Shoes, Panic and Other Fantasies

A recurring sensation I have when reading Mondoweiss is that they're living in an alternative universe. The same sun shines on them, even the locales are recognizable, but the people and events are all different. It's an odd sensation.

This morning they've dug up a report that Israelis are insulted that Obama put his feet on his desk. Israelis. Insulted. By imporper dress or behavior codes. Can you imagine?

(I once took a couple highly professional Israeli-born colleagues on a European business trip. First, however, I had to hand them a list of basic no-nos for dressing among civilized people, including no sports-shoes, try to stay near dark-blue and away from yellow and green, no jeans, and yes, at least one tie will be neccessary. One of them coped admirably).

The subtext, I think, is that Israelis are barbarians like the Arabs. True, Mondoweiss has tremendous empathy for Arabs and generally prefers them to, say, Israelis or Americans, but it's not real respect - else why poke fun at Israelis for being like them? It's a primitive and ludicrous thing to get insulted by shoes, unless it's shoes being thrown at Bush, but definately if it's Obama's shoes while talking on the phone to Netanyahu.

The report, by the way, knows to tell that Obama's tallking on the phone to Netanyahu. How this is known is beyond me. It looks to me like he's talking to Rahm Emanuel: look at the way he's got his fingers bunched; you can almost hear him "No, Rahm, you can't stab her, she's the head of Congress".

The rest of the Mondoweiss post confuses the emotions of Netanyahu and 12 aides, with the disposition of the other seven million of us. True, Netanyahu's office seems despondent these days, but the rest of us?

We've been following on the site how Israel seems to be in a state of panic and that Israeli anxiety over the US/Israeli relationship seems to be hitting a boiling point. When Obama finally does go to visit Israel, he might want to watch out for some flying shoes.

As I said, the same sun but a different reality.