Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Middle East

https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/jerusalem-embassy-event-has-allegedly-bigoted-pastor-rabbi.html

On Monday the United States will officially move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is, of course, a highly controversial move, but aside from the ways it upsets various international relationships, members of the Trump administration are drawing criticism over the religious leaders they’ve included in the celebrations.

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, spoke at a reception held in honor of the U.S. delegation at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday, offering high praise for President Trump. “America has always been a kingdom of grace, but President Trump himself is a king of kindness,” he said.

After the speech White House advisers Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner approached Yosef and asked for his blessing, according to The Jewish Press.

In March, Yosef was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League after using the term “kushi,” a derogatory Hebrew word for black people, in a sermon, and comparing them to monkeys.

“You can’t make the blessing on every ‘kushi’ you see — in America you see one every five minutes, so you make it only on a person with a white father and mother,” he said. “How do would you know? Let’s say you know! So they had a monkey as a son, a son like this, so you say the blessing on him.”

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who is running for the Senate in Utah, was irked by a different religious figure.

Jeffress, who runs the First Baptist Church in Dallas, has referred to Islam and Mormonism as “a heresy from the pit of hell.” He’s also claimed that Islam promotes pedophilia, called Catholicism the “genius of Satan,” and dismissed various other religions as cults. Unsurprisingly, he’s also denounced homosexuality as a “filthy practice” and vividly railed against the legalization of same-sex marriage.

So why is he giving the opening prayer at the U.S. embassy opening? He’s also a frequent Fox News contributor and informal adviser to President Trump, who delivered a sermon during his inauguration festivities. Jeffress is known for giving religious justifications for Trump’s policies, such as claiming God is “is not necessarily an open borders guy,” and declaring that “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong-un.”

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/387468-juan-williams-trumps-dangerous-lies-on-iran

Martin Luther King Jr. once said there is nothing in the world more dangerous than sincere ignorance.

Well, sincere ignorance had a banner day last week when President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.

A CNN/ORC poll taken shortly before Trump’s decision found that a majority of Americans — 63 percent — wanted the U.S. to stay in the deal. But get this: 62 percent of Americans believed Iran had violated its terms.

To me, the second result is the more alarming.

That poll is proof of sincere ignorance of the deal on the part of nearly two-thirds of Americans. They are under the spell of Trump’s distortions.