Benjamin Netanyahu Further Damages U.S.-Israel Relations

[Purveyor]

By Dana Milbank Opinion writer November 9

Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t do regret.

Earlier this year, the Israeli prime minister did more than any of his predecessors over nearly 70 years to turn his country into a partisan political issue in the United States. In his speech to Congress and in other venues, he fought hard against President Obama and the Iran nuclear deal — losing the battle but driving a deep wedge through America, and the American Jewish community.

An introspective leader might be chastened by the damage he had done to relations with his country’s most important ally. So what has Bibi been doing lately?

Three weeks ago, he declared in a speech that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews” but was advised to by a Palestinian cleric to “burn them.” It took a week of international furor before Netanyahu retracted his remarks.

Two weeks ago, he scolded but did not fire his deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, who said that “my dream is to see the Israeli flag flying over the Temple Mount” and called on Israel to allow Jews to pray on the mount, where al-Aqsa Mosque stands.

Last week, Netanyahu appointed as his new chief of public diplomacy a man who called Obama an anti-Semite and who said Secretary of State John Kerry has the intellect of a 12-year-old.

Now, as Netanyahu visits the United States, he decided to accept, on the same day he met Obama in the Oval Office, an award from a group of neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute who applaud his stand against the Obama administration. The acceptance of the award, which has previously gone to, among others, Dick Cheney and Antonin Scalia, led the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to conclude that “Netanyahu has decided to troll Obama.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/benjamin-netanyahu-further-damages-us-israel-relations/2015/11/09/6f09bfb8-872d-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. I'm frankly surprized, Purveyor.

That team soke-n-mirrors hasn't rushed in to divert attention away from your post.

But I still have hope.

[Scootaloo]

4. They don't post much outside I/P

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

7. Perhaps their brand of truthiness has a benefactor there

that they wouldn't anywhere else?

[Faux pas]

2. I think he

and putin are some kind of twisted twins separated at birth. I'm tired of the US supporting the ones who hate us.

[Scuba]

3. This is the guy Hillary wants to invite to the White House as soon as she's POTUS.

Gawd help us.

[rtracey]

10. yeah so?

ok so Hillary wlll invite Benjamin Netanyahu to the Whitehouse... Will Bernie Sanders? Will there every be a foreign dignitary invited?
What does Hillary want Netanyahu there for... too buddy up and secretly say how shes planning to screw the country, or what. Will Sanders invite any enemies to the whitehouse? Putin, China Premier, ? I guess I am missing your logic behind the invite. Did Hillary say something was going to happen?

[Scuba]

11. Netanhahu is not one of the good guys, despite his "unbreakable bond" with Hillary.

There is also not a word about Palestinian suffering in Hillary Clinton’s piece in the Forward saying how she’ll reinvigorate the relationship with the Israeli PM as president: “How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu”

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/hillary-promises-netanyahu

[MBS]

5. Netanyahu has indeed done serious damage

both to US-Israeli relations
and - especially tragically - to Israel itself.

A new book on the assassination of Rabin (Killing a King: the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, by Dan Ephron) provides a compelling summary of the sorry history of the rise of the right wing (and Netanyahu) in Israel.

[Catherina]

6. And now Netanyahu wants $50 Billion for his efforts

at a rate of $5 billion per year instead of the normal $2 Billion:
Netanyahu asks Obama for $50b in military aid

LMAO, there's your free college taxpayers. There are your homeless on the streets.

And Hillary can't suck up to him fast enough.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

8. Don't blame our politicians.

The Grand Mufti is to blame.

[geek tragedy]

9. he hasn't hurt US/Israel relations at all these past few weeks.

There's been zero negative consequences contemplated, let alone realized.

Hillary and her flunkies at DNC think-tanks are lining up to kiss his ass while repudiating Obama's record.

Obama himself has decided to stop pressuring Israel on the settlements while keeping the aid flowing at firehose levels.

The Iran debate was the exception rather than the rule because he overreached.

In general, Benjamin Netanyahu calls ALL of the shots in our relationship with him.

ALL of them.