The wife of a senior Israeli minister sparked outrage on Sunday by posting a racist joke about President Barack Obama on Twitter.
Judy Shalom Nir Mozes, a well-known face on Israeli TV and the wife of the country’s interior minister Silvan Shalom, quickly deleted the offending tweet – but it was too late to avoid mounting criticism.
The post that set off a wave of international public anger was short and to the point.
“Do you know what Obama coffee is? Black and weak”, Mozes tweeted in English.
Protests on Twitter came swiftly in English and Hebrew, including messages such as “Have you gone mad?” and “You’d better erase this … frighteningly racist”.
After deleting the tweet, Mozes posted: “I apologise, that was a stupid joke somebody told me.”
But Twitter users had already taken screen shots of the offensive message.
One user posted: “How human garbage works … Delete plus fake apology. Clearly found the racist joke funny enough to share. Trash”.
Yea, you say, that’s just the crazy wife of a nobody in Israel. How about this guy, then:
The Anti-Defamation League criticized Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, for an “insensitive and unjustified” attack on President Barack Obama.
Oren’ should “walk back” views published in an essay posted Friday on the Foreign Policy website, the ADL said.
Oren wrote that Obama’s attitudes toward Islam and American foreign policy in the Middle East are driven by his personal interactions with Muslims, including his exposure to Muslims while growing up.
The essay, said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman in a statement, “veers into the realm of conspiracy theories, and with an element of amateur psychoanalysis he links U.S. policies in the Middle East to the president’s personal history of having a Muslim father.” Foxman said Oren takes it a step further “by suggesting this ‘worldview’ of Muslims and Islam has driven the president to embrace the Muslim world at the expense of both Israel and U.S. national security interests. This results in borderline stereotyping and insensitivity.”
Oren wrote: “I could imagine how a child raised by a Christian mother might see himself as a natural bridge between her two Muslim husbands. I could also speculate how that child’s abandonment by those men could lead him, many years later, to seek acceptance by their co-religionists.”
With friends like this…
JPL
The right in Israel is no different than the right here. Ignorant assholes.
One has to wonder who is the true anti-Semitic in this world. The way the word has been abused, sickens me. Most settlers in Israel are from Europe and they have to go back a long time to find the connection. Don’t take me wrong, I’m trying to say Palestinians can be Semite also.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
So Oren thinks the problem with Obama is that Obama sees Muslims as actual human beings while Oren knows they’re subhuman monsters?
Christ, what an asshole.
Ruckus
Can someone tell me what we get out of the billions we give Israel in aid? At one time I thought I understood it but that time is long past. OK they are a democracy but they seem to be trying to do everything to continue to fuck up the middle east. That, as we have seen more than enough of over the last 14 yrs, we are capable of doing on our own. I don’t expect to see our countries relationship with them change much but I’m interested in why it shouldn’t. Please explain to me how I’m wrong if you see it that way.
JPL
Gosh they really want to bomb Iran, cuz that will solve all their problems.
JPL
@Ruckus: Don’t forget they are quite socialistic.
Lavocat
Being Israeli means never having to say you’re sorry – usually with a boot on a civilian’s neck.
Debbie
Surprising that Foxman spoke out like he did.
Germy Shoemangler
The Onion, 2013
Omnes Omnibus
As the person who showed this this morning said, her apology tweets managed to use the “I am not a racist” trope and minimized the joke as merely inappropriate.
Bill Arnold
@JPL:
There is a lot of crosstalk between the Israeli right and the American right. (Echo chamber and all.)
Renie
If you get the chance, read “The Israeli Lobby” by John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt. It’s an eye-opener to how much we really give them. And I sure don’t understand why we do it.
shell
I don’t know if it was all that racist; it just wasn’t very funny. Middle school kids could come up with something better than that.
Gravenstone
Is it racist of me that I read that as “the country’s inferior minister”?
Baud
The Oren excerpt is worse than the tweet, IMHO.
Keith G
So I guess Bibi coffee is bitter. Very, very bitter.
