I have no idea what an “aside” is, because I’m too lazy to read the docs on the upgrade. So I’ll just post one and see what happens.
Gee, I hope I didn’t break anything.
Update: Oh, look. It’s a post on top of the other posts that doesn’t have a title. Now I know what an “aside” is. I wouldn’t call it “aside” though—I think it’s more an “atop.”
Seriously? The anti-Israel loons are biting us now? Seriously. Although the true point of this story is that the Exception Clause holds strong: Academic freedom is for everyone, except Israel. And oh yeah—it’s all your fault for being bitten. You shouldn’t have shown your pro-Israel face at our anti-Israel hatefest.
Countdown to outrageously outraged left starting in 3, 2… The IDF is going to keep track of foreign anti-Israel groups. (Hint: Think IHH.) The fact that they’re not going after leftist NGOs will not stop the outrageously outraged from raging. Outrageously.
Read this and weep: And yes, I mean it. Anne Bayefsky on how the UN contributes to the world’s hatred of Israel, which would explain the minimization of the horrific slaughter of three children (including a three-month-old baby) by Palestinian terrorists.
That’s right, suck up to the Islamists in your midst: Vladimir Putin is comparing the UN resolution on Libya to the Crusades. Psst… dude… cf: Chechnya.
I am such a geek: And in a bit of good news for us Tolkien geeks (and fans of the movies the world over), production has started on The Hobbit. Woo! Only two more years until I get to say, “What?! That wasn’t in the book!!”
The AP spins, spins, spins for Hamas. Imagine that the Mexican drug lords sent fifty mortar shells into Texas. Imagine the worldwide headlines, and the angles of the articles. Now turn your attention to yesterday, when Palestinian terrorists sent a barrage of fifty mortar shells—not “crude, homemade” kassam rockets—into Israel. It’s an artillery barrage. The AP couldn’t even give it its own story. They mixed it with the news that Hamas was beating Palestinians who are calling for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah in the early wire stories:
Hamas fires dozens of rockets at Israel
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 rockets into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said, while Hamas police beat up reporters and confiscated their equipment.A Hamas official was killed and four civilians were wounded when Israel hit back with tank fire and air strikes, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia.
Note that the beating of reporters is more important than the fact that Palestinians are rallying against Hamas. But here’s where the AP’s wheels are going “rrr-rrr-rrr” in the mud, slinging it as far as the eye can see:
Hamas acknowledged it launched some of the mortars – an unusual move as the Islamic militant group does not usually take responsibility for such attacks. Hamas fears triggering another Israeli invasion similar to a three-week operation aimed at stopping daily Palestinian shelling two years ago that killed about 1,400 Palestinians.
The later release still carried the dual stories, as apparently being bombarded with 54 mortars does not rate its own news article under Israeli Double Standard Time.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired more than 50 mortar shells into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years, Israeli officials said, raising the prospect of a new Mideast flareup.
Also Saturday, Hamas police beat reporters and news photographers covering a rally in Gaza City, drawing a stiff condemnation from the reporters’ association.
The most important aspect of the story, obviously, is that reporters were beaten. And today’s story? Well, we’re back to quoting the Israeli military in the headline:
Israeli military: Rocket from Gaza hits Israel
Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel on Sunday, while Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in a fresh wave of violence along the volatile border with Gaza.The violence came a day after Palestinian militants fired some 50 mortar shells into Israel – the heaviest Palestinian assault since a bruising Israeli military offensive two years ago.
Note the juxtaposition of Hamas firing rockets into civilian areas, and Israel invading Gaza to stop the firing of rockets into civilian areas. There is no such thing as cause and effect when it comes to Israel and the media. Israel would never have had a “bruising military offensive” if Hamas had not been killing and wounding Israelis on a regular basis with rocket and mortar bombardments. Oh, and remember how I keep on saying I could just cut and paste stories from past years? Take a look at this post from 2008, a year before the “bruising military offensive.” The AP didn’t even bother to cover the near-miss on a nursery. They were too busy spinning for Hamas.
