Joe Biden has been president for almost a month, but he still hasn’t called the leader of America’s closest ally yet.
“Is Biden Ghosting Netanyahu?,” Yahoo wonders. “Call Me Maybe?” is a headline writer’s joke at The Guardian.
“To Netanyahu’s sorrow, it seems that the Americans are very interested in proving that Biden is not such a close personal friend of the prime minister,” laments a columnist at the Israeli paper Makor Rishon.
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon even tweeted the Prime Minister’s number at Biden’s Twitter account and called him to phone Netanyahu.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has downplayed the lack of communication. “They spoke actually during the transition,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week. “I think one of the first calls the president had was with the Prime Minister, and I’ve talked to my Israeli counterparts on multiple occasions already.”
It’s difficult to think any of this will end up meaning anything in terms of United States policy. In that same interview with Blitzer, Blinken said that Biden considers Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, refused to criticize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, or distance the new administration from the outlook of Trump’s team.
“Look, leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter the Golan is very important to Israel’s security, as long as Assad is in power in Syria, as long as long as Iran is present in Syria,” Blinken told Blitzer. “Militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself. All of these pose a significant security threat to Israel and as a practical matter, control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security.”
“To reflect on how outrageous this is, imagine if Iran captured the Syrian Golan Heights using Netanyahu’s threats as a pretext — Would Blinken ever excuse it?,” tweeted political analyst Omar Baddar in response to these assertions. “Of course not! Only Israeli land theft is magically justifiable in the name of ‘security’.”
After Danon shared Netanyahu’s number with Biden, former state department Middle East analyst David Aaron Miller replied. “Memo to all interested parties. A call will come. But a clear message is being sent. Netanyahu was Trump’s 3rd call. To quote Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
It’s probably worth remembering that, according to the movie, Dorothy was very much still in Kansas. The whole thing was a dream.
Israel is acting like the petulant brat that wants attention, once again. Netanyahu has an election around the corner and he WANTS Biden to call, and make him look like the only candidate with in roads to the White House.
Danon is the shameless whiny servant, who wants to make it happen.
These zionists are behaving like they are entitled to be no.1 in everything the US does. I simply cannot see ANY of our real allies act so demanding, or sore, because Biden did not make that phone call. The longer it takes for Biden to call Bibi the better. Netanyahu is a cheap opportunist, he took advantage of Trump’s insanity, greed, and ignorance, and now wants to make nice with Biden. Time for the US to cut off those apron strings, we have much to do here, and with our true allies.
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A few possble reasons why Biden is avoiding Netanyahu:
Netanyahu, the shyster:
Video: July 17, 2010 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrtuBas3Ipw
Netanyahu boasts about how he emptied the Oslo Accords of meaning by an interpretation that made a mockery of them..
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https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-model-191231050742080.html
“Israel: A model for the far right” by Denijal Jegic, Al Jazeera, Jan. 2/2020
“White supremacists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and religious fundamentalists find inspiration, and support, in Tel Aviv.”
“On December 15, Brazil opened a trade office in Jerusalem and announced that it would soon relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his appreciation by declaring Israel has ‘no better friends than the people and government of Brazil.’
“Brazil’s endorsement of settler-colonialism and military occupation in Palestine is part of a broader global trend of right-wing, far-right, and fundamentalist movements embracing Zionism as a model for the successful perpetuation of racist policies.”
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https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Encountering-Peace-Have-We-No-Shame-596738
“ENCOUNTERING PEACE: HAVE WE NO SHAME?”
“What we did, what the State of Israel did, what we do in the name of the Jewish state is becoming pure evil.”
BY GERSHON BASKIN JULY 24, 2019, Jerusalem Post
“As I watched the video of the Israeli soldiers and police blowing up one of the 13 residential buildings demolished this week in the Wadi al-Hummus neighborhood of Sur Bahir in east Jerusalem, I wanted to bury myself in shame. When the building imploded and the soldiers laughed as we heard the screams and cries from the Palestinians who became homeless, my shame turned to pure outrage and the urge to be violent. But I will not step down to that level. I will not be violent. But I will not hold back, I will not forget and I will not forgive. What we did, what the State of Israel did, what we do in the name of the Jewish state is becoming pure evil.” (cont’d)
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“My first thoughts about what I see in the daily reality of east Jerusalem, and the West Bank and Gaza – things such as the Sur Bahir home demolitions; the removal of Palestinians from their homes in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, and the moving in of Jewish settlers in their place; settlement expansion and building at a faster pace than I have seen in many years; unauthorized settlements being built, budgeted and hooked up to Israeli infrastructure; massive police presence all over the West Bank ticketing hundreds of Palestinian cars (not cars of settlers); and the ongoing strangling the Palestinian economy in full coordination with the US government – all of these actions and more are leading to a definite explosion. My thought: Maybe that is exactly what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants? This is the perfect backdrop for Election Day. Could even Netanyahu be so cynical? I thought to myself – this can’t be.”
Leaving aside the legalities, as a practical matter if the Zionist army had not driven most of the Palestinian Muslims and Christians from their homes and lands in 1948, they would have been a security threat to Israel.
Cry my a river. Biden has had to call all of those countries because of the damage Bibi’s BFF Trump did to US relations with said countries. US foreign relations are in damage control, while Israel has been spoilt rotten for 4 years, pandered to ad nauseam, got away with another massacre in Gaza, and blocked Democrats from a tour of Israel and Palestine with absolutely zero consequences.
Bibi is just terrified that the Biden administration might show even the slightest sign of backbone in regards to their malignant behavior. He’s terrified of the US re-joining the JCPOA and removing the big bad boogieman Iran from his political arsenal at home and in the US Congress. He’s terrified that Bien is going to halt F35 sales to the UAE and Bahrain and their dirty non-peace deal will fall through and show the world that they weren’t so much peace deals, but hollow bribes. He’s terrified that the US is re-joining the UNRWA and UNHRC. He’s terrified that the US will stand by with arms folded an let the ICC continue its investigations into Israeli and Hamas war crimes.
Poor little old man. He’s forgotten the old adage, “If you lie with dogs, you get up with fleas.”