Netanyahu win dashes prospect for a thaw with Obama

[Wat dee]

What amuses me is all this anti-Jewish/anti-Israel drivel being used against the only country in the Middle East that has the temerity to hold open elections for their leadership.

It would appear many members of this forum prefer Islamic theocracies to a free nation choosing their own path.

Now the rants will become louder. Get after it.

Some of Us try to learn from history.

[Publicus]

"...it was no secret that Obama and his advisers would have welcomed a change in Israeli leadership."

As if the Israeli people give a s... what Obama thinks.

Why do some people say that America should keep its nose out of other peoples' business until it comes to trying to push the Israeli people around?

This was their election. Obama can buzz off.

Obama single handedly gave Bibi this election. Obama does not use soft policy, a big stick, or other tools of state craft; this administration uses criminal-like tools to manipulate, weaponize the region through third parties, employ NGOs as proxies, and actually meddle and overthrow governments directly. Netanyahu's victory was an indictment of Obama. The jews have a greater sense of realpolitik with regards to the middle east than the muslim brotherhood advised US president (sources too numerous to cite). Obama will add one more canister of fuel into the regional war he is creating in the middle east. While the immediate vehicle to conflict may be seen as this election, a broad view reveals every single issue Obama has meddled in inexorably leads to a greater likelihood of war the region. If a person has a narrow view any one issue may look explosive, but rarely is. In the middle east there are so many tinder boxes left smoking and kindling due to this administration's meddling that fairly short time will set them further ablaze- but not before he further empowers DAESH. Can anyone provide one single instance where Obama's middle east meddling has lessened the likelihood of war? Anyone? Anyone?

(Note: The recent incidents where Obama has provided aid to Israel contrary to the narrative I am suggesting above is because he has to; he has no choice)!

The post presents the continued hard right assault by the American political and rhetorical extremes against Prez Obama as if he had been on the ballot in Israel as the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and endorsed by ISIL.

The P5+1 nuclear negotiators are completely Ignored, as is the fact Iran is desperate for an agreement so some sanctions can be lifted now with others forward scheduled for lifting depending on Iran's good behavior.

Also ignored is that it is now Israel against the international community, which means the world, led by the P5+1 which is led by the United States.

US public approval of Netanyahu declined 7% after his speech to the congress and his disapproval increased by 14%, which indicates the beginning of a strong negative trend against him across the United States with only hard core Republicans and also extreme rightists approving of him. The international community will welcome and be encouraged by the coming policy changes the US government will implement at the UN and in the Security Council, changes directly in response to Netanyahu and his harsh, unrelenting no-solutions extremism.

The world and the United States are changing and Bibi Netanyahu's reaction is to go significantly farther to the extreme right than any P5+1 and Western leader considers to be responsible, appropriate, constructive.

Good bye luck with that.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Publicus

[Wat dee]

Dude, there is antisemitism everywhere, even in countries with basically NO Jews like South Korea!

Next ...

That should tell you something!! Anything?

[Chicog]

What amuses me is all this anti-Jewish/anti-Israel drivel being used against the only country in the Middle East that has the temerity to hold open elections for their leadership.

It would appear many members of this forum prefer Islamic theocracies to a free nation choosing their own path.

Now the rants will become louder. Get after it.

Im against Islamic dictatorship in Iran,

It's more of a theocratic oligarchy.

[arjunadawn]

"...it was no secret that Obama and his advisers would have welcomed a change in Israeli leadership."

As if the Israeli people give a s... what Obama thinks.

Why do some people say that America should keep its nose out of other peoples' business until it comes to trying to push the Israeli people around?

This was their election. Obama can buzz off.

