Biden, so far, has been better than Crabgrass anticipated. Currently, with Netanyahu in mad-dog aggressive mode, Biden has been properly restrained, and has yet to invite Netanyahu to visit the US during the Biden administration. This is a strong stance against a strong right wing individual. Netanyahu has met his soul-mate, Hungary's ultra-right wing Orban. Biden is 100% correct to let that pair schmooze, while keeping a distance from their commonality. [UPDATED]
Netanyahu was tight with Trump. Now it is Orban. The likes of Trump and Orban show who Netanyahu is, and it is ugly. Haaretz covers it, here and here.
Before hitting the paywall, this January item says:
Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to power with a
mission: making Israel into an openly racist authoritarian state, one
that puts Orthodox Judaism ahead of human rights, treats its Arab
citizens as an enemy, and demolishes the checks and balances imposed by a
strong, independent judiciary. The prime minister has secured power by
cobbling together a parliamentary coalition that views democratic and
liberal ideas as foreign implants aimed at undermining the Jewish
identity of the state.
President Biden and members of Congress are watching with deep
concern how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves forward with
so-called judicial reforms that have drawn unprecedented opposition on
the Israeli street.
The reforms have been criticized by opponents as stripping Israel’s
Supreme Court of its independence — an issue central to the nation’s
democratic principles.
Weeks of protests have drawn an estimated 100,000 people. Protesters
have blocked highways, harassed Netanyahu’s wife and have been targeted
by police with stun grenades and foul water cannons.
The demonstrations over the controversial reforms are also driving
the U.S. and Israel relationship into uncharted territory, with some
lawmakers questioning what is happening to democracy in the longtime
U.S. ally.
“We’ve seen the most widespread demonstrations in modern Israeli
history against the proposed reforms, so, I think, more importantly than
whether I’m concerned, the Israeli people are concerned, and it’s
produced I think a real moment of crisis for Israeli democracy,” said
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a key foreign policy surrogate for Biden.
“My hope is that the proposals will be reconsidered, modified, and I am following developments in Israel,” Coons told The Hill.
Biden and his top officials, in unprecedented warnings, have told Netanyahu that moving ahead with the changes threaten the “shared values” of the U.S. and Israel relationship.
On Thursday, 16 Jewish, House lawmakers wrote a letter calling for
the Israeli government to suspend the judicial reforms and work towards a
compromise between Netanyahu’s government and the political opposition.
TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to be airlifted Thursday to the
country's main international airport for an overseas trip after throngs
of cars and protesters prevented him from driving there.
The
demonstrations were part of nationwide protests underway for more than
two months against Netanyahu and his government's contentious plan to
overhaul the judiciary. Demonstrators made blocking Netanyahu's airport
route Thursday a centerpiece of their efforts — the optics of the
Israeli leader having to make alternate travel plans a win for the
protest movement.
The helicopter
ride, while avoiding snarling traffic triggered by the protest, could
deepen Netanyahu's reputation as being out of touch with Israelis at a
time when the economy is slowing and the country finds itself torn apart
over the government's plan.
Israel's
figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, who has been trying to mediate a
compromise between Netanyahu's allies and the opposition, appealed for a
solution in a televised speech late Thursday.
“What is happening here is a tragedy,” he said as protests continued late into the evening.
Herzog,
whose role as president is supposed to be as a unifying force and
largely above politics, said the draft promoted by Netanyahu should be
dropped immediately. "It is wrong. It is destructive. It undermines our
democratic foundations,” he said.
He
insisted that weeks of behind-the-scenes talks had brought the sides
closer to an agreement. “History will judge you. Take responsibility,
now,” he said.
Rachel Fink, who immigrated to Israel 13
years ago from New York, participates regularly in the anti-government
protests every Saturday night in Tel Aviv.
But a demonstration Tuesday outside the U.S. Embassy's Tel Aviv branch held special significance for her.
“I’m
standing here with a group of people just like me, people who aren't
Israeli because they were born here but because they chose to be
Israelis. And many of us, if we wanted to, could leave right now because
what’s going on is very scary and frustrating,” the 41-year-old
educator said.
“But
if there’s one thing that the past few months have taught me, it’s how
much I want to be here and how important for me it is to fight for
democracy in this country.”
She was holding a handmade sign reading: “I didn’t give up Target & Taco Bell to live in a dictatorship!”
