Here’s something that doesn’t happen every day. I get a press release in my inbox from the Zionist Organization of America (OK, that happens almost every day, but stay with me). A frequent, strident critic of the Obama administration, the ZOA bulletin carries a strikingly uncharacteristic headline: 

Obama Treats Ally Israel Better than Enemy Dictatorships

Is this ZOA National President Morton Klein’s way of signalling a stunning reversal from hawkish Obama critic to acolyte on the eve of the president’s state of the union address?

Whoops — no. Forty-five minutes later, this message arrives:

CORRECTED HED: Obama Treats Enemy Dictatorships Better than Ally Israel

Ah. So the stars aren’t out of alignment after all. Or maybe Mort Klein’s subconscious is trying to tell us something?

Uriel Heilman is JTA’s managing editor, responsible for coordinating JTA’s editorial team. He re-joined JTA in 2007 after a stint doing independent reporting in Israel and the Arab world. Before that, he served as New York bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post. An award-winning journalist, he has worked as a reporter for a variety of publications in the United States and in Israel.