Obama single handedly gave Bibi this election. Obama does not use soft policy, a big stick, or other tools of state craft; this administration uses criminal-like tools to manipulate, weaponize the region through third parties, employ NGOs as proxies, and actually meddle and overthrow governments directly. Netanyahu's victory was an indictment of Obama. The jews have a greater sense of realpolitik with regards to the middle east than the muslim brotherhood advised US president (sources too numerous to cite). Obama will add one more canister of fuel into the regional war he is creating in the middle east. While the immediate vehicle to conflict may be seen as this election, a broad view reveals every single issue Obama has meddled in inexorably leads to a greater likelihood of war the region. If a person has a narrow view any one issue may look explosive, but rarely is. In the middle east there are so many tinder boxes left smoking and kindling due to this administration's meddling that fairly short time will set them further ablaze- but not before he further empowers DAESH. Can anyone provide one single instance where Obama's middle east meddling has lessened the likelihood of war? Anyone? Anyone?

(Note: The recent incidents where Obama has provided aid to Israel contrary to the narrative I am suggesting above is because he has to; he has no choice)!

Of course Obama has pushed against Israel's interests as far as he dares. He knows full well that the only thing that will allow future presidents sharing Obamas ideology to fully abandon Israel is a demographic change in the U.S. This is something he has set about with gusto, 300,000 Muslim third world immigrants into the U.S in 2014 alone.

If we cut to the chase a two state solution has always been a fantasy because the Palestinians want all of the cake themselves, hence they never renounce violence, never recognize Israel and quite openly say that any state they control will be Judenrein. Netanyahu is merely reflecting that reality with his statements. He never said anything about expelling Israel's Arab population, nor removing their voting rights. Indeed 77% of Israeli Arabs would rather be governed by Israel than the unaccountable and terminally corrupt Palestinian authority.

Without question were Palestinians to be offered a state today, tomorrow they would begin in earnest fortifying redoubts and preparing for war, all the while leveraging State alliances and proxies to enhance their ability to inflict injury on Israel. Through the Arab League, EU sycophants, and other vehicles, "Palestine" would force multiply their otherwise total inability to wage war on Israel and begin a State war of attrition using UN tools, international tools, trade embargoes through treaties, and the ostensible terrorists from their territories that "they try to control" but just cannot. Palestinians cannot, under any circumstances, countenance a world where Jews continue to exist. It is much deeper than any nationalist aspirations; it is the default tenet of their entire faith!

One can argue what I foresee of the future- that is fair game; but one cannot argue the core assertion- Arabs/muslims/Palestinians want jews dead and no Jewish State.

[MaxYakov]

"...it was no secret that Obama and his advisers would have welcomed a change in Israeli leadership."

As if the Israeli people give a s... what Obama thinks.

Why do some people say that America should keep its nose out of other peoples' business until it comes to trying to push the Israeli people around?

This was their election. Obama can buzz off.

Obama single handedly gave Bibi this election. Obama does not use soft policy, a big stick, or other tools of state craft; this administration uses criminal-like tools to manipulate, weaponize the region through third parties, employ NGOs as proxies, and actually meddle and overthrow governments directly. Netanyahu's victory was an indictment of Obama. The jews have a greater sense of realpolitik with regards to the middle east than the muslim brotherhood advised US president (sources too numerous to cite). Obama will add one more canister of fuel into the regional war he is creating in the middle east. While the immediate vehicle to conflict may be seen as this election, a broad view reveals every single issue Obama has meddled in inexorably leads to a greater likelihood of war the region. If a person has a narrow view any one issue may look explosive, but rarely is. In the middle east there are so many tinder boxes left smoking and kindling due to this administration's meddling that fairly short time will set them further ablaze- but not before he further empowers DAESH. Can anyone provide one single instance where Obama's middle east meddling has lessened the likelihood of war? Anyone? Anyone?

(Note: The recent incidents where Obama has provided aid to Israel contrary to the narrative I am suggesting above is because he has to; he has no choice)!

The post presents the continued hard right assault by the American political and rhetorical extremes against Prez Obama as if he had been on the ballot in Israel as the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and endorsed by ISIL.

The P5+1 nuclear negotiators are completely Ignored, as is the fact Iran is desperate for an agreement so some sanctions can be lifted now with others forward scheduled for lifting depending on Iran's good behavior.

Also ignored is that it is now Israel against the international community, which means the world, led by the P5+1 which is led by the United States.

