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OBAMANIA Watch - Anorak’s look at Barack Obama in the news.

BARACK Obama places a prayer in the Western Wall, Jerusalem, Judaisim’s holiest place. He prayed to win the Presidency, to cure cancer by touch and for tastier lo-cal chocolate:

“Lord, protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of Your will.” (Click the image to read the prayer.)

Obama has prayed. God has listened. A Jewish students removes the prayer. And we have read all about it:

What initially seemed to be a journalistic scoop of dubious moral propriety now seems to be a case of an Israeli paper being played by the Barack Obama campaign.

Maariv, the second most popular newspaper in Israel, was roundly criticized for publishing the note Obama left in the Kotel. But now a Maariv spokesperson says that publication of the note was pre-approved for international publication by the Obama campaign, leading to the conclusion that the “private” prayer was intentionally leaked for public consumption.

Nothing is private when you’re running for the Presidency.

Although Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharanot says it also obtained the note but decided not to publish it.

Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich condemned the removal of the note.

“Notes placed in the Wall are removed twice a year, on the eve of the Jewish New Year and Pessah, and placed in a special repository for religious items, under supervision to keep them hidden from human eyes,” he said in a statement.

Those prayers are private. And, like Obama’s prayer, they are deep and meaningful. Hillel Halkin recalls one trip to Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. He and his daughter see the prayers on paper and gather some up to read:

I no more minded knowing what two dozen women had said to God at Rachel’s Tomb than I mind knowing what the woman sitting next to me on the train is saying on her cell phone to her husband, child, or lover. She’s just always so banal, that woman — and so were all those prayers:

“Dear God, may my daughter-in-law get pregnant.”

“Lord, help me to lose 40 pounds.”

“Master of the Universe, cure my husband of his illness.”

“May the Holy One Blessed He make my sister pass her driving test.”

Obama’s is a Christian prayer in a Jewish wall.

But it is with regard to his Muslim audience that the full cynicism of Obama’s note becomes apparent. To appeal to the Muslims, he has to be a victim of the Jews.

Having gone to the Western Wall, and not to Al Aqsa mosque, having offered a Christian-type “prayer,” he has to regain some credibility in Muslim eyes, without seeming to do that. To distract his Muslim American audience from his genuflection at the Western Wall of the Jews, Obama made his fall guy a yeshiva student — not just your average garden-variety Jew, but a seminarian.

A conspiracy? Or juct a slick political stunt?

Posted: 30th, July 2008 | In: Anorak In New York, Barack Obama, Politicians, Race For The White House. Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0