In his angry speech today promising to “topple” the next government of Israel, the defeated former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bragged of all his work in the United States. He had defied a president to oppose the Iran deal, he backed that up with a “massive effort in the Congress and public opinion.” He successfully opposed any effort to create a Palestinian state.
“With all the policy differences between us and the incoming [American] government, an Israeli Prime Minister must be able to say No to a U.S. President,” Netanyahu said. “Who will do that now? They–” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s coalition– “do not want and are not capable of standing up to the United States.”
When the U.S. returns to the Iran deal, the new government will take token actions, Netanyahu said. And when the U.S. government demands the uprooting of settlements, the new government will not oppose it forcefully. When the U.S. government puts a consulate for Palestine in Jerusalem, the Israeli government will issue lame tweets and fold.
It goes without saying that Netanyahu is a giant political talent, and in his non-farewell address he showed us the playbook. “The United States is something that can be easily moved,” he said in a famous moment 20 years ago. Today he repeated the claim, and he said only he could do it.
Netanyahu is right. Israel has easily moved U.S. policy for decades now, and for the last 12 years due to two large coordinated forces: Netanyahu’s will and the powerful Israel lobby in U.S. politics, embodied by Sheldon Adelson on the right, and Haim Saban in the Democratic Party. Remember that then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz led the repeated standing ovations to Netanyahu in Congress in 2011 when he slapped down President Obama over the idea of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. And that Obama’s aide Ben Rhodes has now expressed “shame” that the president went along with Netanyahu’s lie that he wanted to create a Palestinian state. While on the right side of U.S. politics, Donald Trump trashed the Iran deal and bribed Arab nations to support Israel to keep the Israel lobby happy.
These are now historical events. As Netanyahu said today, the incoming Biden administration will soon reenter the Iran deal, and who is going to stop them? The next prime minister, a 49-year-old who has only 7 seats in his party and looks like a chipmunk? AIPAC and the AJC and the other center-right Israel lobby organizations are run by old guys with little energy. Netanyahu has cast the liberal Zionist group J Street as a “radical left” organization, but it has friends in the White House and most of the Democratic Congress, and J Street supports the Iran deal. It is now the leader of the Democratic Party Israel lobby– and under a lot of pressure from the base to demand the conditioning of aid to Israel over war crimes.
The Israel lobby isn’t going away. It is still a dominant force in Middle East policymaking, thanks to big pro-Israel Jewish donors. But the lobby is being reshuffled before our eyes, and there are finally others at the table. The Squad represents a real force in the Congress that is critical of Israel– and that finally gives a voice to the Democratic street, that wants to cut aid over war crimes, including illegal settlements. Even Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez are aware of these voters, and have curbed their pro-Israel rhetoric.
Netanyahu said today that Bennett would not be able to stand up to the world either. Here he means the International Criminal Court that is investigating Israel for war crimes in Gaza, and the many human rights groups accusing it of apartheid, and the global nonviolent Palestinian campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
In short the playing field has changed dramatically since Netanyahu could twist a Democratic president’s arm again and again, and it was game over.
Joe Biden doesn’t want to fight with Naftali Bennett because it would hurt his party politically– again, the Democratic Party is dependent on the Israel lobby. But he is sure to demand that Bennett keep their differences quiet. This too will mark a new era. Netanyahu bragged today that he refused the Biden administration’s demand that he keep differences between the countries quiet. Bennett is well to Netanyahu’s right, but he is dependent on left Zionist and Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament, and will have trouble throwing his weight around in Jerusalem let alone D.C. When there is a battle over illegal settlements, Bennett will get flak from his own coalition and J Street.
The Israel lobby is now fragmented and on its back foot. Yes the lobby will reassert its strength due to the power of donors. But the disarray will not end soon. J Street and the rightwing Democratic Majority for Israel will be openly at odds, and the Jewish youth group IfNotNow will continue to demand change from the establishment.
The lobby has lost its commander in Netanyahu. Already the destruction of Netanyahu in Israel has begun, with rightwing leaders saying he should have been replaced earlier.
The political realignment that is before us will be an opportunity for the left. Israel is an apartheid state run by a man who said Palestinians swing from trees. It is time for Palestinians to move America.
Netanyahu’s influence over American politicians was relatively simple to understand. He knew the American mind was the battleground and he craftily manipulated it, with help from a water carrying media. He was a subtle provocateur, able to anger and enrage Palestinians without having to take responsibility for doing so. He played them and could count on their lashing out on his cue. Americans, from their selectively provided information, came to feel empathy for Palestinian suffering but believed the bad things that happened, they irrationally brought upon themselves. The upshot, Israel was justified, seen as acting in self defense. Americans support underdogs especially when they are seen as rational and protest/resist by “the rules”. BLM would not have gained traction if protesters kept on throwing things at the police. Americans appreciate civility, placards, the very things Netanyahu feared most and therefore attacked on the slightest basis. Too often there were hotheads who played into his hands. With a more awake media, the ground is fertile. Most know what to expect from Netanyahu as he seeks to regain power. America is an ally in waiting. They understand “equality” and will refuse apartheid.