US public approval of Netanyahu declined 7% after his speech to the congress and his disapproval increased by 14%, which indicates the beginning of a strong negative trend against him across the United States with only hard core Republicans and also extreme rightists approving of him. The international community will welcome and be encouraged by the coming policy changes the US government will implement at the UN and in the Security Council, changes directly in response to Netanyahu and his harsh, unrelenting no-solutions extremism.

The world and the United States are changing and Bibi Netanyahu's reaction is to go significantly farther to the extreme right than any Western leader considers to be responsible, appropriate, constructive.

Good bye luck with that.

You should be writing propaganda professionally ... maybe you are. Anyway, can you cite specific sites/links for your statistical assertions? Why do you always refer to anything that is not "extreme hard left" (such as Obama) as "extreme hard right"? Are you black or are you white? (rhetorical question illustrating one who cannot or refuses to see shades of grey).

As far as the "harsh, unrelenting no-solutions extremism" shouldn't you be laying that at the doorstep of the genuine extremists - you know who.

Netanyahu's Last-Minute Reversal on the Two-State Solution - The Atlantic

"Back in 2009, just three months after he became Israel's prime minister for the second time, Benjamin Netanyahu delivered what many called "an historic address." In it, Netanyahu described his "vision" of peace between Israelis and Palestinians:

There are two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence.

The speech was deemed remarkable because it contained Netanyahu's first-ever call for the establishment of a Palestinian state, a statement he had resisted throughout his long and winding political career."

So much for your "unrelenting". If major policy change occurs because of his win in the election, it will because Obama is a little boy and Netanyahu is a man.

Tip: If you are going to write propaganda professionally and be successful, it might be a good idea to be a lot more subtle with your "extreme, unrelenting" terminology/phraseology.

Edited March 19, 2015 by MaxYakov

[arjunadawn]

THERE IS no polite way to say this, but Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most repellent and dangerous politicians in the world today.

He is a man who trades on fear and war, a cynical and amoral manipulator without a trace of honesty in his entire body, who lies as easily as he breathes.

In 2012 he warned the United Nations that Iran was a year away from manufacturing a bomb, even though his own security services had told him something entirely different,

Last year he deliberately used the murders of three Israeli teenagers to manipulate Israeli public opinion into supporting the ferocious and strategically meaningless slaughter in Gaza.

He also manipulates his most powerful ally. In public Netanyahu never ceases to express his love and gratitude to the United States, which props up Israel’s military machine.

Yet in private he’s not always so respectful. Back in 2001 he told a group of settlers in the West Bank ‘I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.’

Netanyahu cannot be ignored entirely, not as long as Israelis are crazy enough to keep voting for him. But no country with any respect for truth or even its own national interest would actually invite a man like this to speak to its own elected representatives if it didn’t have to, let alone invite him in order to undermine the policy of its elected president.

This is a thorough posting, though I disagree:

1. Palestinians and regional muslims do not "trade on fear and war," they actually commit these things as a daily tenet of their lives. There, then, is a qualitative difference, were your perception correct.

2. Netanyahu is a politician. It is true that elected leaders should make decisions based on science, advisers, input, analysis, etc., but an elected leader is chosen not to be an apparatchik but to lead based on convictions and character; like or not, this is his conviction and character. He believes a path is correct in spite of public opinion, perhaps. This does not make a renegade as much as it makes a leader of men.

3. Last year Netanyahu did not "deliberately" murder "three Israeli teenagers." Those who make their life's fruit trading on "fear and war" murdered the children. Netanyahu held to a fairly well known Israeli position to treat each life is quite valuable and to response disproportionately to murder and mayhem. Only in the liberal upside down world of politically correct revision is proportional war thought to be a reasonable status quo. No! Survival is the end game, not public opinion. Hamas started the Gaza war.

4. Netanyahu, a man far more educated and savvy than most posters here may try to "manipulate his most powerful ally," the US. Indeed, this is Statecraft and every nation state that has ever existed as perused such ends. The US "prop[ing]" up the Israeli military is both a very old and universally shared American ideal and indeed, a requirement bound by treaty.

