When a joke is no laughing matter

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Who knew the national security advisor is a comedian?

The White House, insisting on Monday that peace talks in the Middle East are moving forward, said the president had not asked his national security advisor, Marine Gen. Jim Jones, to apologize for his joke about a Jewish merchant and a Taliban fighter. Jones took care of that on his own, saying he regretted telling a joke that ultimately detracted from the message he was delivering at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy over the weekend.

While it drew a good laugh from the audience, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman told ABC News that the joke was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘stereotypic.’

‘Some people believe they need to start a speech with a joke; this was about the worst kind of joke the head of the National Security Council could have told,’ Foxman said.

Relations between Israel and the United States lately have grown strained under the Israeli government’s insistence on the expansion of settlements. The U.S. envoy to the region, retired Sen. George Mitchell, has returned on a diplomatic mission which the White House insisted Monday is moving forward.

‘I wish that I had not made this off-the-cuff joke at the top of my remarks, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it,’ Jones said afterward in an issued statement. ‘It also distracted from the larger message I carried that day: that the United States commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.’

The president himself dropped by a meeting between Gen. Jones and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Monday morning, a White House spokesman said.

‘The president reaffirmed our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security and our determination to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East,’’ press secretary Robert Gibbs said, ‘including a two-state solution with a secure Jewish state of Israel living side-by-side in peace and security with a viable and independent Palestinian state.’’

-- Mark Silva

For more details, including the joke, see The Swamp.