Now he’s “Boo Boo!” Netanyahu!
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin aka “Bibi” Netanyahu received a chorus of boos from the most American of audiences: New Yorkers who paid exorbitant sums to see the ever sold out smash hit “Hamilton,” a musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton.
According to The Daily Mail, before the lights went down, two women even shouted “Free Palestine!” before security ejected them from the hip-hop-inspired song and dance number, the work of creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays the title role.
Although reportedly beloved by some, Booboo Netanyahu found a not-so friendly reception at the performance on Saturday night in Manhattan. Booboo was surrounded by New Yorkers whom he had inconvenienced while they were trying to enjoy something expensive and hard to obtain. He has earned the undying scorn of some people just for that.
Indeed, one Tweeter said that the Transportation Security Administration itself was handling the crush. Theater-goers had to go through “airport-style body scanners,” one source told Page Six, the gossip column in The New York Post, a paper Hamilton founded.
“The show started late because of his arrival — the heightened security slowed down seating,” the audience member told Page Six. “But he still entered and sat down before the lights went down, so everyone was focused on him. There was a lot of applause when he walked in, but definitely a few loud boos.”
Page Six got an even bigger and better scoop earlier in Netanyahu’s NY stay. Someone spotted the Likud leader dining with his wife at Sherry-Netherland Hotel’s Harry Cipriani. When a phalanx of Shin Bet heavies arranged their bodies into human security barriers when Booboo had to run to the bathroom they had their headline. “Benjamin Netanyahu needs 20 special agents to go to the bathroom.”
“One watched the door and the rest lined up with their arms up to form a human barricade, so nobody could enter the bathroom or even get close,” according to a witness.
And again with the airport-style security screening! In order to enter the restaurant and pay money to be relaxed, New Yorkers were forced to turn out their pockets without warning. This can be an uncomfortable for some New Yorkers, who’d rather not reveal the contents of their pockets to federal officials at a moment’s notice. And then there are some guys nearby speaking Hebrew and looking fiercely attentive but also disinterested as Dizengoff cafe patrons in whatever it is you are.
The next day, Sunday, Booboo met with Democratic and Republican presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump proclaimed the meeting a fantastic success, and they talked about how much they liked walls.
“Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed at length Israel’s successful experience with a security fence that helped secure its borders,” the campaign said in a statement.
Now picture how the intentionally-multi-ethnic musical “Hamilton” would play in Israel.
It wouldn’t. Period.
Ayelet-baby – BooBoo’s minister of racism, er, culture – would defund it.
There’s an ugly analogy for BooBoo’s conspicuous and disruptive attendance at “Hamilton” but I can’t get it right. Something along the lines of “blood diamonds aren’t so bad because they clean up just fine”, but that’s not quite rotten enough.
I guess Booby man was thoroughly disappointed by the reception he got from regular folk in New York – after all he gets the red carpet treatment by Congress, leaders and even Presidential candidates. Perhaps he may now have an inkling that he is disliked (like his nation) and there are people out there in the world who do not like what he is doing to the Palestinians.
Then again, he is too full of himself, he may miss that message.
His security is pretty intense. Could that be some self-realization that he doesn’t have a lot of fans and he is as much of an embarrassment and source of anger and shame to americans as donald and hillary?
He is a theatrical performance in himself. This is a very honest report but it does seem to me to contain some wishful thinking. There was a very small demonstration against him and some demonstration of support. The paraphernalia surrounding him are indeed grotesque but part of his theatrical self-presentation, still very widely applauded especially among the political class, as the grand leader of the grimly determined world anti-terrorist forces.
Why do they boo him? He’s pretty convincing at playing an imbecile war mongering and murderous supremacist war criminal and pathological liar. Ok, there are some in the Israeli parliamant whose performance even surpass his, but that doesn’t mean that his is THAT bad. That’s like saying a movie is bad, because the reality it portrays is as ugly as Zionism.