Now living in Houston, former neighbor/friend (and PoC) of Dylann Roof states that he doubts the kid got his hatred/racism from his parents.
Caleb Brown on KHOU
SFAW
@Gravenstone:
No, just anti-Semitic.
NotMax
Ally is too cushy a term. Appendage is more like it.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did she also say “some of my best friends are schwartzehs ” ?
burnspbesq
Countries don’t have friends, they have interests. Israel will continue to use the United States for as long as we allow it to go on.
Napoleon
Talking Point Memo published something on Oren a day or so ago that is hugely negative, and links to things that make him out to be a complete piece of shit liar, in the typical right wing way.
leeleeFL
I find the devolution of Michael Oren very sad. He once upob a time seemed like a decent guy. Sadly, he has signed on for the worst defense of his other country, by trashing the President of his original country. I have no hope for peace there any longer….too many people are willing to prevent it happening. What a shame!
shell
As for coffee jokes, i prefer the one from “Airplane!”
Young Boy with Coffee: Cream?
Little Girl: No, thank you, I take it black, like my men.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
I actually heard that exact phrase a couple of times, growing up in Jersey.
Ruckus
@JPL:
Socialist like us? Or like……..
LesGS
It’s possible that Obama’s early exposure to Muslims, particularly his years in Indonesia, helped “inoculate” him against seeing them as an indistinguishable mass or “The Other.” I grew up in Turkey (from 5 to 11 yo) and learned, of course, that they are as varied and individual as any other population, and that their religion is just a piece of who they are.
Knowing Muslims as friends and neighbors is obviously not *required* to understand that, but it may help.
TS
The recent deaths of 9 people were via a man – whose friends noted – ““It was just jokes he would make, racist jokes”
The lady well knew what she was saying.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
The “some of my best friends” part? Or that plus “schwartzehs “? Because the first has been around for ages; the group changes, depending on whom you’ve just insulted. For example, Polacks, Hebes, spics. Of course, some – but not all.- of those doing the insulting had enough self-awareness to get rid of the slur during the “some of my” part.
Not the funnest part of human interaction.
Meg
These wingnuts, no matter where they are and what positions they hold, seem all like to tell each other racist jokes.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Not going to touch that.
SFAW
@LesGS:
Part of Oren’s comments related to how Obama was trying to be accepted by Muslims, because Daddy issues or some such, so it goes far beyond your point.
beltane
@Debbie: I’ve read elsewhere that Foxman has become disillusioned with Netanyahu’s government, and feels that Israel is spitting in the face of American Jews. This is a very recent change of heart, but perhaps the sign of a growing rift.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey, it’s not as if I said “lawyers” or “Cheeseheads.”
LesGS
@shell: My daughters and I have a joke that we like our men like we like our coffee; I like mine pale and bitter, my youngest likes hers dark and sweet; my eldest likes hers ground up and in the freezer. (That was just a phase with her, she likes coffee now.)
Ruckus
@leeleeFL:
I have no hope for peace there any longer
I haven’t for some time. There seems to have been a few times over the last few decades when it was possible, but given the course Israel is taking now, I see nothing positive on the horizon. My only real hope is that we don’t jump in with them when it all goes completely shittastic.
Mike G
Meanwhile, West Bank militant Israelis are burning churches. Think we’ll hear anything about it on Fox News? Imagine if this has been done by Palestinians —
haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.661848
Police suspect that a fire Wednesday night at the historic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha, on the Sea of Galilee, was a hate crime…Sixteen yeshiva students, reportedly West Bank settlers, were detained yesterday as suspects in the arson but were released without charge at 2 p.m.
Since 2011, 17 Muslim and Christian places of worship have been torched in Israel with nobody indicted in any of the cases.
Graffiti, in Hebrew, was found on site, reading “False idols will be smashed.” The worship area suffered light damage due to smoke.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
That’s what she said.
/insipid 12-year-old
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: I welcome your hatred.
