This column is called the Shift but this week there was a crack! Joe Biden called on Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the judicial reforms his government has set out on — and warned that if Netanyahu undermined the courts, Israel and the U.S. would no longer share democratic values.
And in a rare moment of political weakness, Netanyahu backed down, putting the measures off for a month as he and the opposition, which has filled the streets of Tel Aviv, try and work out a compromise.
Up till now, Biden has done all he can to avoid a confrontation with Netanyahu. But in two meetups with the press on March 28, Biden spoke with restrained anger:
Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. And I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear…. Hopefully, the prime minister will act in a way that he is going to try to work out some genuine compromise… I hope he — I hope he walks away from it.
Asked whether he was inviting Netanyahu to the White House, Biden dropped a bombshell:
Not — not in the near term.
So now the relationship between the countries is “severely strained” (as Israeli ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff lamented on i24News) in ways that recall the Obama problems with Netanyahu. Israel is no longer a star on the U.S. flag! Netanyahu’s fascistic partner Itamar Ben Gvir taunted.
The fascinating thing about Biden’s shift is that he was openly taking his cue from mainline Israel lobby groups. He told the Israelis that the big Jews have his back:
“Anyway, we’re not interfering. They [Israel] know my position. They know America’s position. They know the American Jewish position.”
It was evident that the White House had conferred with four big rightwing Israel lobby groups, the ADL, the AJC, the Conference of Presidents, and the Jewish Federations, which had issued a joint statement applauding the Israeli demonstrations against Netanyahu and called on the Israeli government to “build a consensus that includes the broad support of Israeli civil society.”
The fifth horseman of the apocalypse — AIPAC — did not join that statement. And in fact, the neoconservative press lashed out at Biden and the other four Jewish groups, saying they had parroted one another’s scripts in opposing Netanyahu.
Biden clearly feels he is safe politically because Jewish leaders are angry at Netanyahu– who is “in Thelma and Louise territory,” according to one American advocate for Israel.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times is saying the same thing. Friedman, who loves the power game, called on the “pro-Israel Jewish lobby in America” to isolate Netanyahu and said Netanyahu shouldn’t be allowed to enter the U.S. until he apologizes for suggesting that the U.S. was covertly funding the anti-government rallies.
Friedman and the Federations and the ADL — that’s a big crack in the lobby. This time around it isn’t Establishment Jews vs. Jewish Voice for Peace or Breira. It’s a big fight within machers in the Establishment itself.
Democrats speak out, finally
If Biden is feeling a bit of freedom, so are Democrats who know that by 49 to 38 percent, Democrats now feel greater sympathy for Palestinians than they do for Israelis, according to Gallup no less.
This week saw stirrings of support for Palestine in the progressive camp. Rep. Jamaal Bowman sent a letter to Biden, signed on to by Senator Bernie Sanders and members of the Squad in the House, demanding that the U.S. “undertake a shift in US policy” in recognition of the “denial of Palestinian rights” and cut off American aid that is going to illegal settlements and human rights violations.
Bowman has been somewhat careful about his Israel criticism, as his district includes parts of Westchester. But he was joined by Pittsburgh’s new Congressperson Summer Lee (who I told you gets the story and won’t back down), and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, André Carson, and Ayanna Pressley.
(Jewish leaders, including many from Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, and also Americans for Peace Now, endorsed the conditioning-aid letter.)
Even Democratic mainstream liberals feel it’s safe to be critical. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen told CNN it was time for the Biden administration to insist on “consequences” for Israel’s bad behavior. And Van Hollen was talking Palestinian rights, not the Israeli court system, targeting Netanyahu’s fascistic ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — “two individuals with a record of attacking the rights of Palestinians,” who are now seeking to annex the West Bank.
Rep. Katie Porter, running for the Senate in California, took a giant step away from her earlier love for Netanyahu, expressing “concern” about the “inclusion of some of the far-right voices in Israel’s coalition government.”
Porter surely felt licensed by her rival Adam Schiff, who, in an appearance in a Los Angeles temple, also expressed deep concern about the coalition members. Schiff, of course, stressed “my love for Israel” but went on to say that in 2019 he saw Israel on a worse path than Afghanistan. That Schiff feels safe saying as much to a Jewish audience is a big deal.
The battle to save Israel’s image has a problem– Israel
There is still a giant disconnect here. Katie Porter lauds Israel’s democratic values, but If she actually had to spend time with any of the people in Netanyahu’s bloc, or Benny Gantz’s bloc– the big center-right winner in the Israeli showdown — or even Yair Lapid’s centrist bloc — she would run out of there with her hair on fire. Most Israeli Jewish politicians are knuckle-dragging racists, and many are religious nationalists. Even Israel’s Labor party talks about the Palestinian birth rate. Meretz is different– but Meretz didn’t even make the cut in this parliament.
If you want to understand how right-wing Israel is, just look at this anti-Palestinian rant this week from one of Netanyahu’s Likud parliament members at a rally supporting the judiciary reform plan. Tali Gottlieb repeatedly calls for collective punishment against Palestinians as “terrorists,” and the flag-wrapped crowd loves her for it. And on the other side, those “pro-democracy” demonstrators in Tel Aviv are led by military reservists supporting the Israeli courts to ensure that Israeli soldiers face no consequences internationally for slaughtering nonviolent Palestinian demonstrators.
