Friday, December 03, 2010

Obamas Celebrate Hanukkah at White House


He celebrates Passover, so why not Hanukkah, too?



Last night, the "first Jewish President" celebrated Hanukkah at the White House. Barack Obama underscored the nationalistic nature of Judaism by addressing opening remarks to Israeli ambassador Michael Oren and the people of Israel.

To cheers from the audience, Obama also noted, "One third of the Supreme Court is here." Of course, with his nomination of Elena Kagan, Obama himself helped ensured that an ethno-religious group comprising less than 2% of the US population would occupy three of the nine slots on the Supreme Court while the largest segment of the US population--Protestant Christians--is wholly unrepresented.

After a few more intros, Obama recited an abbreviated version of the Hanukkah story, neglecting to mention, of course, that the 'Maccabean revolt' that spawned the holiday was as much a religious civil war instigated by violent fanatics as it was a revolt against "the yoke of empire." Today, violent religious fanatics--Jewish and Christian--and their lackeys head an empire that far exceeds the scope of the Seleucid empire. That empire insures the Jewish state's existence and wages wars on its behalf in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

Also left out of the Obama's remarks is any mention of Israel's 2008-09 Hanukkah Massacre that killed 1,400 Palestinians or the millions of living Palestinians "who still suffer under tyranny and oppression". The clip ends with a saxophone performance by Joshua Redman. Too bad the White House didn't invite Gilad Atzmon and his sax, instead.

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