Meg
@Baud: It sounds like it could be written by Dinesh D’souza.
beltane
This woman’s husband, the interior minster, is himself quite a piece of work.
Keith G
They have an amazing fish fry second Saturday of every month.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: Fish fries are on Friday.
LesGS
@SFAW: Oh, sure, I saw that. It’s on par with how D’Souza “psychoanalized” that Obama’s daddy issues made him anti-colonial. Like that’s somehow unAmerican and a bad thing.
beltane
@Mike G: They released the suspects. Burning a church is no biggie, I guess.
beltane
@efgoldman: Yes, it is true. They have actually been doing it for quite some time now, but since the ascendancy of the extreme-right it’s become so blatant that even the diehards like Foxman can’t ignore it anymore.
Kyle
Any time Israel wants to stop being a spoiled welfare ward of the US they are quite welcome to go fuck things up by themselves and take the consequences alone. I’m sick of underwriting their arrogance and getting nothing but smart-ass sniping at the US and the President.
Mike J
Someday Israel will have it good like the US, where racism no longer exists.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: Possibly, but wouldn’t that limit the customer base over “there”.
And in football country (small town Ohio in this case), we used to go to a church fish fry which was held on Saturdays since there was no profit in any event held on an Autumn Friday evening.
Napoleon
@beltane:
God I hope that is true
SFAW
@efgoldman:
One might opine that the reason Bush/Cheney loved Bibi so much is that he’s just like them. (Normally, I would have used only Bush’s name, but Bibi’s assholery goes far beyond that dimwit’s.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: All I can say is if one looks for a fish fry in Wisconsin, one looks on Friday.
Mike G
@beltane:
No indictments in 17 cases of burning houses of worship.
Reminds me of Southern “justice” re attacks against civil rights activists circa 1963. Nobody saw nothin’.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: So glad to see that was The Onion. Sad to say, I think Israel is tone deaf enough to have done just that.
beltane
@Napoleon: We’ll see if it lasts, but it is a start. Oren’s outbursts may be too much to stomach. Aside from his racist attacks on Obama, he has also taken to accusing Jewish-American journalists, including Tom Friedman, of antisemitism. He, and the government he represents, seem to have achieved Peak Wingnut.
JPL
@Ruckus: More like Sweden. Israel has health care for all and support their citizens even though they are less fortunate.
At least that is my understanding.
Bill Arnold
@Mike G:
But now surveillance cameras are common. Do cameras ever catch these vandals?
mellowjohn
@JPL:
no, they want us to bomb Iran, cuz that will solve all their problems.
Chris
@Bill Arnold:
For all the bitching about Internationalists and One Worlders, right wingers do it quite well.
They even used to have their own Internationale in the Cold War (the World Anti-Communism League, global fraternity for neo-Nazis, death squads, military dictators, drug dealers, and loonie fundamentalists).
JPL
@Germy Shoemangler: I thought it was real , at first.
Ruckus
@JPL:
And like our right wingers they seem to keep trying to make everyone not them, less fortunate.
Chris
@Mike G:
One of my liberal-unless-Israel-is-involved Jewish relatives went into complete meltdown for pretty much all of last summer on Facebook. My favorite post of that entire era – a link to a video of a Palestinian church that had gotten royally screwed by Hamas, with a commentary that said something like “that’s really interesting! I didn’t know they had Christians there!”
Oh, honey. No, of course you didn’t. Just like, and for the same reasons that, you’ve managed to stumble across the video in which they blame Hamas for the way it treats them, while somehow channel-surfing past all the videos where they mention that the Israelis don’t treat them any better.
Bill Arnold
@Chris:
More mundane, I think. For example, people in Israel can keep in touch with American politics by being on America right-wing email lists, and vice versa. Newspapers are online. Probably, a few people in Israel watch Fox News, etc.
JPL
@Mike G: The only place that I saw it was on the NY Times. No wonder Israel is pissed at them.
