The New Republic

Jeffrey Goldberg, who thinks the joke "actually kind of funny" has the video: -- http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/04/gen-jones-makes-a-jewish-joke/39502/ Goldberg follows up with a post about Abe Foxman making a fool of himself (as usual): -- This story represents yet another proof that Washington is a city completely devoid of humor; also, that the Anti-Defamation League should pick its fights more carefully. The news in the speech is that the Obama Administration is trying to repair the perception that it is distancing itself from Israel. That is the important thing. Gen. Jones was obviously so comfortable among Jews, and so comfortable with his pro-Israel message, that he decided to tell a classic Jewish joke, one, by the way, that isn't actually about Jewish greed, but about a sub-type of Jewish seykhel that had as its victim a member of the Taliban, to boot! http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/04/the-adl-gets-gen-jones-to-apologize-for-telling-a-funny-joke/39508/

- ndmackenzie

April 26, 2010 at 11:34pm

I'm not sure of this, but I think the joke is about the Taliban, who isn't able to think beyond his prejudiced and paranoid response to the Jewish trader.

- ironyroad

April 26, 2010 at 11:46pm

The transcript of this "joke" that I found at: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/26/jones_under_fire_for_jewish_joke is different from Marty's version, allegedly prefaced by: "In order to set the stage for my remarks I'd just like to tell you a story that I think is true." Setting aside the age-old stereotype (yes, antisemitism), I lost all confidence in learning the NSA has absolutely no idea that there is not a single Jew within, what, 200 miles of Southern Afghanistan? Except for U.S./NATO personnel? One can dissect the concept of out-of-context humor. Example: The recent New Yorker cartoon of mama bear and baby bear salmon fishing. Caption: Baby bear "I want a a bagel". One can insert other ethnicities. Chinese, Lebanese, Armenians, Turks, and Arabs come to mind as similar "trickster merchant" stereotypes. No matter. I want a National Security Advisor who at minimum has a clue about the absence of indigenous Jews from almost every majority Islamic country in the World, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was bad enough to learn that Obama finally read Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars" AFTER the election, three years after it was in paperback. And the West Wing speechwriting staff needs to be locked in a room and forced to watch re-runs of The West Wing until they can channel Toby Ziegler in their sleep. Some of the internet chatter about this seems to think the joke was funny, but inappropriate only because Jones is not Jewish. No. It is not funny, just an old, tired iteration of one strain of antisemitism. And, no Jew should want to "do diplomacy" with Jim Jones, who is still rumoured to be nearing an exit. I cannot even imagine what his speech was about that needed a joke with this structure as an introduction. Maybe Ehud Barak gave Jim Jones a few pointers during their meeting today. On the other hand, after I came across this story, I was inspired to cook dinner. Chicken.

- K2K

April 26, 2010 at 11:51pm

K2K: "Some of the internet chatter about this seems to think the joke was funny, but inappropriate only because Jones is not Jewish." I like to think of myself as "internet chatter" because I have such a problem with the burden of individuality, but to clarify, I think the joke was (a) funny and (b) appropriate -- for the reasons advanced above. In general, jokes are a better guide to truth than evasive political verbiage.

- ironyroad

April 26, 2010 at 11:56pm

I knew that muck-kenzie would quote Goldberg's view of the Jones' "joke." (On other occasions she accused Goldberg of being a "zionazi" whom he opposed to Andrew Sullivan, who is now a good guy, in Muckenzie's eyes, since Sullivan decided to join the Walt & Mersheimer crowd.) Whether the joke was funny or not will not be proven by any one poster’s opinion or blogger. The ADL was right to ask for an apology. Imagine the General telling a joke about Muslims or any other group. For those who will protest saying that the joke was about Muslims too, they should note that the Muslim mentioned were Taliban a group with which we are at war, while the Jews in the joke are generic: it is “the Jew.”

