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| Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Arieh King (Ha'aretz) |
(Secretary of State Anthony) Blinken, who visited Jerusalem on Sunday ahead of Israel’s Negev Summit, tweeted a condemnation of the terrorist attack in the city of Hadera, saying the U.S. “stands with our Israeli partners and sends our condolences to the families of the victims.”
To this, King retorted in a tweet rife with typos: “Dear Sir. May I ask you as a deputy mayor of Jerusalem, the Jewish holy capital, to leave our city? You are not welcome at all. Your visit to Jerusalem is creating a bad feeling to most of Jerusalem residance. It seem that you intend to creat provocation.Plaese leave our Capital.”
There must be something about ‘tweeting’ that turns your brain into mush!
I get that King is pro settler. I get that he wants Jerusalem to be an entirely Jewish city. I even get why he is doing everything in his power to make that happen. But I do not get insulting the American Secretary of State this way. It doesn’t matter how one feels about the current American policies with respect to Israel and Iran.
I have my issues with some of those polices too. I think for example that it is beyond foolish to remove the crippling sanctions from a terrorist regime for the low, low price of only delaying their development of a nuclear weapon for a few years. Thus immediately clearing the way for them to develop ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. As well as clearing the way for them to spread terrorism all over the world with the money made available to them by that deal so they can do it better and faster.
That is my view, But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be legitimate differences of opinion about that. Blinken is not anti Israel. And neither is his boss, the President. They just have a different view of what is in the best interests of both Israel and the US.
Agree or disagree, one cannot and should not impugn Bliken’s motives. King isn’t just insulting some disinterested American official who just parrots the Democratic party line on Israel. He is insulting a Jew that was deeply affected by the experiences of his Holocaust survivor grandparents. He has made references to that many times. It helped shape his worldview.
King ought to know better. And I am disappointed. But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by someone that has in the past behaved pretty badly:
King …is best known for settling Jews in East Jerusalem and evicting Palestinian families from the city's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, was appointed deputy mayor in 2020, and is no stranger to controversy.
In 2018, he pushed to shut down a Palestinian owned bread-stand in the Old City, calling it a step in “the Judaization of Jerusalem.”
In 2020, King was caught on tape dragging an anti-Netanyahu protester on the ground, hailing “law and order” for assisting police in detaining him.
Last year, King was sued over threatening comments he made during a Sheikh Jarrah protest, in which he screamed at a Palestinian activist who had previously suffered from a gunshot wound: “How is your (expletive deleted)? The bullet is still there.”
Bottom line is that no matter how much he disagreed with US policy on the issues he cares deeply about, he gained nothing by insulting an American Secretary of State who is a good man. At the very least, he ought to apologize. But he probably won't.
I therefore believe that King’s insulting remarks should be the tipping point in a series of terrible deeds that disqualifies him from political office.