 |
| Netanyahu and Biden |
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial, Fox
News tells us, for “accepting gifts
from Israeli Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan in exchange for advancing his
interests, failing to report a bribery attempt from newspaper ‘Yediot Aharonot’
publisher Arnon Mozes, who wanted Netanyahu to allow a bill to pass outlawing
free newspapers and offered him favorable coverage in exchange, and accepting
an offer in which Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Israeli telecom conglomerate
Bezeq, would grant Netanyahu favorable media coverage in exchange for favorable
regulatory changes.”
Netanyahu has asserted that the charges are false, highly
inflated – and political. Netanyahu’s political enemies have been gunning for
him for decades.
It will all come out in the wash, political cynics believe.
But there is a great deal of dirty linen in the wash tub. Consider the title
and then the lede to the Fox News story: “Netanyahu knocks Obama, John Kerry in first
appearance at corruption trial: The Israeli prime minister said Obama offered
him a secret visit to Afghanistan.”
The lede to the story arrests the attention of the reader:
“In his first appearance in court for corruption charges, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid bare his stark disagreements with former
President Barack Obama over Iran and a Palestinian state.”
As always, Netanyahu is quotable: “Obama made it clear to me
that U.S. policy was going to take a sharp turn against the ideas I believed
in.. He saw Iran not as a threat but as an opportunity and saw a vital need for
us to return to the '67 lines and establish a Palestinian state here… I had to
face great pressure to create a Palestinian state. [Obama] demanded it during
the first meeting, he said: 'Not even one brick will you build over the Green
Line.' I responded: 'Half of Jerusalem is over the Green Line; for instance,
the Gilo neighborhood.' Obama said: 'Gilo too.' He demanded a total
construction freeze, massive pressure. I had to deal with this, I had to
deflect it, and it was no small matter."
Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, the heroic “Winter Solider” of Vietnam, was
his usual blustering self. Kerry was at the time “urging Israeli forces to
withdraw from Judea and Samaria,” Fox News’ formulation. “Kerry explained to
me,” said Netanyahu, “that my fear of placing security in Judea and Samaria in
Palestinian forces' hands was unfounded because the Americans were training
Palestinian forces and we could withdraw… Obama suggested I make a secret visit
to Afghanistan to see how American forces were training local forces. I told
him the moment you leave Afghanistan, these forces will collapse under Islamist
forces, and that's exactly what happened."
No one can plausibly argue that Netanyahu’s reaction to the
Afghanistan invite was off-base. Following President Joe Biden’s premature and
hasty surrender of Bagram Air Force Base to the Taliban and the President’s
withdrawal of intelligence to the “local forces” trained by Americans, the
Taliban were instantly victorious. Lately, the lame duck president and his
media supporters were astonished at the swift defeat of Bashar al-Assad’s army
in Syria.
Assad has taken refuge in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and the
rout followed Netanyahu’s military victories over the enemies of Israel: Hamas
in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iranian mischief throughout the Middle East.
When Hezbollah fell, the walls of Iran came tumbling down. And it was not
Biden, or Kerry, or Obama who was responsible for the welcome turn of events in
the Middle East.
That was Netanyahu’s doing,
and he was operating outside the limits of the usual foggy-bottom do-nothing
strategy.
“Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace, Peace,’ but there is no peace”
Patrick Henry’s declaimed at the Second Virginia Convention in March of 1775.
Henry lifted the quote from Jeremiah 6:14: “They dress the wound of my people
with very little care, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace at all.”
"The real threat to democracy in Israel is not posed by
the public’s elected representatives,” Netanyahu said in a statement on
Thursday, “but by some among the law enforcement authorities who refuse to
accept the voters’ choice and are trying to carry out a coup with rabid
political investigations that are unacceptable in any democracy,"
Chief political analyst for Israel's Channel 12 Amit Segal
added the following gloss: “Netanyahu is on trial for allegedly using his
political power to improve his media coverage. His defense: the coverage was
not positive but hostile, and I did not attempt to change it for the benefit of
Netanyahu the citizen but for the benefit of the State of Israel in response to
Obama’s hostile stance."
Comments