- jdyer

April 27, 2010 at 12:06am

irony: To insult a Pashtun is to instigate a blood feud. Also, not a good way to encourage the Taliban to reconcile with the Afghan government by making them look prejudiced and stupid??? perhaps a joke about a drone missile with a mind of it's own would have been funnier? Jackson is correct: it is "the generic Jew". I add, the Jew as trickster-merchant, which has it's roots in medieval, Catholic, Europe. and runs very deep in parts of America.

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 12:25am

Let's all just lie (or cower in fear)!

- ironyroad

April 27, 2010 at 12:34am

#1. I do not think this is funny. #2. I did not vote for Pat Buchanan. #3. I am starting to see a pattern here. #4. This is making me nervous.

- Sophia

April 27, 2010 at 12:55am

I once posted this joke in a discussion on Charlie Rose message boards. It had a different location then. It was a terrorist wondering across Iraq on his way to commit some terror attack on an Infidel target. And the setting is a lot more surreal, since all of a sudden in the desert, he encounters this little Jew selling ties from a stall. And the Jew tries to convince him to buy the tie but the terrorist refuses to listen. After I posted it (I thought it was very funny) one of the posters, a person in inclination and style not unlike ndmackenzie here, interpreted it, much to my surprise, as a joke that illustrates the callousness and cruelty of Jews. Here is a man, dying of thirst, and water is withheld from him, by a JEW! What do you know! I don't think Jim Jones is indictable on this joke. It is very funny and it is something that would make Jews usually laugh. It subverts the prejudice in a clever sort of way. The terrorist who could not see beyond his own stupidity and hatred missing out on a chance to get water, even as he is dying of thirst.

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 7:09am

wandering

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 7:09am

"Why would the Jews do diplomacy with him?" I think the joke was well intentioned and should not have been made into an excuse to pillory him. There are good reasons to criticize Jones but this was not one of them. It gets to be like Jews are taking lessons from the Muslims who we all know cannot bear to hear any joke or look at any cartoon about themselves. I'm reminded of the ruckus that followed the Seinfeld episode about the gossiping rabbi. http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/23966/everyone-likes-a-good-laugh-but-seinfeld-s-blabbin-rabbi-crosses-a-line/

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 7:24am

Someone traced the origin of the joke: http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/04/so-this-national-security-advisor-walks/index.shtml#comment-56594

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 7:29am

in Britain, the etymology is that of the clueless American and the trickster Bedouin. here is the Jones joke, verbatim (WashPo and FP are consistent): "I'd just like to tell you a story that I think is true. It happened recently in southern Afghanistan. A member of the Taliban was separated from his fighting party and wandered around for a few days in the desert, lost, out of food, no water. And he looked on the horizon and he saw what looked like a little shack and he walked towards that shack. And as he got to it, it turned out it was a little store owned by a Jewish merchant. And the Taliban warrior went up to him and said, 'I need water. Give me some water.' And the merchant said, 'I'm sorry, I don't have any water, but would you like a tie? We have a nice sale of ties today.' "Whereupon the Taliban erupted into a stream of language that I can't repeat, but about Israel, about Jewish people, about the man himself, about his family, and just said, 'I need water, you try to sell me ties, you people don't get it.' "And impassively the merchant stood there until the Taliban was through with his diatribe and said, 'Well I'm sorry that I don't have water for you and I forgive you for all of the insults you've levied against me, my family, my country. But I will help you out. If you go over that hill and walk about two miles, there is a restaurant there and they have all the water you need.' And the Taliban, instead of saying thanks, still muttering under his breath, disappears over the hill, only to come back an hour later. And walking up to the merchant says, 'Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.' " Humor does not travel well, and the Afghan Pashtuns and Taliban are highly insulted in this joke. Also, No Pashtun would deny water to any lost traveller as it would violate the Pashtunwali Honor Code. Jones' version also inserts the idea that the Taliban are really angry with Israel and Jews, when the reality is the Taliban think they are fighting Crusader-occupiers from America and NATO. I imagine the speechwriter intended to make the slow-witted, quick to anger Taliban stereotype the foil in this joke. I just hope the Taliban are not watching YouTube. They are probably still steamed over "The Kite Runner" (which I loved, but the Taliban did not) and the newest version casts the Mexican illegal immigrant with the trickster trigger-happy militia?

