Obama's National Security Adviser General James Jones and the Jewish joke: what was he thinking?

Alex Spillius

General James Jones and the Jewish joke: what was he thinking?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexspillius/100036529/gen-jones-and-the-jewish-joke-what-was-he-thinking/

Barack Obama’s national security adviser General James Jones has apologised for a joke about a Jewish trader and a member of the Taliban which the Anti-Defamation League described as “inappropriate” and reinforcing stereotypes of Jews as mean and greedy.

Jokes are often in the eye of the beholder. Though it drew laughter at the time, some of those present were offended, as the Daily Forward reported. Some bloggers saw it as blatantly prejudiced. Here’s a summary:

A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water. The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban curses the storeowner, his country and his people. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: over the hill there is a restaurant that will sell you all the water you want. An hour later the Taliban is back. He tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”

You can see it here. Why did he do this? Jones knows Israel; he made his comments among many Jewish people at the pro-Israel, Likud-leaning Washington Institute for Near East Policy. There can have been no intention to offend. Perhaps he thought that he was among friends who would tolerate him poking fun at their people. Perhaps he thought the joke was on the Taliban. Perhaps his critics are right and he just didn’t realise he was being anti-Semitic.

Whatever, it was very poor judgment on his part. For a top aide to be so clumsy at a time of high tension between Washington and Jerusalem is alarming.

The golden rule about ethnic jokes is they should only be told by a member of the minority concerned. Gen Jones should stick to jokes about the officer’s mess.