Jones Puts Foot in Mouth With Jewish Joke

Jim Jones gave a major speech at a top Middle East think tank last week, but the information he imparted has been drowned out by the kerfluffle over the joke he opened his remarks with—in which a Jewish merchant fleeces a thirsty Taliban fighter. It's tame stuff, and the audience laughed heartily, but conservative blogs and some Jewish community leaders have pounced on the remark, Foreign Policy reports.

The Anti-Defamation League called the joke “inappropriate,” saying it was “the worst kind of joke the head of the National Security Council could have told.” Jones apologized today, saying the joke “distracted from the larger message I carried that day: that the United States commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.” The remark has been scrubbed from the think tank's video of the speech and the official transcript.
(More Jim Jones stories.)