“This makes President Biden the seventh consecutive US president to order strikes in the Middle East.” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “There is absolutely no justification for a president to authorize a military strike that is not in self-defense against an imminent threat without congressional authorization….I spoke against endless war with Trump, and I will speak out against it when we have a Democratic President.”
“We pretended to my shame at times in the Obama administration that Netanyahu was interested in the two-state solution. When I dont think he was, ever,” Ben Rhodes says. And Rhodes is just as cynical about Palestinian opportunities for sovereignty under the Obama administration. “I can tell you we didn’t really give them one when I was there. Not a real one.”
Almost a month into the Biden presidency Benjamin Netanyahu is still sitting by the phone waiting for his first phone call.
Announcing construction on a key Jerusalem settlement 5 hours before inauguration, utterly foreclosing the possibility of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu sought an “altercation” with Joe Biden, says Jerusalem watcher Daniel Seidemann. And who won? Biden has said nothing.
Historian Jerome Slater reinterprets the Cold War in the Middle East: “It’s an easy case to make that it was the United States, specifically Nixon and Kissinger… who sabotaged Soviet inititatives that I think were very fair for a two state settlement guaranteed by the super powers.” The Soviets wouldn’t have been in the Middle East if the U.S. hadn’t supported Israel so vigorously, which left Arab states no choice but to align with the Soviet pole. But the Soviets pushed peace in an effort to thwart a global conflict.
Ted Cruz: “Do you agree that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and do you commit that the United States will keep our the embassy there?”
Biden nominee for sec’y of state Tony Blinken: “Yes and Yes.”
In the latest Mondoweiss podcast, Michael Arria interviews DNC delegate Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison about the outcome of the recent U.S. elections, and what it means for Palestinian-Americans’ engagement with the U.S. political system.
By giving hundreds of millions to Bush and Trump, the late Sheldon Adelson helped destroy the peace process and crush peace with Iran. Sadly the media never sought to expose and discredit his antidemocratic power, bigotry and extremism, because his mere presence fed antisemitic stereotype, of the puppetmaster, as even Trump referred to him.
The Israel lobby expects that Joe Biden will name a Zionist Jew as ambassador to Israel, continuing a tradition that Bill Clinton began 25 years ago. But as Dems call for greater diversity in ambassadorial appointments, this is one post that would benefit from a nod that does not seem loaded on one side of a conflict.
The Capitol riot is a liability to Israel’s Trump lovers. “Netanyahu’s complete identification with Trump will return like a boomerang,” says Ahmad Tibi. But Netanyahu hasn’t woken to the new reality and apparently plans to take on Joe Biden from Day 1.