A few weeks ago, I was pretty surprised to see a very public job ad “wanted” for someone to head Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s top Media Advisor. I had figured that those sort of jobs were filled in a less public way. For a nano-second or more, I even thought of sending in my name but knew that even if I was a generation younger that sort of life was not for me, nor would I have a chance in Hell to be chosen.
And now…
Lots of news all over about the lucky guy who was chosen for the job, Ran Baratz, who is now discovering that in all his expertise about social media, he left out or ignored the main truth, that Facebook and the internet never forget.
As soon as he was given the good news of his appointment and the word got out, everyone near and far began their “googling” and discovered that Baratz had been pretty blunt about his opinions on all sorts of issues and public personalities, both Israeli and foreign.
‘Kerry’s mental age doesn’t exceed that of a 12-year-old,’ Netanyahu’s new media czar wrote (Jerusalem Post)
Baratz recently said on his Facebook page that the response of Barack Obama to the Israeli prime minister’s speech to the US Congress this year was an example of “modern antisemitism in liberal western states”. (The Guardian)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel indicated Thursday night that he was reconsidering his choice for public diplomacy chief after a furor over the nominee’s critiques of public officials, including a suggestion that President Obama was anti-Semitic and Secretary of State John Kerry had the intellect of a preteenager. (NY Times)
Now, I find nothing offensive or shocking about any of Baratz’s statements. If anything he’s moderate compared to me. And I don’t know if he’s going to lose that new job. But I really hate to think that if he ends up keeping it, he ends up overcompensating to the Left.