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 7:44am

Oh dear are we heading into a humourless existence now that every ethnic group is encouraged to feel insulted by whatever? Jews should not be at the forefront or the rearguard of such a trend. Let's tell jokes about each other. Here is a joke I once read from Edward Said: During the first intifada a pregnant woman in labour reaches the Israeli checkpoint. It is too late to get to the hospital and the soldiers call the medic to help with the delivery. The first baby pops out, and the first thing he sees are soldiers in IDF uniform. He turns back and calls to his twin brother: Ahmed, get some rocks.. I believe I read this joke in Salman Rushdie's book "Imaginary Homelands" in a conversation he recorded with Said about Palestinian authenticity.

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 8:06am

The most inappropriate thing here is that Jones opened a serious policy address with a joke at all. Attention, all public speakers: if you want to open on a light note, tell a true anecdote, preferably a self-effacing one. But more disappointing than Jones's poor judgment in opening with this joke is that Marty is falling for the rightwing hackocracy's attack on Jones. For one thing, Marty presents a distorted paraphrase as a direct quotation of Jones. This is journalistically unconscionable, even if the deception is unintentional, as one must assume it to be. But more importantly, it reflects a failure to comprehend the joke. In Jones's telling, this is not about a "greedy Jew;" the Jewish shopkeeper would offer the Taliban, his enemy, water if he had it. Rather, the Talib's intolerance is turned against him. The Talib is made out to be a fool. The Taliban, not Jews, are the butt of the joke. The story Jones's joke tells is of a decent Jew who gets the better of - defeats - an intolerant Talib. Perhaps Marty needs to be reminded that the Taliban are our enemies in an actual shooting war. Let's maybe not all have a cow when a government official tells a joke that casts our wartime enemy as an intolerant buffoon. Even when it's a tired old joke told poorly. And meanwhile, not a peep from Marty or any of his allies in the quest to invent anti-Semitic cabals in the White House about the content of Jones's speech. For example, Jones said, and said he was speaking for the president when he did so, that "The United States is determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons." And he spoke at length about the U.S. commitment to Israel and Israeli security. "A special relationship" that "will not change" based on "national commitment," forming "strong" and "unbreakable" bonds. Israel's "adversaries are wrong." "America's commitment to Israel will endure," there is "no space" between the United States and Israel, and the American commitment to Israeli security is "unshakable" and "will never waiver." "Israel must be secure," Jones said, and went on to describe the ways in which U.S. relations with Israel makes America more secure. Marty was quick to accuse the Obama administration of an anti-Semitic conspiracy when the president failed to praise Israel for Haitian rescue work that Israel had not yet started when the president spoke. He is quick to insinuate anti-Semitism for a joke told at the expense of an intolerant Muslim for which the speaker had already apologized before Marty wrote. Yet he is unwilling to address in any way the substantive reiteration of U.S. commitment to Israel in terms as strong as any uttered by any administration since 1948. Why does Marty never engage directly on policy, rather than personality? Does TNR really need a bargain-basement Maureen Dowd?

- rhubarbs

April 27, 2010 at 8:10am

"Jones said, and said he was speaking for the president when he did so, that "The United States is determined to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons." I like the way "Simply Jews" would respond to this assertion. It's the third time I'm posting it: http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2010/04/robert-gates-us-lacks-strategy-on-iran.html

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 8:24am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjC8zpG6WKQ

- noga1

April 27, 2010 at 8:35am

First, ethic and/or racial jokes are just dumb and people who tell them, especially in public, are acting pretty stupid. I have worked with several retired military and this bad habit apparently seems to be a part of military culture. I find it inappropriate and stupid when these guys did it and the same with this Jones. Still, it is pretty indicative that given the rest of the speech, this is what peretz focuses on. I think marty missed his calling: he would have made a great gossip columnist.

