BeTodah Me-rosh, Rudy Giuliani
This is sort of weird. When you sign up for the Jerusalem Post's website you succumb to lots of e-mail offers for whatever their advertisers want. This morning, if you're a web reader, you got a donation plea from Rudy Giuliani.
From the plea:
Israel and the United States share common values. We cherish freedom, democracy, and human life. Our shared values have attracted common enemies. The terrorists Israel is fighting are the same terrorists America is fighting, and we must continue to fight them together.
Last week Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the world would soon witness the destruction of Israel. This 2008 presidential campaign will determine how we deal with statements like these and the madmen who make them.
I stand by Israel and I'll never embrace a terrorist like Arafat, a tyrant like Ahmadinejad, or a party like Hamas. Will you join me and support my campaign for President so we can continue to work together? Your contribution of $1,000, $500, $250, $100 or $50 will go a long way in helping us to ensure victory.
The J-Post has got to have a few online subscribers who don't actually hold U.S. citizenship, right? Obviously this is a targeted appeal to the mostly Jewish/hawkish American readers of the paper, but it's odd to see a candidate making a donor appeal through a foreign newspaper. Has anyone ever grabbed ad space in Le Monde to appeal to those crucial New Hampshire francophone swing voters?
UPDATE: In the comments, jip points out that the J-Post is bigger with English-speaking foreigners than it in is Israel—it's owned by CanWest and everything. So Giuliani is almost certainly hitting more American Israel supporters than Israeli news junkies with this e-mail.