Joe Biden’s sycophants in the Hebrew media
That Oded Ben-Ami and Yonit Levi are able to take time out of their frenetic schedules to hail the U.S. president as a high-functioning Zionist hero is as politically transparent as it is embarrassing.
JNS
Aug 7, 2024
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The eponymous host of Israeli Channel 12’s “Six O’clock with Oded Ben-Ami” opened his show on Monday evening with a tribute, in Hebrew, to the leader of the free world.
“President Biden,” he began, “allow me to address you personally, precisely during this delicate and sensitive time in the boiling Middle East.”
He went on fawningly, “Allow me to tell you that very many of us here appreciate you, your courageous friendship, the genuine Zionism you exhibit, the strong and stable backing that you provide the State of Israel against the evil threat of Iran and its proxies.”
Exuding the kind of empathy that nobody in Biden’s own party possesses, he stressed, “Don’t be offended by those who call you a ‘lame duck’—you’re absolutely not that.”
No, he went on, “You are the president of the United States until mid-January of next year, with all that it entails.”
And then came Ben-Ami’s cringe-inducing conclusion.
“Many Israelis know very well how much you invested in Israel’s security—and still invest in it. How much you supported and still support us. How much you knew to embrace us during our darkest hours. How much you consoled the stunned families of the hostages. How you played in the Oval Office of the White House with the little children who returned from captivity. And these many Israelis appreciate and want to thank you for it from the bottom of their hearts. President Biden, well done. Thank you very much.”
To guarantee that no viewers missed this little editorial that would have made even First Lady Dr. Jill Biden smirk, Ben-Ami’s colleague, anchor Yonit Levi, posted the segment on X with English subtitles. She, too, makes no bones about being a fan of the current administration in Washington. And that’s putting it mildly, though she was absolutely smitten with former U.S. President Barack Obama.
Nevertheless, the veteran broadcaster recently won the “Robert St. John Chair in Objective Middle East Reporting Award” at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
“Quality journalism is the hallmark of a robust democracy, so it is our privilege to award Yonit for her professionalism and initiative over the past 20 years and especially the last couple of years, which have been especially challenging,” explained BGU president Daniel Chamovitz at the ceremony.
In its press release about the prize, BGU noted that “since Oct. 7, she has become the face of Israeli news as she tackles the difficult reality professionally, with wisdom and sensitivity—the same values that are reflected in her weekly podcast with respected British journalist Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian: ‘UNHOLY: Two Jews on the News.’”
In other, less-euphemistic but more appropriate words: two left-wing peas in a progressive pod.
In fairness to Levi, she never hides her slant. But that’s likely due to life in an elitist bubble oblivious to its own biases.
The same applies to Ben-Ami, who was so distraught at the results of the Nov. 1, 2022 Knesset elections that two weeks after the current government was instated, he ended his nightly monologue by moaning, “I can’t believe what we will become.” Apparently, he fancies himself clairvoyant as well as objective.
But the above is nothing compared to the elation Levi radiated when Obama won the 2008 election. She gushed breathlessly, unable to contain her thrill at his victory. Imagine her delight, then, when she snagged an interview with him in 2010 and again in 2013.
Channel 12 anchor Yonit Levi is pictured in 2013 during a gushy interview with U.S. President Barack Obama
During the former, she acted like a P.R. person in his employ. In the latter, she cooed through a list of sympathetic questions and didn’t challenge any of his platitudes about peace, Iran’s nuclear program or anything else.
Fast forward to Levi’s July 2022 interview at the White House with Biden, during which he reiterated his administration’s desire to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran from which his predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrew in 2018.
“The only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said during the tete-a-tete that was taped on the eve of his trip to the Middle East and broadcast in Israel after his arrival in the country. “And if we can return to the deal and hold them tight…. ”
He never finished that sentence. Instead, he proceeded to criticize Trump, without mentioning him by name, for having ditched the JCPOA.
It was boilerplate stuff, until Levi asked him whether his assertion that he will do everything to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons includes the use of force. He replied: “If that was the last resort, yes.”
It’s amusing that the remark made global headlines, since Biden didn’t define “last resort” or specify a deadline. Well, that was two years ago, and the Middle East since then has gone up in literal and figurative flames—with even Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warning last month that Tehran is now able to produce the necessary fissile material for an atomic bomb in “one or two weeks.”
As Israelis sit and wait for an imminent missile-and-drone attack from the Islamic Republic and its various proxies, Levi and Ben-Ami are too busy blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to focus on the real culprits. That they’re able to take time out of their frenetic schedules to hail Biden as a Zionist hero—and a high-functioning one, at that—is as politically transparent as it is embarrassing.
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