- MrCookie1

April 27, 2010 at 9:42am

rhubarbs “But more disappointing than Jones's poor judgment in opening with this joke is that Marty is falling for the rightwing hackocracy's attack on Jones.” Marty didn’t fall for other people’s views. His was a spontaneous response. This is something a hack like rhubarb who never met and antisemitic joke he couldn’t excuse wouldn’t understand. It’s telling that the same people who always attack Marty’s pro Israel stance are defending this inappropriate joke.

- jdyer

April 27, 2010 at 9:48am

I am with Irony and noga on this, the shopkeeper got his perfect revenge, though personally I would have changed used food instead of water and left out the ethnicity of the shopkeeper. Here is a joke from Solomania that Sophia linked to: STAR OF DAVID...... Two beggars are sitting on a park bench in Mexico City. One is holding a cross and one a Star of David. Both are holding hats to collect contributions. People walk by, lift their noses at the man with the Star of David and drop money in the hat held by the man with the cross. Soon the hat of the man with the cross is filled and the hat of the man with the Star of David is empty. A priest watches & then approaches the men. He turns to the man with the star of David and says: "Young man. Don't you realize that this is a Catholic country? You'll never get any contributions in this country holding a Star of David." The man with the Star of David turns to the man with the cross and says: "Moishe, can you imagine, this guy is trying to tell us how to run our business!" I don't think this joke makes fun of Jewish people, it makes fun of Catholic prejudice. And as a Catholic I am not remotely offended by it. The beggars used the prejudice of the Catholics against them since it is also most likely true if they both had crosses they would have gotten no money either.

- blackton

April 27, 2010 at 10:44am

And I agree with Cookie, unless you are a professional comedienne, stay away from the ethnic jokes, it is just easier to make fun of New Jersey, no one would mind.

- blackton

April 27, 2010 at 10:49am

But JD, Marty's "spontaneous" response came only after the joke became the rage of the rightwing victim industry. Note that Marty links to a Haaretz reposting of a piece from Forward five days after the speech. And the fact that Marty quotes a paraphrased distortion of the joke as if those are the words Jones spoke tells us that Marty has not seen or heard what Jones actually said. There's nothing "spontaneous" here; Marty is recycling someone else's outrage, and he's doing it at a lazy third-hand remove almost a week late. I'm sure Marty's anger is authentic, but it's not original, and therefore not interesting. As to "excusing" the "antisemitic joke," I did say that telling it was "inappropriate." But look at the setting and occasion: Jones obviously did not intend to insult or denigrate Jews. If the joke is anti-Semitic, and given that it's a joke about a helpful Jew defeating an intolerant enemy, I don't believe that it is, it was told innocently of any anti-Semitic intent. When we accuse people of bigotry they do not intend, we make it easier for those who do intend bigotry to get away with it. This is why I try to cut a lot of slack when people make racially tinged jokes about President Obama. If you want to say that it was a stupid or inappropriate thing to say, I'll agree. But to imply or overtly charge anti-Semitism only provides cover for actual anti-Semites. In a world where the president of Iran hosts conferences on eliminating Zionism and threatens to erase Israel from the map, an American official prefacing an extended defense of Israeli security as a core American interest with a joke about a Jew outwitting a Muslim extremist just doesn't rate.

- rhubarbs

April 27, 2010 at 10:56am

yes, rhubarbs: "The Taliban, not Jews, are the [real] butt of the joke." add the Mr Cookie version,where Hamid Karzai is using the joke in front of a Chinese trade delegation to Afghanistan, but it is a lost, thirsty Marine being denied water, tricked by a Chinese merchant. In the Marine version, as in a Pashtun version, any trickster merchant would be dead. Karzai would never think to use any such anecdote.

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 10:58am

another reason why making the Taliban the butt of the joke is hazardous to the U.S. is that, while the U.S tries to broker Israel/Palestine proximity talks, the far more critical issue of U.S/Taliban talks is being brokered by "...Karzai's representatives, however, have spent the past 12 months holding talks about talks with senior Taliban representatives in several Arab Gulf states. Taliban leaders have made clear that they want to talk directly to the United States, and Karzai knows his discussions with the Taliban cannot go further without public U.S. support and a commitment to engage. The Afghans want a clear answer from Washington that they will lead any future negotiations. The Obama Cabinet is set to discuss this issue, but it has been divided, including over how American voters would react to talks with the Taliban. ..." more, including Pakistan's paranoia about India's influence in a post-NATO Afghanistan from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/26/AR2010042603020.html no mention of Holbrooke's recent attempts to disrupt intra-Afghan dialog with the Taliban...