Now to today’s AP spin. What’s going on in Israel today? Why, it’s a “fresh wave of violence.” Hamas sending rockets into Israel? Violence. Terrorists shot while trying to infiltrate Israel? Violence. Israel defending itself from mortar attacks? Violence. As to that “volatile border”? Well, all of the volatility is from the Palestinian side. If there were no rockets, no mortars, no attacks, there would be no IDF action.
Here’s a perfect example of the way the news media delegitimize Israel and legitimize Palestinian terrorists:
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia said a 22-year-old man in Gaza suffered moderate shrapnel wounds from Israeli tank fire after the rocket attack. The Israeli military said militants fired upon troops patroling the Gaza-Israel border, and troops returned fire, identifying one hit.
Abu Salmia said rescue teams also recovered the bodies of two Palestinian men who were killed overnight along the border. There were no details on their identities, and the military had no comment.
Note that the Palestinian spokesman is named, the wounded Palestinian is aged, and the AP says it couldn’t find out the names of the dead terrorists. The AP has not yet named the Fogel family members killed in last week’s terrorist attacks. And the AP almost never names the Israeli spokespeople it quotes. It is the most subtle form of bias, and it does its job. Israelis are nameless and faceless. The Palestinians become personalized. You see it over and over again. Check back in my archives, and I’m sure you’ll see it as far back as I’ve been posting about Israel.
Well, that’s about all the anti-Israel propaganda news I can take before my Sunday morning breakfast.
Crisis in Shushan
The United States is intervening diplomatically to forestall a rapidly developing crisis in the Persian Empire. Sources close to the government of King Achashveirosh have leaked information that the kingdom has sanctioned the extermination of all Jews under his rule. The edict originated with Haman, the king’s closest adviser, and was approved by Achashveirosh a number of months ago.
Aware of this decree, the Jews of the empire, led by Mordechai are seeking to forestall this fate. Prayer gatherings are common and prominent Jews have been seeking out government officials to try and persuade the king to rescind the decree.
Outgoing State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley emphasized that the United States sought a peaceful resolution to the crisis and that the administration hoped that both sides could compromise.
Reached at his office, son and spokesman of Haman, Aspata declared, “The Agagite family seeks to fulfill its legitimate national aspirations.” When Mordechai was reached by this paper he expressed his hopes that matters could be resolved peacefully but that time was running out.
President Obama, concerned that Mordechai’s statement could be construed as a threat, warned the Jewish leader that “… there were no military solutions for this crisis” and asked that Mordechai “… refrain from any more provocative actions, such as refusing to bow down to Haman.”
Unclear in all the turmoil in Persia, is the role of Queen Esther. Palace watchers have long suspected that she was allied with Mordechai as she regularly exchanged messages with him. However recently she took the risky step of appearing unannounced before the King and inviting Achashveirosh to join her for dinner along with Haman. It is expected that Esther’s role in this unfolding drama will become clearer this evening as she is once again set to dine with Achashveirosh and Haman.
HAPPY PURIM
I talked about Helen Thomas on this week’s Shire Network News, which should be out tomorrow.
You can read the Playboy interview here. (And yes, it is one gigantic cognitive dissonance to read the words “Helen Thomas” and “Playboy interview” in the same sentence.)
So, it wasn’t okay to bomb Iraq, but it’s okay to bomb Libya? How is it that people are making the exact same arguments about Libya that some were making about Iraq (which were deemed not good enough to try to stop him), and the hypocrisy goes unmentioned except by non-liberals? The UN endorsed the no-fly zone, and Hillary says let the bombing commence.
“A no-fly zone requires certain actions taken to protect the planes and the pilots, including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems,” Clinton said as she neared the end of a Middle East trip dominated by worries about Libya, where a rebel offensive is apparently flagging.
Necons. Hawks. Warbloggers. You know who’s got the best item about this phenomenon? Michael Totten.
As forces loyal to Libya’s cruel and deranged tyrant Moammar Khadafy reconquer one rebel-held city after an other, the Arab League and the Arabic press are calling for a no-fly zone over the country to tip, or at least even, the odds. While I’m inclined to help the Libyans on humanitarian grounds and to advance our own national interests, the American public’s appetite is low for intervening on behalf of the rebels — and it’s largely the Arab world’s fault.
