The conservative Israeli government is pretty convinced at this point that the greatest threat to the Diaspora is not necessarily from Iran so much as it is from lazy American Jews, who have no discipline and are always spreading around liberal nonsense like "maybe we should try to make nice with the Palestinians" and so on. It has now gone so far as to create ads showing what terrors will befall Israelis who raise their children in America: Specifically, that their kids will end up celebrating Christmas!

The Netanyahu government, which has chosen to mire itself in deep cultural battles back in the homeland, is running Ministry of Immigrant Absorption ads in several American communities that "warn Israeli expatriates that they will lose their identities if they don't return home." And its website is running short propaganda videos, like the one above, about the dangers posed to Judaism by stupid America culture. Here we see a young girl Skypeing with her Israeli grandparents, seated before a Menorah, who ask her what holiday she's celebrating. "Christmas!" she says. That just does not fly.

The government apparently thinks that this ad will be just terrifying enough to bring all expats back to Israel. But it's possible that it will be laughed off.

[via Andrew Sullivan]