Joe the Plumber Does Israel

I remember seeing a tidbit on the Daily Show about Joe Wurzelbacher's ground-breaking reporting from Israel during the most recent clashes in Gaza. If that name sounds eerily familiar, it's because of his brief stint in the spotlight during the presidential campaign as “Joe the Plumber.”

To Americans, he was portrayed as the symbol of the downtrodden middle-class everyman. On camera during the interview, as he was escorted by Israeli public and military officials through the city of Sderot, he wore a gray “Springfield” tee-shirt. Perhaps this shirt was in reference to beautiful Springfield, Ohio, (I have family there) or perhaps it was in reference to generic small-town America as a whole (a la The Simpsons).

He interviews the mayor of the town, which saw the brunt of the Hamas bombardment due to its close proximity to Gaza, as he tours buildings that were struck by missiles. He speaks to one man whose living room had recently been decimated by a rocket. Joe mentions stories of children that have reverted to bed-wetting since the attacks as the camera pans to the resident's former toilet, shattered and blown into the side yard. It's all sort of strange.

Joe the plumber doesn't seem very well suited as a war correspondent, but one thing that he does accomplish in the segment is establish a symbolic link between Israel and the Middle-Americans that he claims to represent. He mingles with the teachers at a school that was nearly struck by a rocket and refers to one victim as “brother.” Through the window of a passing car, the camera shows a western-looking town that could just easily be mistaken for small-town America. It pans toward young Jewish schoolboys investigating the scene of the explosion. It is difficult not to be moved by the segment, which so deliberately tugs at the heartstrings. As you might expect, there is no mention of the people of Gaza, which lies less than a mile to the west, other than in reference to the rockets. At one point he goads the mayor, asking “How do people like that make you feel?”

As I watched the segment, I couldn't help but imagine what would have unfolded if Joe was a few minutes' walk to the West, across the wall and into Gaza. Would he have sympathized with the people? Would he suggest, as he did in this piece, that perhaps people would be more sympathetic and less quick to criticize if they understood what life is like in the war-torn area? Could he have established such connections between the small-town American way of life and that of the Palestinians? I can't begin to imagine. I'm still wondering how he ended up in Israel.