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 11:21am

Wait a second. This business about "the right wing victim industry" has absolutely nothing to do with my reaction to this joke and I doubt it has anything to do with Marty Peretz' either, although I do appreciate the commentary above regarding Jones' actual message once he stopped trying to impersonate a comedian. No - what bothers me about the joke is the sense that some people within the Obama administration itself might be tone-deaf to elements of antisemitism, for example the "dual loyalty" comment about Dennis Ross, combined with the posturing against Israel, insensitivity about Jerusalem, the "blood and treasure" comment, blaming Israel for all the stress in the M.E., the supposed danger to our soldiers, etc. as well as linking Israel's existence solely to the Shoah in Cairo. I really didn't think this was who and what I voted for. I'm kind of disappointed actually (also about the environment but that's another story.) Anyway, it also doesn't have anything to do with Jews lacking a sense of humor, guys. It's more a matter on my part of having been tracking the increasing degree and respectability of antisemitic tropes for several years now, and it worries me - especially when it comes from the Left or is presented on the left wing blogosphere. This is overlapping with the demonization of Israel - certain American campuses are hostile to an alarming degree now and some proPalestinian and peace movements have overtly antisemitic elements. The latter (Cindy Sheehan for example) kept me from attending rallies although I was opposed to the Iraq war. There's just been so much the last few years if you've been paying attention - since 9/11 anti-Jewish bigotry seems to me to have increased enormously or at any rate has become more and more open. And the hostile old European attitudes aren't helping matters. If you read the British press and commentary thereon and also study some British politicians and what they say and who they support it's really worrisome and that stuff comes over here via the 'net. As long as it's *just* idiots on the 'net that's one thing but it's starting to be open and "respectable" apparently at the highest levels, as it used to be in Europe - and in some cases still is - Am I wrong?

- Sophia

April 27, 2010 at 1:58pm

Sophia, your observations and reactions are very similar to mine past few years. In the interest of fairness, here is the official WH transcript of Jim Jones speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, without the introductory joke. Having read Caroline Glick's withering analysis, and then reading what Jones said, I wish what he actually said had gotten the news coverage. I assume this transcript is also available at whitehouse.gov, which is where this website found it: http://www.favstocks.com/remarks-by-national-security-advisor-james-l-jones-at-the-washington-institute-for-near-east-policy/219504/ still think it is the wrong priority for Obama to press Israel so hard on proximity talks without a legitimately elected Palestinian at the table, and while Karzai blows in the wind because the U.S. refuses to talk directly to the Taliban. Americans are getting killed in Afghanistan.

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 2:36pm

rhubarbs "But JD, Marty's "spontaneous" response came only after the joke became the rage of the rightwing victim industry." But you don't know when he first heard and how he reacted when he heard it. I heard it fairly recently and thought it in poor taste and only later did I read other people's reaction. It's always hard to predict how a joke will play. At some other time and from someone else I might have found the joke funny, but on this occasion I wasn't laughing. The place, the time, the person who delivered the joke, made the joke un-funny.

- jdyer

April 27, 2010 at 3:46pm

malahat: "Glick's op-ed, which is indeed withering" Hm. As the op-ed includes this gem: "Whereas Obama’s decision to ram the nationalization of the US healthcare industry through Congress against the wishes of the American public . . ." I'd suggest that "blathering" is a more accurate term than "withering." It's also very revealing about Glick's attitude toward the passing of legislation via a majority in both houses of Congress -- apparently that's wrong, if Democrats do it.

