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I am fast reaching the conclusion that Danny Ayalon, the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, is the most stupid politician I have ever come across.
OK, let's be a bit more reasonable. So great is the competition for that accolade that I think some circumspection is necessary. So how about this: Danny Ayalon is one of the most stupid politicians I have ever come across.
Barely a day seems to go by without him either saying or doing something stupid. Yes, sometimes he can do well - to whit, his trip to Oxford to speak at the Union seemed a success to those present. But then even a stopped clock is right once every twelve hours.
But as if his gratuitous, deliberate insult to the Turkish Ambassador to Israel was not enough to have him removed from office (which of course it wouldn't be, given the coalition building), he seems to tweet - and say - the first thing that comes into his not very considered head.
Take this, today, from a MFA briefing on his speech to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations:
Another question was asked about the situation of Israeli Arabs and their politicians. "They can not hold both ends of the stick, on the one hand they call for the end of Israel as a Jewish State, and they call for a Palestinian state," Ayalon said. "There are Arab members of Knesset who were advisors to Arafat and now to Mahmoud Abbas. This is like US Members of Congress advising the Taliban."
You read that right. Mr Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister of a government which is urging the self-same Mr Abbas to come to the negotiating table, and says repeatedly how it wants only to live in peace with a functioning Palestinian Authority, is comparing the PA to the Taliban. It beggars belief.
Two weeks ago I was in Herzliya when Ehud Barak shared a stage with Salam Fayyad, the PM of the PA. Was he dancing with the devil too? Were those of us who applauded Fayyad's speech celebrating someone no better than a Taliban leader?
Mr Ayalon's boss, Avigdor Lieberman, is attacked as a bigot who shouldn't be in his post, but Mr Lieberman thinks before he speaks, and uses his brain. Ayalon is a grade A idiot who is not fit to represent Israel in the world.