Drunken hausfrau
Imagine if Teresa Heinz Kerry had tweeted an anti Semitic joke at the expense of Bibi… What would the response have been?
beltane
@Drunken hausfrau: John Kerry would have to step down immediately, retiring in disgrace.
JPL
@mellowjohn: Well Iraq didn’t work, so why not try.
Germy Shoemangler
@JPL:
The Onion sometimes isn’t as funny as the NY Times.
@WaterGirl:
Jimmy Carter suddenly became an invisible man after his book came out, critical of Israeli policies. Rarely see him on TV.
Woodrowfan
remember, if a clerk at a big box store says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” it’s a war on Christians. When ISIL kills Christians it’s a war on Christians (actually, yeah it is). But when Israel kills Palestinian Christians it’s apparently something else entirely.
some guy
Michael Oren is a war criminal who deserves a fair trial before he is hung.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: When is the podcast with the President coming out?
Eric
@Keith G: I prefer Netanyahu Brandy. It’s harsh, bitter and winey.
rikyrah
and then, she did that half-assed non-apology when called on her bullshyt.
Bill Arnold
@some guy:
How is he a war criminal? I don’t see anything in his military service part of his bio that could arguably being called a (actual, not metaphorical) war crime.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Yeah, it was just some lame joke she heard. Right. It’s not her fault that she tweeted it!
Non-apology apologies make me want to slap someone.
Germy Shoemangler
@WaterGirl: Monday, I believe.
Germy Shoemangler
Monday. Here’s a nice photo of the two of them in the garage:
wtfpod.com/dispatches/entries/monday
Debbie
@Germy Shoemangler:
Teri Gross will be interviewing Maron tomorrow, if that’s your cup of tea.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: This is like Between Two Ferns for me – I had no idea what it was until the president did the interview.
I need to get out more.
Cacti
Much like their US counterparts, right wing Israelis dislike the POTUS because he’s an uppity schvartze.
SFAW
@Drunken hausfrau:
I imagine that her husband, being Jewish (sort of), might have a chat with her first.
LAC
@Kyle: Exactly – any time Israel wants to go at it alone without our money, please fucking do.
I imagine ole Krathaummer had an imaginary boner with that hilarious tweet.
some guy
@Bill Arnold:
Lebanon, 1982
Gaza, 2006
Rich Gardner
Yeah, she was just passing on a joke she had seen somewhere. Back in the late 90s, I was stationed in Italy and an American civilian put out a piece by a really bitter American military guy who was really, really pissed off about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. People complained to her about the piece.
She freaked out about all the criticism she was getting and she wrote “I didn’t write the piece, I was just passing it on! People are acting like I completely agreed with it.”
Well, yeah. I learned a valuable lesson on email and passing things on. When you pass on a piece (or today, post a piece on Facebook or on other social media) without comment, that means you agree with it wholeheartedly. If you post something, you should be prepared to defend it as though you thought it up yourself.
The Israeli woman here obviously found the Obama coffee joke hilarious and didn’t think it needed explaining or any sort of qualifier, so she just went ahead and tweeted it without any sort of qualifier.
RSA
@WaterGirl:
Or that all these racists keep telling her lame jokes!
redshirt
LOL it’s not as if there’s a forum dedicated to just this.
Omnes Omnibus
@some guy: The simple fact of his service there or something specific?
Frankensteinbeck
Israel’s issues are remarkably similar to the US’s, with the same growing rift caused by weakening religious fundamentalists desperate to hold onto the considerable advantages they have everyone else, and the same festering racism, but with whole hierarchies of unacceptable ethnicities. Obama has black skin and a Muslim middle name. Over there, and I have seen this in relatives, those traits produce a visceral hate among the right wing just as deranged as over here – maybe moreso.
@Ruckus:
Dead brown people. Do you think I’m kidding? All Republicans and a fair number of Democrats see killing Arabs/Muslims (they don’t know there’s a difference) as a good thing.
redshirt
LOL is this lady for real? I mean, that’s ridiculous.
GregB
We are through the rabbit hole.