Last time Americans led a coalition to topple a mass-murdering dictatorship in the Middle East, the Arab League and the Arabic press hysterically denounced us as imperialist crusaders fighting a war for oil and Israel. Egged on by al-Jazeera, they cheerleaded the “resistance” that killed thousands of our soldiers with roadside bombs in the years that followed.
Not that I want Madman Gaddaffy to stay in office, mind you. I want him and his evil spawn as dead as Saddam and his evil spawn. But let’s take note of the utter hypocrisy of the left. They apparently aren’t nearly as anti-war now that we have a Democratic president as they were when he was a Republican.
Uninformed people, understandable. Uninformed journalists, no: So religious Jews wrapping themselves in tefillin and praying is an “elaborate ritual“? Really? Because I’ve seen people put on tefillin, and it’s not all that elaborate. The AP can’t even get something this simple right—no wonder they screw up on Israel all the time.
Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.
This isn’t the first time flight crews have freaked out over Jews praying. You know, the airlines really ought to brief their people on this ritual, because Orthodox Jews will continue to fly on American airlines, and they will continue to pray during those flights.
Hope the movie tanks, Mel: Jodie Foster says that Mel Gibson is the most-loved man in Hollywood. Yeah, I’m thinking not so much after his anti-Semitic rants about Jews, but then, Foster is the actor who so desperately wants to play Leni Riefenstahl, better known as Hitler’s propagandist, in a biopic she’s been shopping around for years. So what’s a little Jew-hate between friends, eh?
No, really, this time we mean it! The reason I don’t care at all about Hamas and Fatah reuniting is that they won’t. Abbas won’t visit Gaza, because he doesn’t want to be assassinated. It’s just words. Even the AP realizes it:
Bringing Hamas back into the Palestinian Authority could jeopardize the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual American and European aid the government depends on. That aid was withheld in the past when Hamas was part of the government because it refused to recognize Israel, renounce its violent campaign against the Jewish state or accept previous peace accords. There is no sign Hamas would be willing to do any of those things now, and violence continues.
Shyeah. Best friends. Any minute now. Sure. Uh-huh.
Israel intercepted a ship carrying advanced Iranian arms to Syria. Here’s the lead of the latest story. Note the words in bold.
Israeli officials are displaying thousands of bullets, mortar shells and anti-ship missiles they say were seized from a cargo ship delivering the arms to Palestinian militants in Gaza.
The Israeli navy intercepted the ship on Tuesday. Israel says the ship was carrying weapons sent by Iran via Syria.
Next to the captured ship, officials Wednesday showed off what they said were roughly 2,500 mortar shells, nearly 75,000 bullets and six C-704 anti-ship missiles.
Let us compare this with the story about Israel bombing Hamas rocketeers in Gaza. Note that there is no doubt at all as to the events that happened:
Israeli fighter jets pummeled a Hamas facility in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, killing two militants and injuring four, Palestinian officials said.
The Israeli army confirmed the airstrike, saying warplanes bombed the facility after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket into southern Israel. No Israeli injuries were reported.
Pretty strong stuff on the Palestinian side, huh? The AP gets definite when it comes to dead terrorists, but it lays doubt in the minds of its readers, ever so subtlely, but putting “Israel says” and “what Israel says” in front of factual evidence. How strong is the evidence? Well, Ynet reports:
Officials believe the Victoria was sent by Tehran because of the sophisticated surface-to-sea missiles found on board together with Farsi-language manuals, which are attired with the emblem of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
In addition, a Nasr-1 cruise missile was found to have a serial number close to that with which Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi was pictured in January 2010, when Iran began producing the missile originally made by China.
Make no mistake, the IDF made this information available to all of the news services. Israel is launching a huge PR offensive to counter the anti-Israel slant of the news media. The release of the photos of the slain Fogel family (who have still not been named in a single AP news article about their deaths or funeral) was one step forward. And Israel needs to keep pushing, because here’s the final graf in the early AP piece about the weapons seizure:
In January 2002, Israeli forces stormed the Karine A freighter on the Red Sea, and confiscated what the military said was 50 tons of missiles, mortars, rifles and ammunition headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
It’s endemic. The Associated Press can’t seem to be sure about anything Israel says. But it’s absolutely sure about the Palestinians. Witness:
Hamas security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the warplanes struck a Hamas security facility south of Gaza City. They said two members of the Hamas’ militant wing were killed.
