1)”I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel.” – this comment breaks the Netanyahu commitment to a two state solution in 2009 and confirms the stark reality of 6 years of fruitless negotiations with the Palestinians which has been Bibi debased.There are dire consequences for this stand. Bibi needs the support of Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the US for any “defensive strikes against Iran” and the Arab group likely will not budge unless tangible movement to a Palestinian statehood has been made by Israel.
In addition, the reality of the slow Israeli invasion of Westbank through controversial settlements, a point of contention between Europe and the US versus Israel comes more sharply into focus. Literally, Bibi condoned settlements to swallow up Arab land:
| Settler population | 1948 | 1972 | 1977 | 1980 | 1983 | 1993 | 2004 | 2007 | 2010 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) | 480 | 1,182 | 3,200 -4,400 |
17,400 | 22,800 | 111,600 | 234,500 | 276,500 | 314,100 | 400,000 |
| Gaza Strip 2 | 30 | 700 | 500 | 900 | 900 | 4,800 | 7,826 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Golan Heights | 0 | 77 | 6,800 | 12,600 | 17,265 | 18,692 | 19,797 | 21,000 | ||
| East Jerusalem | 2,300 | 8,649 | 76,095 | 152,800 | 181,587 | 189,708 | 198,629 | 300,000-350,000 | ||
| Total | 2,810 | 10,608 | 106,595 | 281,800 | 441,178 | 485,170 | 532,526 | 721,000-771,000 |
Source.
Reversing this Israeli occupational tide through “land transfers” and closing of Israeli settlements will be ‘nigh impossible’ given the popular resistance in 2005-2006 to abandoning the small Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip of less than 8,000 Israeli settlers.
2)”Arab voters are going en masse to the polls. Left-wing NGOs are bringing them on buses.”
Even Israel’s more right wing media pulled Netanyahu up on his election night claim that his rivals were bussing in Arab voters in order to defeat Likud. Not the least, critics pointed out, because Arabs in Israel have as much democratic right to vote as Israeli Jews. And this violence has consequences in Israel between Arab and Jewish citizens. In the West, only the Arab on Israeli violence gets media play; but the reverse – Israeli violence on native Arabs is also widespread and just got a Bibi “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” greenlight.
3)If Tzipi [Livni] and Bougie [Isaac Herzog] form a government, Hamastan B will be established here.
The many variations on these remarks by Bibi imply that the opposition party is in cahoots with Palestinian, leftists and overseas radical elements – all conspiring to do in Bibi and the Likud party. This abjectly false and bitterly partisan ad-hominem series of attacks make US political partisanship [“Obama is the worst President in US History”] look tame.
4)Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews and this […] is expected to continue. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe.
These remarks are extremely unpopular in Europe which sees itself with growing differences with Israel. There is a strong group looking to bring economic sanctions, boycotts, and other restrictions used to prod Israel into more movement on Palestinian statehood. The gulf has gotten wider since the Charlie Hebdo, Belgian, and Danish attacks with Bibi calling for Jews to leave Europe.
5)American money [is] bringing the Arabs to the ballot box.
This is one of many tirades against Americans, and even American Jews living in Israel. Blatant and partisan attacks against President Obama are just the tip of the iceberg of antipathy between the US and Israel. This is an Israel which gets $3-5 billion per year for the past 30 years and has gotten often solitary US blank-check vetoes in the UN against any limitations on Israel’s actions for six decades.
In sum, two-faced Bibi has an enormous task of repairing fences worldwide which the NYTImes credited the Supreme Political Chameleon, already in full damage control mode, fully capable of turning an about face:
“By the night’s end, Mr. Netanyahu, seemed to realize he needed to recalibrate his message. In a late night speech claiming victory,he spoke of delivering security and social welfare ‘to all citizens of Israel , Jews and non-Jew alike.’
Ahhh, recalibration of forked tongue-speak which becomes the master-stroke of a politican whose end justifies the means. And Aluf Benn, in his evaluation of Netanyahu strategy in the election is profusely praiseful of Bibi – “Netanyahu deployed the politics of fear. It worked like magic”. Benn could cite the same rascist and fear-mongering magic deployed by an Austrian politician in the failing years of the Weimar Republic of 1931 to 1933.
USA: Israel’s Flak Catcher
The USA has been Israel’s Flak Catcher for the past 6 decades by virtue of its military aid and staunchly protective UN Security Council vetoes for Israel. This flak-catching role has been increasingly hazardous reaching a disastrous peak in the 911 attacks on New York City. Here is Osama Bin Laden’s justification to the US People for that attack:
“(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily.
(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.”
Bin Laden then went on to cite US support for actions against Muslims in Afghanistan, Somalia, Chechnya,Lebanon, Kashmir, Iraq and elsewhere. Bin Laden was particularly scornful of the Arab prison in Guantanamo where hundreds of Arabs are detained without trial. But clearly the increasingly repressive confiscation of Palestine by Israel is the major point of contention and conflict.
What the US and Europe will have to weigh carefully in the near future is whether they can continue to offer unconditional support to Israel when the lie of negotiating towards a Palestinian state has been clearly exposed and declared by Bibi Netanyahu. Terrorists like the Tunis murderers today will have the excuse that the US and Europe show false support for Muslim causes as long as this blank check support is accorded to Israel.
Yes, the Muslim religion is morally reprehensible with its allowance of savage attacks on “infidels” as seen in the Tunisian attacks on tourists, the slaughtering of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya, and unrelenting attacks on “Muslim infidels”. This sectarian violence is a perversion of the Muslim faith that mainstream Muslims have not been able to control. But likewise, Israelis have been unable to control the increasing duplicitous dealings of its Prime Minister indicating either that Bibi has the tacit permission for “no Palestinian State” and less and less of full citizenship for Israeli Arabs, American Jews settling in Israel and Ethiopian and other minority group Jews. Privilege is accorded a few ‘right’ Jews – sounds like Muslim exceptionalism. .