- ironyroad

April 27, 2010 at 3:55pm

Further on this joke/humor business. I was once looking at something I don't recall exactly anymore (a musuem exhibit maybe, or just a history book) and I saw an anti-semitic cartoon from the Weimar or Nazi era which showed a middle-aged guy, clearly distraught, running up to a calmer-looking guy in a department store. It was subtle, as the second guy didn't look like the stereotypical Jew of crude propaganda. The dialogue under the cartoon went as follows: Man: "With your infernal business methods you have driven me into complete ruin! All I can do now is shoot myself!" Store owner: "Firearms department is on the seventh floor, sir!" I thought this was funny, and that troubled me somewhat, as clearly the cartoon is not set up to showcase the store-owner's smart one-liner. I tried to work out why (my covert anti-semitism finally coming out, or what?). Eventually it dawned on me that the joke was funny because in fact there's a sort of invisible joke, or shadow-joke, stalking the ostensible joke. That shadow-joke is that the German businessman, who presumably was too dull-witted to see the department store coming, blames the Jewish department-store owner for the loss of his business. That is, instead of taking responsibility himself, he irrationally blames the Jew for having a better business model -- thus revealing at one stroke the resentful stupidity behind German antisemitism. There is something beautifully ironic in the fact that the originator of the cartoon didn't even see the counter-movement of the "anti-joke" buried in his own creation. Now that's funny.

- ironyroad

April 27, 2010 at 4:16pm

malahat, I can't remember -- it was quite a few years ago. Funny you should mention that, however, as I lived in Berlin for several years. The two big dept store chains today were/are Hertie and Karstadt. To the best of my knowledge, both of these (certainly Karstadt) were started up in the 1920s and owned by Jews, who were then, after 1933, forced by the Nazi government to sell the businesses. I believe that some compensation was paid out after the war, but the chain of stores was not returned to its previous owners. In any case, there was something of a folk memory in Berlin about the Jewish origins of the big dept stores.

- ironyroad

April 27, 2010 at 4:33pm

Think how much more pleasant a world this would be if as great a portion of the Muslim population told jokes about themselves as Jews, and if they told as many jokes about themselves as Jews do. Maybe General Jones could make an appearance as an honorary altecocker on the iTune podcast Old Jews Telling Jokes, made up, say, as Myron Cohen. Maybe then Foxman could say "Dayenu" and leave to rest in peace. Did any of the people who did not like the joke grow up in the city and go to a large public high school?

- Stuart Wilder

April 27, 2010 at 4:47pm

malahat: Glick is coming to her hometown, Chicago, in September, to 'wither' Obama on his home turf. I read her on her homepage. You (all of you?) might find this dot-connecting of interest "Netanyahu plays a complex game" http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LD28Ak02.html irony: German Jews invented the department store in New York, cannot remember if the idea was then transplanted back to Germany. 1979 "The Grand Emporiums" by Hendrickson. OMG, my first edition is worth $100 at amazon! Stuart: the Taliban has less of a sense of humour than most Moslems :) I did not think it was funny because it was offensive to Pashtuns, and the Taliban. Where I grew up, the Catholic kids called us Christ-killers (1950-60's), but I am less prickly than most because the 'innocent' antisemitism never stopped, even when I moved to New York City as an adult. I have become appalled since the mid-90's at the effect of Farrakhan's radio show on infecting a generation of his listeners, and the stereotypes reinforced by some professors on some college campuses (based on a the classrooms I have been in).

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 5:24pm

malahat: most welcome! In 2008, I thought ATimes was bogus, but it is now my favorite read for Central, South Asia which is what I mostly study. such detail. Western coverage is so frustrating.

- K2K

April 27, 2010 at 6:18pm

"That shadow-joke is that the German businessman, who presumably was too dull-witted to see the department store coming, blames the Jewish department-store owner for the loss of his business." That's roughly the plot of "You've got mail" whose screenplay was written, most suitably, by Nora Ephron.

- noga1

April 28, 2010 at 9:57am

I didn't see that one, but I just checked out the synopsis on IMDB. Fox Books!!? Along with 400,000,000 other people on the planet, I did go "awww!" at "Sleepless in Seattle."

- ironyroad

April 28, 2010 at 11:12am