Gaza health official Adham Abu Salmiya said four others were wounded.
The anti-Israel bias, exposed.
About six months ago, Miss Gracie became my longest-lived cat. My first Tigger died of cancer at about thirteen and a half. My second Tigger died of kidney disease three years ago. Gracie has a heart murmur. Gracie has asthma triggered by allergies. She seized and nearly died at the vet’s office nine or ten years ago. And then there was the debacle with the vet who misdiagnosed and mistreated her IBD, which nearly killed her.
And yet, here she is, enjoying her tunafish treat for her fourteenth birthday.
I call her my Sweetness, because she has never shown anything but a sweet disposition to me and every other person she’s met, including children. She’s never been mean or angry to anyone or anything except Tig 3.0 when he first arrived, and that was a territorial thing. Once she established that she is top cat, things went swimmingly.
Gracie ate not only her share of the tuna, but she shoved Tig aside and had some of his. Tunafish is the only thing she gets aggressive about.
Happy birthday, Sweetness. Say thank you to all the nice people who helped pay for the vet bills and saved your life. (She just yowled for me to come upstairs. As it is her birthday, I shall comply.)
It’s the ninth annual International Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA (EATAPETA) Day. (Holy cow, is it really eight years since we started this? You betcha!)
Today, as uber-commenter Alex Bensky likes to say, if it didn’t have a mother, don’t eat it. However, as I like to say: Eat meat. It pisses off PETA like nothing else.
Click the category for the reasons why we still do this.
“They murder, we build” is what Netanyahu is telling the world as Israel moves to build more homes in settlement blocs that will remain part of Israel under any peace deal. The fact that these blocs will be Israel? Doesn’t matter to the Obama administration which, of course, condemned the building as “illegitimate.” The PA tried to do its usual thing, by turning the language Israel uses to describe Palestinian activities against Israel.
Fatah spokesman Ahmad Assaf said Israel was taking advantage of Friday night’s murder of five members of the Fogel family to “launch an incitement campaign against Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and the Palestinian Authority in general.”
But something didn’t take. When HRW puts out a statement excoriating the attack, and Netanyahu seemed to successfully call the PA out on their namby-pamby “we abhor violence” line, Mahmoud Abbas took an unprecedented step: He went on Israeli radio and condemned the attack. Why? I think because Israel took an unprecented step: Pictures of the grisly murder scene were released. (I’m sorry, I’m not linking to them here. I don’t want to see them.) I think, however, the release of the pictures were greatly effective. Of course, Abbas is lying about Palestinian incitement. He always lies, except when speaking in Arabic to an Arab audience about “retaking” Palestinian lands.
And the AP, as always, spins.
Israel has long contended that Palestinian textbooks and official media preach hatred toward Israel and that the killers of Israelis are often glorified.
On Sunday, a group of activists from Abbas’ Fatah movement dedicated a square in the West Bank city of Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, a female militant who carried out a 1978 bus attack that killed 37 Israelis. Aides to Abbas said they tried to stop the ceremony and the move was not officially sanctioned.
Still, Israel has not produced evidence that incitement contributed to the killings.
Even when presenting evidence of incitement, the AP bends over backwards trying to prove that it isn’t incitement. Or at least, if it is, it’s not the PA’s fault. Or at least, if it is, Israel can’t prove that incitement is the reason that family was massacred. Way to spin, AP!
Something is different this time, though. Abbas never, ever, attacked his own people like that before. I wonder if something is going on behind the scenes at State. Or if he’s finally noticing that there are a lot of Republican politicians who want to cut the PA purse strings.
Regardless, two parents and three children are dead—including a four-month-old baby. The brave, brave mujahadeen managed to kill them all in their sleep. This time, even the PA can’t spin the attack as justified. It’s a baby step forward.