One wonders if a synagogue in Tehran is in safer hands than a Christian church in Israel?
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
I was hoping that there might be some, however small, positive thing that I wasn’t seeing. So the answer to my question is absolutely nothing of any value. Unless you enjoy massive negative values.
ETA and enjoy human suffering on a massive scale.
pseudonymous in nc
@beltane:
It’s a modern variant of Jerusalem Syndrome: the belief that whatever Bibi does, the US is obliged to treat as blessed and unquestionable..
fuckwit
@GregB: A synagogue in Tehran is almost certainly safer than a back church in South Carolina.
LanceThruster
Zionist coffee = Unbearably bitter and aggressive, even though taken from another’s cup.
Omnes Omnibus
@LanceThruster: Honestly, the reverse jokes suck too.
VFX Lurker
I am rubber
You are glue…
yodecat
@JPL: Palestinians are definitely Semites. The folk over there are nuts. I think that we, here in the West, otta leave ’em be. They have the ‘right’ to sort things out, there ownselves.
Zinsky
The real threat to lasting peace in the Middle East is Israel. Period. Full stop. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves or not paying attention. Iran hasn’t attacked another country in hundreds of years. Israel, on the other hand, routinely violates its neighbors sovereign borders. If “being weak” means not launching unilateral wars of aggression, I am all for more weakness.
SFAW
@Zinsky:
Possibly true, but not for the reason(s) you’re stating/implying.
LanceThruster
@Omnes Omnibus:
Zionism is fully deserving of mockery. We bankroll these land thieves. The US vetoes the UN declaring Israeli settlements illegal.
“MURDER as COVER for
THEFT and OPPRESSION
is NOT *self-defense*
It’s a war crime.”
Cervantes
@Ruckus:
Some “security cooperation,” considered useful by some.
Lots of negative stuff — almost overwhelming.
LanceThruster
@yodecat:
It is not valid to make victims and their oppressors in a state of parity.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
That particular one I found unobjectionable.
biff diggerence
How is one to respond to shit like this? Judy Mozes would make a pretty lamp shade?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The people who run Israil now are what, the grand childern of the camp survivors?
low-tech cyclist
70 years is apparently enough time to forget why racism is a bad thing, even for the descendants of those who suffered its most horrific consequences.
Paul in KY
@LanceThruster: That’s a better joke than the one she tweeted. Truer, also, too.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Yes, because nothing says “strong leader” like doing everything Israel wants. Seriously, if the way to be tough is to be Israel’s bitch, then I’m glad Obama is such a “wimp”. I’m not anti-Israel, but the President of the U.S. should do what he thinks is in the best interests of the U.S. rather than reflexively do whatever Israel wants, which may or may not be in the best interests of the U.S.
samiam
It all boils down to racial prejudice. That is the root of a lot of the opposition to anything Obama does. That is why Netanyahu went around the white house to deal with the GOP directly and give a talk in front of congress before his re-election. It was a political trick to send a dog whistle to these people.
samiam
It all boils down to racial prejudice. This was why Netanyahu bypassed the whitehouse and dealt with the GOP directly to give a speech in congress just before his re-election. It was a political trick to send a dog whistle to these people.. This is why Netanyahu does a lot of the things that show a resistance to dealing with Obama.
Neldob
And, as has been said (and maybe should be said more) “In the mistreatment of others even victims don’t get a free pass forever.”
CDWard
Israel:
– is an oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist Jewish State;
– has been stealing, occupying and colonizing Palestinian land and
oppressing, torturing and killing Palestinians for over 60 years;
– refuses to honor its obligations under international law;
– refuses to accept responsibility and accountability for its past and on-going (war) crimes; and
– refuses to enter into sincere negotiations for a just and mutually-beneficial peace.
See http://www.ifamericansknew.org and lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/landloss.html for more information.
Pseudonym
I personally wouldn’t necessarily describe the tweet as racist, just tasteless and inappropriate, but as a white guy I’m not the one to judge.