I’m definitely ordering a copy.

In other words—Israel take some action the US disapproves of. The US issues a strong disapproval.

There are zero consequences for Israel.

The result 90 days later: The US promotes itself as the honest broker having given a tongue lashing to Israel. And Israel annexes, builds, steals more land in the interim.

Folks like Biden are no more than Israel’s useful idiots. But methinks that Biden is also aware of the game.

Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, called the timing of Israel’s decision unfortunate but said it was not Biden’s job to issue a condemnation. “The condemnation should have been issued by the State Department in Washington,” said Foxman.
“By taking this erroneous step, Biden undermined the central purpose of his trip to Israel – strengthening the friendship and cooperation between Israel and the U.S. “

And stupid old me thought that the purpose of this visit was to kickstart negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The U.S. will no longer turn a blind eye to Israeli settlements
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
Tags: Mahmoud Abbas

Even Mahmoud Abbas would have been hard put to dream up a greater victory for Palestinian diplomacy than the one handed to him Tuesday on a silver platter by the Israeli Interior Ministry. The condemnations have been pouring in since the plan to build 1,600 homes in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood was announced. Not only from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, but from the United Nations, the European Union and world leaders, all of them slamming the decision.

While government officials were busy yesterday blaming each other for the bad timing, it seems they were missing the bigger picture: Washington and the international community will no longer accept, even by looking the other way, Israeli construction in East Jerusalem. The capital is now the focus of the cold (but slowly warming) war between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority is exploiting this with weekly demonstrations, while Israel throws fuel on the fire by taking further unilateral steps. The situation is only likely to escalate this morning with the expected disclosure of full details of the city’s building plans.

From the Israeli perspective, this embarrassing affair could have much more serious consequences. The main purpose of Biden’s visit is to increase Israeli-U.S. coordination in the campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. As things stand, the level of trust between Barack Obama and Netanyahu is low. If the prime minister proves once again that he can’t be trusted not to embarrass the U.S. president when it comes to construction in Jerusalem and the settlements, how can they trust each other on Iran, where the issue of coordination is more critical?

nope, no hallucination

link to maxblumenthal.com

Nor has he said a word about demanding Yishai’s resignation.