I just paid off the last of my credit card debt accrued from years of under- and unemployment (not profligate spending). I am now officially debt-free, except for my mortgage. I am solidly in the black for the first time in a long, long time. I have a 401k and Roth IRA, a great job, some money in the bank, and a beautiful, comfortable condo (that I can afford and that is not an underwater mortgage, though I am down about 10% in assessed value).
I know my long-time readers will remember that there was a point when I couldn’t afford to buy a used laptop to replace the one that was dying on me, and my readers came through with hits to the tipjars (which no longer exist, since I don’t need the help anymore). When Gracie was sick years ago, her medical bills put a huge strain on me. You helped me out then, too. (She turns fourteen on Tuesday.)
I think I finally found the answer to whether or not I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing on the blog. Ten years is a long time, and my readership has stayed pretty static for the past few years. I have less and less time to write for the blog, and sometimes less and less interest. Things never seem to change for Israel and the Jews. It gets tiresome, writing posts on almost the exact same subjects now as I did nine, eight, seven, three, two years ago. Really, I could just cut and paste an old post to a new one and I swear you’d never be able to tell the difference, because Israel’s enemies are unchanging, the anti-Israel media is unchanging, and about the only thing that changes is the names of the victims. But—
Yesterday, I went to a b’nai mitzvah that was held at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. A set of twins from my last year teaching had it there because their grandfather is a survivor. One of my other former students asked me during the reception if I would escort her around the exhibits, because she was afraid to go by herself. So we went through the museum, and I explained a lot of the exhibits and history to her.
We stopped at the survivors exhibit as requested (see below) and saw the picture of the twins’ grandfather. He looked to be about ten years old in that picture. He grew up to become a rabbi. When I first moved to Richmond, he was co-editor with me of my synagogue’s newsletter for several years. Rabbi K. would come over to my apartment, and we’d put together the newsletter. Actually, I’d put it together in Microsoft Publisher and print out the pages. Rabbi K. would edit, proofread, correct, and play with Tigger. (My cats have always been partners in my volunteer editing/writing work; Tigger the first entertained Neil Clarke while I wrote the user and sysop manuals for his 2AM-BBS software.)
The b’nai mitzvah program had a note on it from the twins:
Thank you for coming to our B’nai Mitzvah. Please feel free to tour the museum while you are here. Be sure to look for our grandfather on the wall in the Displaced Persons Camp. And whenever you are near the Nazi flag in the floor, give it a good stomp.
That we did. Several times. And while I was touring the museum with my former student, I remembered what I discovered about teaching religious school—that I was making a difference in Jewish life, one child at a time. I can’t teach at the moment. I can’t take the time away from my job. But I can still blog.
That’s why I blog: To inform the world that there is another side of the story about Israel that they are not hearing. To make a difference. To change minds. To get the truth out, no matter what.
I used to say that my job was an anti-Semite’s worst nightmare: Teaching little Jews to become big Jews. Well, this blog disturbs their dreams, too, I am happy to report. I intend to continue to piss them off on a daily basis. Of course, my very existence is enough to piss off the Jew haters, and, well, that actually makes me smile. Pissing off the Jew haters is one of the perks of writing this blog.
One of the things I taught my students was this way of summarizing many Jewish holidays: “They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat.” A slightly altered version of that would make a good secondary tagline for this blog. (I won’t be changing the tagline, though.) Something like, “They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s blog.
I have some plans for my life for the next few years that, if they succeed, will change my life in even better ways. And considering that the reason I am out of debt, have a great job, and own a home is that I worked my ass off to achieve those goals, I think that five years from now, when I’m on the cusp of my fifteenth blogiversary, things will be even better. I hope they will be better for Israel, too, but I won’t make any predictions. Well, except for one: In every generation, they rise against us. But the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.
They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s blog.
Palestinian terrorists from Fatah murdered five members of a family on Shabbat, including a three-month-old baby. They were murdered in their sleep.
The mayor of Ariel, called a “settlement” by the world media, says that the delegitimization of settlements is the reason behind the attack. He’s wrong. It is the delegitimization of Israel that causes terror attacks, and the refusal of the world to make the Palestinians acknowledge reality: Israel isn’t going anywhere. They’re not getting the “right of return.” They’re not going to retake “al quds” [Jerusalem].
