Most Antisemitic Jokes are Compliments
I agree with blogger Sammy Benoit at YID with LID that National Security Adviser General James Jones is not a friend of the Jewish State. However I do not think the Jewish joke he told during the intro to his speech at a Washington Institute For Near East Policy was antisemitic.
A shortened version of the joke goes like this:
I'd like to begin with a story that I think is true, 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 begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”
I see nothing wrong with the joke, in fact, the joke actually puts forward the notion that Jews are clever and industrious: even in the middle of the desert they have set up a number of cooperating businesses.
Is that such a bad stereotype - that we're smart business people? It's not the Jew who is being made fun of - it's the idiot Taliban.
Here's the video of Jones' delivery of the joke:
To fellow Jews I say, "Lighten up - let's not turn into Muslims where everything is offensive."
Think back on all those jokes about Jewish lawyers, Jewish Doctors, Jewish businessmen - aren't they all, in the end, grudgingly touting Jewish brains, Jewish financial savvy, Jewish success? When was the last time you heard a joke that was complimentary about Blacks or Muslims?
Some bloggers have written that the joke above is only funny when told by a Jew. I disagree. When a person makes a joke about Polacks or Irish or Blacks, it is Polacks or Irish or Blacks who are the butt of the joke. When a non-Jew makes jokes about Jews, it is the non-Jew who is the butt of the joke. It is the non-Jew who is secretly envying the fact that Jews are rich or smart or clever.
As I wrote in my article THE JEWS BEHIND DA VINCI CODE: "If you want to know about famous Jewish inventors, scientists, engineers and geniuses, then David Duke's Website has perhaps the best source and background material that you can find on the genius and the pervasiveness of the fantastic achievements of the Jewish people."
