The International Institute for Audacity, headed by yours truly, recently announced its “Chutzpah Awards” for 2010.
Palestinian “scholars”: Not only was there no Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but the Western Wall is a Muslim structure, declared Palestinian “scholars.”
And to top it off, Jesus wasn’t Jewish but a Palestinian. In fact, he was the first Palestinian shahid (martyr), according to a religious program on PA TV, the official station of the Palestinian Authority.
As Christians around the world rushed to rewrite their Bibles and Christmas carols, I was reminded of what former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told P.A. leader Yasser Arafat when he made the same incendiary statements: Where do you think Jesus threw out the money lenders, from the mosque?
Racist rabbis in Israel: Hundreds of rabbis in Israel endorsed a fatwah against Jews renting or selling property to Arabs. Maybe those Jewish “ayatollahs” are just old and senile and have forgotten about the notorious Nuremberg laws. Or the laws in some Arab states that make selling property to Jews a capital offense.
Since many of those rabbis are on the public payroll, the government’s failure to fire these men who do more to destroy Israel’s stature than any enemy was tantamount to acquiescence.
Henry Kissinger: Whether or not you bought into his “quiet diplomacy” approach to Soviet Jewry, his belated apology and insistence that his “references to gas chambers” were “taken out of context” are no excuse for his out-of-whack moral compass.
What hasn’t come out on the Nixon tapes — and probably won’t because it was never uttered — was a single word of protest from Kissinger as he sat in the Oval Office listening to a notorious anti-Semite spew his bile against Jews, blacks and others. Kissinger, putting his access to power über alles, never once told Richard Nixon that his bigotry was offensive.
WikiLeaks: The avalanche of classified cables exposed the hypocrisy of Arab leaders who publicly declared Israel the greatest threat to regional stability while privately confiding it was really Iran — and how they’d like the U.S. and Israel to “cut off the head of the snake” (in the words of the Saudi king).
This chutzpah award is shared with WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange, who sanctimoniously glorifies leaking everyone’s secrets, but then has a hissy fit when his own secrets are exposed.
Wingnuts: I’ve selected a quartet of politicians (leaving out many others) who thankfully lost in November’s congressional elections.
First, there was Sharron Angle of Nevada, who opposed abortion even for young teens who were victims of rape or incest, saying they should learn to turn “a lemon
situation into lemonade.” Christine O’Donnell of Delaware admitted that she had once dabbled in witchcraft but took to TV ads to proclaim, “I am not a witch.” She also couldn’t find anything in the Constitution supporting church-state separation (hint: First Amendment).
It was good to see Rich Iott of Ohio lose; his hobby was dressing up in a Nazi SS Waffen uniform. Then there was Joe Miller, the tea party–backed candidate in Alaska who challenged the incumbent’s victory by contending write-in votes that misspelled Murkowski should not be counted. How do you spell sour grapes, Joe?
Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas: This pair of artificial doves are all talk and no walk. If they devoted as much energy to making peace as they do to avoiding it, a settlement might be possible.
Bibi clearly prefers building settlements over negotiating peace. And Abbas is devoting his energy to delegitimizing Israel, which he refuses to recognize as the Jewish homeland, and insists that in his Palestinian state “we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.”
Avigdor Lieberman: How many times does Prime Minister Netanyahu have to announce that his thuggish foreign minister doesn’t speak for the government on foreign policy — or anything else?
In the waning days of 2010, Lieberman called the Turkish prime minister and foreign minister liars and called the Palestinian Authority “an illegitimate government.” Bibi wimped out again, as he did with the racist rabbis, unable or unwilling to fire either one out of fear of offending a radical political interest.
That would take courage and leadership.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is the president of Bloomfield Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C., lobbying and consulting firm. He spent nine years as the legislative director and chief lobbyist for AIPAC.