I’ve been with the in-laws in the woods so have missed the most important story in American policy in the Middle East, skinnydipping in the Galilee, the fact that the FBI is interested in a congressional junket to Israel last year during which Kansas congressman Kevin Yoder jumped naked into the sea of Galilee. Yoder has duly apologized.
But Yousf Munayyer has the appropriate response at Politico:
It’s quite telling that the “news angle” here is about a congressman skinny dipping on a trip to Israel and not the bigger far more important and embarrassing problem of Congress’ regular prostitution to the pro-Israel lobby.
The first issue involves nudity and politicians, the second only involves major implications for American foreign policy in a region where we have countless interests, thousands of troops and a history of flawed foreign policy. But hey, sex and scandals drive traffic and ratings so who cares about all that other stuff.
We did a lot of reporting on the American Israel Education Foundation, a branch of AIPAC, last year– showing that good liberal Jewish philanthropists who endowed halls at Princeton and Harvard, and ballets and art museums, were also doing their utmost to corrupt American politicians on Israel policy. They’ve succeeded. The fact that the press can look on a midnight swim as more important than the obeisance of the Congress to the Israel lobby– a “private factfinding tour,” in the narcotized words of the Washington Post— shows the degree to which the entire American establishment has been converted to the Zionist cause. When is the press going to look into these Congressional “birthright” trips and blow the real story out of the water? When are they going to look into birthright, for that matter? Plenty of skinnydipping there.