That is one evil guy gone, and another will step into his shoes, and try to prove himself by being more Netanyahu-ish. Netanyahu has decided to take the same route as our last loser in the WH, by claiming the elections were a fraud, and he will try to sabotage the new government as much as possible, an angry venomous snake, who will strike at everyone and everything, so that he can get back to power again, again just like Trump. They also have investigations going on against them, and of course they are both claiming that it is a witch hunt.
It is ironic that the US despite giving them billions of dollars, and weapons, it getting hit too by the angry loser. Talk about biting the hands that feed it. He is flaunting the fact that he was able to intimidate and control the US into doing things HIS way. Shame on us.
Now brace yourselves Naftali Bennet will be more of the same. NOTHING will change for the Palestinians, and even for the US.
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“Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Has Nothing to Lose”
Gideon Levy. Haaretz. Jun. 12, 2021
“The Haaretz archive doesn’t lie, even if it occasionally surprises: I discovered that I am in favor of Naftali Bennett.”
November 2014: ‘[W]ith [Bennett] Israel will no longer wear its lying, false, pretty face, which has allowed it to continue its policies. That’s why I’m for him.’ August 2020: ‘We need to start thinking about it – Naftali Bennett, the next prime minister of Israel. … That’s bad news, but there’s worse – a chain of events that’s not imaginary: Netanyahu’s Likud party slumps, Bennett’s Yamina rises, the center-left lacks proper leadership & Bennett attracts the longed-for ‘Anyone But Bibi’ coalition. … Far right would replace moderate right, religious would replace secular, … the end of deception. With Bennett at the helm, Israel would be officially declared a capitalist, colonialist apartheid state.’ Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
“It starts Sunday. The former director general of the Yesha Council of settlements from Ra’anana will be sworn in as prime minister. Half the nation feels it is going from darkness to light, the other half feels it’s doing the opposite, and in both cases it’s not because of Bennett. He is still bad news, yet not the worst. But the truth is that, save for an extreme, imaginary, inconceivable scenario, Bennett as prime minister is not news. Deducting for all the reforms to public health and to transportation that will or will not be implemented, in the end the Pretoria of the Middle East chose a prime minister, & he will continue to do as the Pretorians do.
“In South Africa, too, it didn’t much matter who was prime minister as long as apartheid continued. Who cared whether John Vorster was more moderate than P.W. Botha, or vice versa – they championed the same regime, which always determined who led it. (cont’d)
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VIDEO:
Disturbing Truth About Israel’s New Government w/ Miko Peled & Abby Martin – YouTube
“Disturbing Truth About Israel’s New Government with Miko Peled & Abby Martin” June 11/21
“Netanyahu could be out. A more extreme right-winger is set to take his place. But the new ruling coalition is being heralded as a ‘progressive step’ and ‘an opportunity for change.’ Learn the shocking details about what is happening, and what it means for Palestine with prominent Israeli dissident Miko Peled.”
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“It’s the same in Israel. Until the Israel F.W. de Klerk is born – & apparently he has not been born, not even with Bennett’s swearing-in – then the margins for historic change between one prime minister & the next are very slim indeed, nearly invisible, just as they were in South Africa. There, too, they had free elections, albeit not general elections; there, too, they had coalitions, governments that fell & rose, extremists of varying degrees – all within the narrow confines of an evil, criminal regime.
“All we can do now is dream. No one had any expectations from de Klerk, either. Imagine Bennett, whose kippa is tiny & who nevertheless is also from Ra’anana and from America, even though he is from the Golan Heights & the Yesha Council; imagine that in his allotted two years as premier, in which he can remain an obscure footnote in the list of Israel’s prime ministers or turn into a world-class revolutionary, he takes the latter choice. Just imagine.
“The odds are slim to none. They were the same for all his predecessors, from the left & the right. But the odds of Bennett becoming prime minister were also very poor, & yet he is. The chance of him doing now what an Israeli prime minister will do one day – but only when Israel reaches the edge of the abyss – is imaginary. And yet: Just imagine.
“Bennett has nothing to lose: he puts his name either on a forgotten episode, or on history. Either a one-paragraph entry in Wikipedia, a stub article, or books on the history of Israel. Perhaps he is also courageous. Perhaps he knows the truth, deep down, and the truth is that he will be the prime minister of about 14 million people. Five million of them have no rights. They cannot vote for or against him, even though he is their prime minister as well, against their will. In the United States, Bennett must have learned that this can only be called apartheid. And that the prime minister of apartheid is the prime minister of apartheid, & not of Israel or of a democracy. Bennett also knows from history that this situation is reversible. It can be changed in a single stroke, in fact that’s the only way to change it.
“It happened when no one expected it to happen. It happened because it cannot go on like this. We are already there, Mr. Prime Minister.”