Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke opines on the Israeli prime minister selling out for politics.
By going through with his speech to the U.S. Congress about Iran's nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not just insulting President Barack Obama. He's also dissing generations of African-Americans and Jewish Americans who have always worked together for equality and justice.
For political reasons, Netanyahu went behind Obama's back and struck a deal with John Boehner, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to embarrass our commander in chief.
Bibi might as well have given his speech before the white knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Boehner's invitation has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear program. His only motivation is to make Obama look bad because he can't stand the reality of a black president. Now Netanyahu's actions could hurt decades of cooperation between blacks and Jews in this country.
Since the 1960s, African-Americans and Jewish Americans have stood together fighting for civil rights. Sometimes they paid the price with their lives, like the 1964 Klan murders of James Earl Chaney and Jewish New York City activists Andrew Goodman and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner in Mississippi.
We've continued standing together. When black people took to the streets in New York City to protest the recent deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police officers, Hasidic Jews joined the demonstrations. Netanyahu is now putting that relationship in danger by aligning himself with Boehner, the most arrogant politician on Capitol Hill, whose hatred of Obama is so deep he doesn't care if his actions ruin our country. He's nothing more than a Klansman with an orange tan.
What Netanyahu has done is the equivalent of Obama accepting an invitation from the Palestinian Liberation Front to talk about Republicans destroying the Affordable Healthcare Act. Of course, Obama is nobody's fool.
It's even more insulting that Netanyahu went through with his speech despite numerous polls showing many Americans and Israelis believe he is disrespecting the office of the U.S. president.
Netanyahu's actions are a slap in the face to every black and Jewish person who has fought racism in this country. He should be ashamed of himself.
Tune in to Luke on The Andy Slater Show every Tuesday from 2 to 5 p.m. on Miami's Sports Animal 940 AM.
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