It’s a rare and wonderful moment, when you realize someone across the cultural divide has misunderstood a joke or a pun so thoroughly, as to turn a minor guffaw into the realm of the crazy funny.
Yesterday the Jewish Press and everybody and their uncle reported on Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett’s case of hoof and mouth disease: When asked on a Channel 10 morning program how he would be able to work with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah, after all the bad blood between them in recent years, Bennett replied that he was hoping his stint in the same special forces unit as the one where Netanyahu had served would help them erase their differences.
Jokingly, the host asked if Bennett was referring to Sarah Netanyahu, Bibi’s illustrious wife, and Bennett picked up the ball and said “Yes, exactly, Sarah and I were mostly in terrorism course together,” meaning she used to terrorize him while he was working for her husband.
Now the Iranian Press TV, God bless their hearts, have picked up this story and delivered it with a straight face: “I was in terrorism class with Sara Netanyahu: Israeli party leader.”
So help me, this election thing has been more fun than a barrel of monkeys with typewriters reproducing Macbeth.