The AP is spinning the attacks, as usual, and whitewashing the attackers.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a mostly defunct Palestinian militant group, took responsibility for the attack. However, they frequently claim to be behind attacks they didn’t do in hopes of raising their profile.
Really? Defunct? That would be news to the IDF. They’re part and parcel of Fatah. Even the U.S. government acknowledges their existence.
And of course, there is the non-condemnation condemnation:
“Violence does not justify violence, we condemn it completely, whoever does it and whoever the victims are,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told The Associated Press.
Note that they never actually condemn the attacks. They use the generic “violence” or talk about “state terrorism” (meaning: Israeli self-defense).
Now, though, the AP is going above and beyond. “Retaliation” has become “retribution”:
The bloody nature of the attack immediately raised concerns about Jewish retribution. Col. Nimrod Aloni, a West Bank brigade commander, said the military was preparing for possible clashes between Palestinians and settlers.
Israeli settlers sometimes carry out revenge attacks on Palestinian targets, either in retaliation for Palestinian violence or for Israeli government actions against settlers. The attacks, known as “price tag” diplomacy, include vandalism, destruction of crops or physical attacks.
Netanyahu called on all Israelis “to act with restraint and not to take the law into their own hands.”
FYI, the “retribution” so far? Angry mobs of Israelis are blocking roads and throwing stones. They are being met and stopped by soldiers. Israel polices its own. The Palestinians? Not so much.
Gaza residents are celebrating the murders and handing out sweets. It’s something they always do when innocent Israelis are murdered. And the world mostly ignores it, or worse, justifies it because the “settlers” shouldn’t be on Palestinian land.
Netanyahu blamed Palestinian incitement for the intact. He’s partly right. But in the end, it all comes down to the fact that the Palestinians think they can win. They think that the tide is turning. They see the fall of the dictators of the Middle East and the rise of Islamism, and they think their chance is near. The L.A. Times says the IDF is focusing its search on relatives of Palestinians who were killed last year during a clash with residents of Itamar. But I can’t find that sourced anywhere else. Either way, the end result is yet another example of the barbarism of terrorists, and the willingness of the world to blame the victims, in a myriad different ways. The AP:
Itamar is a small and extreme settlement that has rocky relations with the nearby Palestinian towns and villages.
The L.A. Times:
Itamar’s settlers are considered among the most fervent, believing Israel has a historic and religious right to absorb the West Bank, which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East War.
So you see, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is “defunct”—but those settlers, boy, are they extreme. Why, they’re so extreme, they’re being murdered in their beds by members of defunct terror groups.
Your anti-Israel media. In living color.
Two more of my students are b’nai mitzvot this weekend. They go to a Reform synagogue. Their rabbi is beyond progressive; he’s one of the 400 rabbis who signed the letter about Glenn Beck (or whoever the letter was about; it all melts into one giant blahblahblah of white noise after a while).
Tonight, his sermon had little to do with the Torah portion of the week. Scratch that, nothing to do with it. It was about the Peter King hearings on Jihadis among us. And I was told tonight that I am a bad Jew. Because I am one of the Jews who will stand by and do nothing about these hearings and am, in fact, one who supports these hearings.
Before his sermon, I was thinking, y’know, my regular synagogue is quite a haul away, maybe I’ll split the days and go here on Fridays and to my place on Saturdays. Less driving, save money on gas, plus time—it’s a win-win. Because I do like most of the service. But after the sermon, I realized the only way I could go regularly on Fridays is to leave the room during the rabbi’s sermon. Eventually, that will get noticed. Eventually, the rabbi will ask me why I do that. And being me, I would tell him the truth: That I hate politics from the pulpit, and I disagree with nearly everything he says, and then we’d get into a heated argument, I’m sure, and, well… I’ll just not bother.
My rabbi is liberal. We disagree about lots of things. But he leaves his political views out of the sermon, and I have never, ever wanted to leave the room while he’s talking. Looks like I’ll just spend the extra time and gas and go to the place that I enjoy.
