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patrick martin

On the surface it appears to be just another cock-up by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His appointment last week of Ran Baratz as his spokesman and information chief – the man who will direct the public-relations messages sent out by Israel to the world – certainly was difficult for most Israelis to understand.

Press reports in the past few days have described Mr. Baratz as a former university lecturer who posted social-media comments earlier this year describing U.S. President Barack Obama as anti-Semitic, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as having the mind of a child.

But that does not do Mr. Baratz justice. It was far worse than that.

Here's what he said in March about remarks made by Mr. Obama regarding Iran's nuclear program:

"Allow me to diverge from my usual moderate ways and be a bit blunt," Mr. Baratz wrote on his Facebook page. "Obama's response … is what modern anti-Semitism looks like in Western liberal countries. And it is of course accompanied by a lot of tolerance and understanding for Islamic anti-Semitism; so much tolerance and understanding that they'll even give them [an atomic bomb]."

His "usual moderate ways?" Here's what Mr. Baratz wrote previously about Mr. Kerry.

"After his term as Secretary of State, Kerry can look forward to a flourishing career in one of the comedy clubs in Kansas City [where a gunman shot and killed three people at Jewish sites in April, 2014]."

Mr. Baratz also wrote: "This is the time … to wish the Secretary of State success and count down two years on the calendar with the hope that someone in the State Department will then wake up and begin to see the world through the eyes of a man with a mental age above 12."

He didn't stop at lampooning U.S. officials. Perhaps most upsetting for Israelis was his venomous attack on Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who has impressed most Israelis in his first year in office with his efforts at inclusiveness.

Last week, Mr. Baratz mocked the Israeli President for flying back to Israel from the Czech Republic in economy class. "I think it says a lot that the President flies in economy class, goes around the plane and shakes hands with everyone," Mr. Baratz wrote. "In particular it says that he's such a marginal figure that there's no concern for his life."

Going on to attack Mr. Rivlin for his efforts to reach out to Israel's Arab population, Mr. Baratz suggested that the President be sent over the Syrian border on a paraglider, a journey made by an Arab Israeli recently in an effort to join the Islamic State group.

"A day later [Islamic State] would return him with the desire to open negotiations to return immediately to Iraq," Mr. Baratz wrote in his snarky fashion.

Mr. Netanyahu said he hadn't been aware of such comments being made prior to appointing this man – though the public made them known within hours of his appointment last week.

"I have just read Dr. Ran Baratz's posts on the Internet, including those relating to the President of the State of Israel, the President of the United States and other public figures in Israel and the United States," Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. "Those posts are totally unacceptable and in no way reflect my positions or the policies of the government of Israel. Dr. Baratz has apologized and has asked to meet me to clarify the matter following my return to Israel."

Most Israelis can't understand why he just doesn't fire him.

The remarkable thing about this inexplicable appointment is its timing – just before an important meeting in Washington with the very president his new spokesman has disparaged.

It's not unlike another recent slip by Mr. Netanyahu when he told the World Zionist Congress that it was a Palestinian leader in the 1940s, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who had suggested the genocide of the Jews to Adolf Hitler. Mr. Netanyahu made this unfounded accusation on the eve of an official visit to Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel had to correct him in public. Mr. Netanyahu would later withdraw his remarks.

Are these lapses with reality the result of inadequate research? Or is the Israeli leader trying to prove something, perhaps leave the seeds of some vile accusation to grow in the minds of his followers – that Mr. Obama really is an anti-Semite; that the Palestinians really are to blame for the Holocaust?

The Prime Minister certainly knew what he was doing when he recently appointed a new Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, a member of Mr. Netanyahu's Likud party and a permanent thorn in the Prime Minister's side – forever criticizing his party leader for being too left-wing.

Mr. Danon is a leader among Israeli settlers on the West Bank and completely opposed to a two-state agreement with the Palestinians. He wants Israel to annex the West Bank or, as he prefers to say, "to apply Israeli sovereignty" to most of "Judea and Samaria."

In short, he's pretty much opposed to everything Mr. Netanyahu agreed to in his Monday meeting with Mr. Obama.

"I want the majority of the land [in the West Bank] with the minimum amount of Palestinians," Mr. Danon said in 2013.

Mr. Netanyahu makes no secret of his disdain for the United Nations, which always seems to side with the Palestinians and against Israel, as far as he's concerned. In appointing Mr. Danon as ambassador to that body, the Prime Minister has slain two birds with one stone: Finally someone has rid him of that troublesome member and inflicted him upon every other country in the world.

He's a cunning man, that Netanyahu.

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