5. "Respect[ful]" is subjective. In a world where every special interest is a victim, and every human takes umbrage at nearly something anyone else says, noting that you think someone is respectful or not is a high bar to cross- its just everyone is disrespectful these days, just ask anyone else. An utterly subjective POV.

6. The notion that those who think differently than you are "crazy" regrettably undermines your keen, but incorrect, preceding posts. When you have to enhance your argument by disparaging personally, you have an inferior position. You can protest this, but the readers note it.

[Scott]

Off-topic, troll posts and replies removed.

[Jingthing]

Dude, there is antisemitism everywhere, even in countries with basically NO Jews like South Korea!

Next ...

That should tell you something!! Anything?

That there are haters of Jews everywhere.

Even "imaginary" Jews.

It's a social sickness -- this hatred of Jews.

On this forum too.

Very visibly.

[Scott]

Let's stay on topic please.

[ggold]

It is going to be very interesting to see what Netanyahu and his right wing coalition plan to do about the 2.5 million Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank. Netanyahu has now ruled out the 2 state solution much to the chagrin of the US administration who thought they had been negotiating and supporting this plan for the last 20 years. It appears the EU is not happy about this new development either.

The US and EU certainly won't allow institutionalized apartheid, if the West Bank were formally annexed, leaving 2.5 million residents without a vote. They won't allow ethnic cleansing either.

Another factor is that Israel is still a divided nation. I don't have figures for the popular vote but presumably 40-50% of Israelis did not support Netanyahu's policies.

Another factor is that Israel is still a divided nation. I don't have figures for the popular vote but presumably 40-50% of Israelis did not support Netanyahu's policies.

On that basis most countries in the world are divided. even in the UK the winning party gets less votes overall of the total vote.

You go on about apartheid, lets not forget it took America nearly 190 years before it started to move away from segregation!

But there is no Apartheid in Israel. there never was and never will be. It is the only totally inclusive country in the ME where people are free to practice their faith without the fear of persecution unlike many other countries in the ME.

Saying its not apartheid cause a muslim can practice his faith?

Let Schlomo and Abdullah swap their legal rights.

Let Schlomo live his life in the West Bank with the rights of an arab and let Abdullah have the fully equal rights that jewish settlers in the West Bank-border have, or why not let Abdullah move to Israel proper with the fully equal rights of a jew.

surely the whole problem has been that Abdullah doesn't want shlomo to live in the west bank, But also wants to live in Israel with out shlomo. So when Abdullah lets Shlomo live in the west bank let me know!

After all Shlomo really loves the west bank and would like nothing more than to live there in peace!

[chuckd]

If Israel doesn't care about what the U.S. thinks then don't accept any money from them and don't cry about it when the U.S. refuses to veto in the UNITED on Isael's behalf.

We will then hear Israel bleating.

Israel is a very dangerous nation and are top of the list to start WW3.

Expanding your argument a little farther...If the United Nations doesn't care about what the US thinks then don't accept any money from them...

For your information:

"American taxpayers account for billions of dollars in funding for the world body each year, including 22 percent of the regular budget, 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget, and substantial voluntary contributions to assorted U.N. agencies.

In the most recent year for which full details were subject to a congressional reporting requirement, U.N.-bound money channeled through multiple U.S. government agencies in fiscal year 2010 totaled $7.69 billion."

Anybody willing to pony up that $8 Billion or so each and every year to be kicked in the mouth by every backwater country in the world for their participation in this august body?

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/gop-senator-says-congress-could-target-funding-un-over-palestinian

Expanding on this. The U.S. is deeply in debt to the UN

Expanding on your expansion...If it was left up to me, I would kick every diplomat, clerk and hanger-on out of the UN building and send them home.

Then turn the UN building into a homeless shelter.

See how long they last without the US.

[ggold]

Let's stay on topic please.

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

[Chicog]

I think there is room and acceptance for a two state solution, but neither of them will ever give up Jerusalem, and while they make it conditional to that any peace talks will fail.