Trying to uphold Israel’s image in the New York Times, Bret Stephens lauds the anti-Netanyahu demonstrators as a marvel of democracy, saying that “this was a revolt of the political center against the fringe.” But later, he writes that in Israel, “raw majoritarianism puts everyone at risk.”
Wait– is it majoritarianism or fringe?
The answer is, It’s not a fringe. As we have reported continually, the Jewish nationalist right just keeps getting stronger in Israel, it is the center. Ben-Gvir could one day be prime minister he has such talent, the late Yossi Gurvitz warned me. Smotrich is gaining on Netanyahu too.
This is modern Israel– an ethno-security state whose elite pilots train to fire missiles on apartment houses 30 miles away in Gaza.
And even Stephens is genuinely worried about a civil war between the fanatics and the “Start-Up” nation that will end the Jewish state.
Don’t worry, DeSantis and Jeffries are off to Israel!
Ron DeSantis is going to Israel next month and positioning himself to the right of Donald Trump on Israel!
And House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is also going to Israel. That’s “Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever,” Jeffries, who replaced Nancy — “The Capitol will crumble to the ground” before Democrats stop giving aid to Israel — Pelosi. When is the Democratic leadership gonna see what Jamaal Bowman and Chris Van Hollen see?
Yet another apartheid label for Israel
On Jeffries’s trip to Israel last year he pushed back when Palestinians quoted Amnesty International’s report saying Israel was practicing apartheid: “Accusations of Israeli apartheid are ‘demonstrably false, dangerous and designed to isolate Israel in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the world.'”
Well, here’s yet another apartheid accusation, and this is from a law professors’ group inside Israel. “Consensus around Israel’s apartheid keeps growing,” writes Omar Shakir. The profs note that Netanyahu transferred administration of portions of the occupied West Bank from the military to a civilian authority headed by Smotrich.
The transfer of responsibility and management of the Territories to civilian hand… constitutes an explicit and public subordination of the West Bank’s management to national and social interests of the state, in direct contravention of international law…
The agreement is an overt and formal measure that validates claims that Israel practices apartheid, which is prohibited under international law. It exposes Israeli nationals to claims relating to the crime of apartheid, which is indictable in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The US Jewish community consensus is eroding
More good news from Florida. This great ad from Jews Say No appeared in four Jewish newspapers there. These smart Jews stand up for refugees’ rights and against Jewish supremacy. And though they say that they are heartened by the Israeli protests (as I am too, the consensus is cracking there), they point out that the claim of Israeli democracy has been “a cruel hoax” for Palestinians.
Clearly, they are speaking for the quarter-and-more-every-day of U.S. Jews who see Israel as an apartheid state. I’m waiting for a New York Times columnist to focus on that!
Shireen Abu Akleh lives
And look what photo won the World Press Photo regional single award for Asia– a picture of Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral procession attacked by Israeli soldier thugs last May. More hearts and minds are changing every day.
Another article that indicates time is ripe for Israeli citizens to demand an end to supremacy and engage a campaign for equal civil and political rights.
It’s clear that Biden is seriously pissed with Nutty and his cast of clowns. For him, of all people, to FINALLY come right out and say what he did so publicly and bluntly says a LOT about where he is personally on this issue.
Make no mistake though, this is absolutely no great moment of altruism on the Israel/US or Israel/Palestine issues.
This is a very savvy and experienced politician about to launch his campaign for a second term as President, knowing that his “good old friend” Bibi Netanyahu and Israel itself is embarrassing him and directly put him in a highly precarious position in terms of financial, campaign, religious, lobbying, media, voter support, and the very future of his presidency.
Biden is acutely aware that while some politicians have managed to buck the trend and get reelected multiple times despite their criticism or perceived criticism of Israel. History has proven time and time again that criticizing or taking a hard line with Israel is a guaranteed fast track to a one-term presidency.
If anything, Biden is probably the most pissed with Ambassador Tom Nides right now. Who YET AGAIN seems to have jumped the gun and placed the sole interests of Israel and its Prime Minister ahead of the American people, American interests, and the very White House Administration he is supposed to be serving! This is the REAL scandal that is getting glossed over and swiftly swept under rug by the media,
Nides has absolutely humiliated and embarrassed Biden at the worst possible time in US/Israeli relations and ahead of his campaign launch
While Biden wouldn’t dare recall Nides or publicly castigate him for yet another sickening display of misplaced allegiance by a Jewish US Ambassador to Israel, I can assure you that Nides has had his butthole absolutely chewed out by Biden for this. I expect that, outside of his relentless and public push for Israel to enter the Visa Waiver program (despite the fundamentally impossible requirements for Israel to meet), Nides will be rather quiet and restrained in regards to any and all public statements and interviews for the foreseeable future.
I doubt even a third intifada, massacre at Haram Al-Sharif, or full out invasion of Gaza would have him speaking so freely again right now.