Joe Biden has put out the word, go get your photo-ops with Netanyahu, and Democrats are all over Israel, sucking up; The New York mayor is going to Israel for four days to “combat antisemitism”; a Golda Meir biopic looks awful; and more!
Netanyahu’s reported historic meeting with the Saudi crown prince this morning in Saudi Arabia at the behest of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a power move. The Saudi monarchy gets Israel lobby on its side to counter Biden’s human rights objections. Israel gets Saudi ally to help tie Biden’s hands against reentering Iran deal as posing a threat to peace in the Middle East.
Netanyahu will move ahead to annex territories in Palestine near the Green Line containing Jewish settlements, says Yair Golan of Meretz. “He will explain to the rest of the world, Alright, we did what was reasonable, what was accepted by the Palestinians in former negotations, and what was heavily accepted by President Trump according to his future plan.”
Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer says that Israel will be the most important ally to the U.S. in the 21st century because of security threats from the Middle East and because Israel is in the “elite” of technology innovating countries, surpassing Britain.
Dismissing the idea of a two-state solution, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, says that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is like the U.S. occupation of Japan and Germany after World War II. The occupation was imposed at first, but the people came to understand that occupation was “good for them.” He doesn’t note that Americans did not seize lands in those countries and build exclusive roads and cities and move our population into colonies, as Israel has done.
Joe Biden has bragged of raising money from the Israel lobby group AIPAC, declared “Israel…the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East,” professed, “I’m a Zionist,” and in 2014 said he had told Netanyahu, “I love you. Read an overview of Biden’s remarks on Jews and Israel, including his belief that efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, or even to protest the 2014 Gaza onslaught, are anti-Semitic.