The UN should declare it a city of global heritage and take ownership from both of them.

Or just nuke it.

Either might work.

[dexterm]

I think there is room and acceptance for a two state solution, but neither of them will ever give up Jerusalem, and while they make it conditional to that any peace talks will fail.

The UN should declare it a city of global heritage and take ownership from both of them.

Or just nuke it.

Either might work.

The parties came very close over a compromise agreement on Jerusalem with Ehud Barak and Arafat at Camp David in 2000 and with Olmert in the final months of his lame duck office. Perhaps it can be revived.

But maybe better to go with Netanyahu's one state solution. After he has granted equal citizenship to all residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank after it has been annexed, all religions will be able to worship there with dignity and security. I am sure Obama, the EU and the whole world would go with that solution. I would too.

[BKKBobby]

THERE IS no polite way to say this, but Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most repellent and dangerous politicians in the world today.

He is a man who trades on fear and war, a cynical and amoral manipulator without a trace of honesty in his entire body, who lies as easily as he breathes.

In 2012 he warned the United Nations that Iran was a year away from manufacturing a bomb, even though his own security services had told him something entirely different,

Last year he deliberately used the murders of three Israeli teenagers to manipulate Israeli public opinion into supporting the ferocious and strategically meaningless slaughter in Gaza.

He also manipulates his most powerful ally. In public Netanyahu never ceases to express his love and gratitude to the United States, which props up Israel’s military machine.

Yet in private he’s not always so respectful. Back in 2001 he told a group of settlers in the West Bank ‘I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.’

Netanyahu cannot be ignored entirely, not as long as Israelis are crazy enough to keep voting for him. But no country with any respect for truth or even its own national interest would actually invite a man like this to speak to its own elected representatives if it didn’t have to, let alone invite him in order to undermine the policy of its elected president.

This is a thorough posting, though I disagree:

1. Palestinians and regional muslims do not "trade on fear and war," they actually commit these things as a daily tenet of their lives. There, then, is a qualitative difference, were your perception correct.

2. Netanyahu is a politician. It is true that elected leaders should make decisions based on science, advisers, input, analysis, etc., but an elected leader is chosen not to be an apparatchik but to lead based on convictions and character; like or not, this is his conviction and character. He believes a path is correct in spite of public opinion, perhaps. This does not make a renegade as much as it makes a leader of men.

3. Last year Netanyahu did not "deliberately" murder "three Israeli teenagers." Those who make their life's fruit trading on "fear and war" murdered the children. Netanyahu held to a fairly well known Israeli position to treat each life is quite valuable and to response disproportionately to murder and mayhem. Only in the liberal upside down world of politically correct revision is proportional war thought to be a reasonable status quo. No! Survival is the end game, not public opinion. Hamas started the Gaza war.

4. Netanyahu, a man far more educated and savvy than most posters here may try to "manipulate his most powerful ally," the US. Indeed, this is Statecraft and every nation state that has ever existed as perused such ends. The US "prop[ing]" up the Israeli military is both a very old and universally shared American ideal and indeed, a requirement bound by treaty.

5. "Respect[ful]" is subjective. In a world where every special interest is a victim, and every human takes umbrage at nearly something anyone else says, noting that you think someone is respectful or not is a high bar to cross- its just everyone is disrespectful these days, just ask anyone else. An utterly subjective POV.

6. The notion that those who think differently than you are "crazy" regrettably undermines your keen, but incorrect, preceding posts. When you have to enhance your argument by disparaging personally, you have an inferior position. You can protest this, but the readers note it.

Eloquent and written with intellect, but I disagree with your way of thinking.

Very cynical realpolitik: If all countries had leaders with this way of thinking I think it would be a darker world, even though a lot of people already think its a dark world.

I consider Netanyahu to be a extremist and he is alienating Israel from US and EU.

Henry Kissinger would love your post.

[Wat dee]

Let's stay on topic please.

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Especially the Muslims seem to be fair game.IMO

[NeverSure]

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Especially the Muslims seem to be fair game.IMO

It isn't racist. Judaism and Islam aren't races. They are religions made up of all of the races. There are no races called Jew or Muslim.

