doing God’s work.
Even the fact that many are Christians doesn’t get the Palestinians any sympathy whatsoever.
Joey Maloney
@joeyess:
Tradition!
Granfalloon
@Svensker:
It does get them a crapload of foreign aid – more per capita than Israel – however.
KXB
@Corner Stone:
“2. The girl in the coffee shop Chandler meets who was in the Israeli Army at one time. She has like 3 boyfriends and he wants her to choose him. Ultimately he Chandlers out and tells her goodbye”
The actress was Sofia Milos, who is half Greek/half-Swiss, and used to be on CSI Miami. While there are numerous Jewish characters on American televisions, there are not many Israelis. On NCIS, the Israeli agent is portrayed by an actress from Chile.
thomas
@El Cid:
giving $$ to a Muslim charity will get you a visit from the FBI and maybe charged undr our “Freedom” laws, but giving $$ to the right-wing nutbag religious Jews gets you a tax exemption.
Thanks congress-critters.
DN
How do you say “same shit different day” in yiddish:
Google Translate suggests זעלביקער דרעק, אַנדערש טאָג.