Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Although the Daily Show generally offers a pretty good critique of US politics from within the liberal consensus, it is not better than the rest of the mainstream media when it comes tot he stereotyping of non-Americans, especially Arabs. For this reason, this unprecedented swipe at the Israel lobby signals a major shift in the US political discourse, part of what Philip Weiss calls the Mearsheimer & Walt-effect (see below). On the other hand the establishment ‘Left’ is still providing cover to the Israel lobby. Democracy Now! still managed to turn a blind eye to an event of such import as the annual AIPAC conference.

Jon Stewart Calls AIPAC ‘Elders of Zion’

This is pretty interesting. Jon Stewart took on AIPAC last night, and the shameless pandering of the presidential candidates, in a 5 minute sketch. This would never be happening but for Walt and Mearsheimer. The secret’s out. Now everyone can make fun of the Israel lobby. Stewart calls them the “elders of Zion.” Anyone else says that it’s antisemitic. Or is it? The problem with the term “elders of Zion” is that it truly does describe AIPAC. They’re old, and they’re Zionist. Money quote in the sketch is when Stewart airs clips of each candidate saying something critical of Israel. Silence each time. “You can’t say anything remotely critical of Israel and still get elected president,” he says. Which is funny, he adds, because in Israel they have lots of criticism of Israel.

You’re gonna have to wait for my piece in The American Conservative to get my full take (hey, they’re paying me), but Stewart’s jibes, along with Dana Milbank’s, demonstrate that it’s coming to an end for AIPAC. It’s a decadent organization. The continual insistence by politician after politician that they love Israel is so shallow that it raises the question of when they’re all going to feel safe enough to turn on AIPAC, and maybe Israel too.

MuzzleWatch has the following update:

DID THE DAILY SHOW SELF CENSOR?

We’ve been getting emails from people who said the links to the infamous Indecision 5678 segment are now dead. The direct link we have above still works fine. But it’s also true that if you don’t happen to have the direct link, it’s now impossible to find using various search mechanisms on The Daily Show website. In fact, all video segments going back to May 28 are no longer searchable on the timeline. The segment doesn’t show up in direct search, or using tags either. The entire June 5 episode is available, however, on the front page. But you’d have to know it was there to find it. It’s the Adam Sandler episode.

Accidental or deliberate? You decide.

One thing is certain, with 251,884 viewers, Indecision 5678 has proved to be one of The Daily Show’s most popular segments ever.