[Linky]

Let's stay on topic please.

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Totally agree, far too many racist posts against Muslims.

[Linky]

All those spouting that the Israelis have voted and it is totally a matter for them and no one else's business must also agree with Palestinians voting how they want to vote and totally respect them for that vote.

[Jingthing]

All those spouting that the Israelis have voted and it is totally a matter for them and no one else's business must also agree with Palestinians voting how they want to vote and totally respect them for that vote.

Not the same is it? When was the last Gaza election? Can you lobby against Hamas there and live to tell the story?

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[metisdead]

A post in violation of fair use policy has been removed.

[Srikcir]

Netanyahu never cared about a one-state or two-state solution with Palestine.

What he wants is a ZERO-state solution where Palestinians live as a subjugated class with no rights. His long-term strategy is to create apartheid - Palestinians become the new Blacks. The US and others would be justified to press for recognition of Palestine as a nation. Your turn Mr. Netanyahu.

[lungbing]

"...it was no secret that Obama and his advisers would have welcomed a change in Israeli leadership."

As if the Israeli people give a s... what Obama thinks.

Why do some people say that America should keep its nose out of other peoples' business until it comes to trying to push the Israeli people around?

This was their election. Obama can buzz off.

Certainly, so long as all the Jewish pressure groups leave the US administration alone. Fat chance of that. "Occupied territory" didn't one USA politician call the US seat of government?

[Chicog]

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Especially the Muslims seem to be fair game.IMO

It isn't racist. Judaism and Islam aren't races. They are religions made up of all of the races. There are no races called Jew or Muslim.

And yet a word that denigrates a race (Semite) has been hijacked to be used to mean attacking Jews.

Funny old world, isn't it?

[dexterm]

very interesting piece at Haaretz on the OP.

Netanyahu deserves the Israeli people, and they deserve him

"These Israelis voted for the man who will lead the United States to adopt harsh measures against Israel, for the man whom the world long ago grew sick of. They voted for the man who admitted to having duped half the world during his Bar-Ilan speech; now he has torn off his mask and disavowed those words once and for all. Israel said "yes" to the man who said "no" to a Palestinian state."

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.647555

So Israelis can look forward to at least 4 more years of increasing isolation, worsening living standards and ultimately self destruction. With Netanyahu at the helm how did voters possibly believe they would mend fences with their chief supporter USA, and their main trading partner EU.

[MaxYakov]

Let's stay on topic please.

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Totally agree, far too many racist posts against Muslims.

I'd say there are too many ethnicisists everywhere. They use the R word because they either can't conceive of anything else and couldn't pronounce it even if they did. I have trouble myself, but I get the concept at least. Then there are those obnoxious (severely understated) religionists.

Edited March 19, 2015 by MaxYakov

[Steely Dan]

I say this with respect, But there are lots of racists on these threads. It is a shame that racist remarks are allowed. It reflects badly on TV as a Forum in General. IMO

Especially the Muslims seem to be fair game.IMO

It isn't racist. Judaism and Islam aren't races. They are religions made up of all of the races. There are no races called Jew or Muslim.

And yet a word that denigrates a race (Semite) has been hijacked to be used to mean attacking Jews.

Funny old world, isn't it?

No 100% arse about face there. The word Semite has been used as a bridgehead in order to undermine the commonly recognized meaning of the word antiSemitism by attempting to fit prejudice against Muslims into the same box. This is all the more ironic, not to say obnoxious in light of the fact that most of the recent rise in antiSemitism is due to Muslims. Use the word Islamophobia if you like, but I'm afraid that has become as badly tarnished as the word racist or bigot due to the same abuse of language that comes as second nature to much of the liberal left.

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed.

[ggold]

All those spouting that the Israelis have voted and it is totally a matter for them and no one else's business must also agree with Palestinians voting how they want to vote and totally respect them for that vote.

the Gazans voted for Hamas look what it got them. Indeed they can vote how they like. they voted for rockets not peace they got what the deserved.