WASHINGTON — More than 90 Democratic
lawmakers on Thursday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to pressure
Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government from further damaging Israel’s
standing as a democracy. They warned that its current and potential
actions are undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The letter – spearheaded by Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Jan Schakowsky and Jim McGovern – is the most thorough articulation of Democratic
misgivings about the upheaval in Israel over the past two months. It is
also the most significant effort aimed at capturing Biden’s attention
on the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, the volatile security situation in the West Bank and the looming threat of annexation.
“We
urge you to use all diplomatic tools available to prevent Israel’s
far-right government from further damaging the nation’s democratic
institutions and undermining the potential for two states for two
peoples,” the Democrats wrote.
The Netanyahu government, led by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, is pushing through bills that would drastically alter the balance of power between the ruling coalition and the Supreme Court,
Under a proposed new law, only a simple majority of 61 lawmakers would
be required to overturn a ruling by the top court on Israel’s Basic Laws, which are the closest the country has to a constitution.
[...]
In addition to American Israelis, the
protesters outside the embassy included activists from other major
groups fighting the government's plan – among them high-tech employees, army reservists and health care workers – along with Tel Avivians just wanting to show solidarity.
They
held up signs in English that read “Save Our Startup Nation”; “Mr.
President, It’s Time for America to Stand Up for the Only Democracy in
the Middle East”; and “Mr. President, Help Us Stop This Mad Hostile
Takeover. We Must Save Israel’s Democracy!”
Samuel
Bacharach, a retired professor who splits his time between Tel Aviv and
New York, came wearing a Cornell University hat. That is where he
taught labor relations for 40 years.
“I
put on this hat hoping to remind Bibi that his father also taught at
Cornell and that there has to be some core values he respects,”
Bacharach said, using the prime minister's nickname.
Bacharach,
a veteran of protests both in the United States and Israel, said he had
never experienced in Israel anything like the current uprising. “But it
does remind me very much of the anti-Vietnam War protests in the '60s
in the U.S. in which I participated,” he said.
The retired professor had the following message for Biden: “Good friends don’t let their friends drive drunk, for God’s sake.”
The reforms being pursued by Netanyahu’s coalition include allowing
the government to overrule Supreme Court decisions. It would also let
the executive take more power to appoint justices that critics say will
politicize the bench.
“We’re very alarmed that this new [Israeli] government is attempting
to undermine judicial checks and balances,” said Amy Slipowitz, research
manager at Freedom House, which monitors the state of democracy across
the world.
“These checks have been critical to protect the rights of individuals
from all segments of Israel’s society, and also for holding executive
officials to account for abuses. An independent judiciary is absolutely
essential to uphold the rule of law, and appropriate checks and balances
are core components of democracy, so the government’s actions have been
quite concerning.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, also expressed concern.
“What I hope will happen is that, as they work through judicial
reform, how to make judges more accountable, that they’re mindful of the
idea that an independent judiciary needs to be still standing,” he
said.
There is deep bipartisan support for Israel in Congress even as
partisan tensions have erupted. Netanyahu is a controversial figure for
many Democrats who remember his 2015 snub of President Obama in an
address to Congress. Former President Trump, upon succeeding Obama,
wholeheartedly embraced Netanyahu’s positions on the Israeli and
Palestinian conflict and moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Israeli politics has undergone its own extreme polarization.
Netanyahu secured a governing coalition by agreeing to the demands of
far-right politicians that included — on top of the judicial reforms —
commitments to pursue annexation and settlement expansions in the West
Bank. Other legal proposals in the coalition agreement are criticized as
targeting discrimination protections for religious and ethnic
minorities and LGBTQ individuals.
“I have never been more alarmed about the future of Israel,” Sen.
Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a member of the Senate committees on Foreign
Relations and Appropriations, told The Hill.
“As a democracy, I think that Netanyahu operates as though he’s got
the American political system wired, and can act with impunity, and
ignore democratic norms and harm Palestinian people, and that has to
stop,” he continued.
“Our relationship is long standing, is a friendship based on shared
values and shared interests. But if they cease to share our values and
our interests, then we’re going to have to reevaluate the relationship.”
Schatz’s comments represent some of the most outspoken criticism
among 14 Senators asked for comment by The Hill. The lawmakers included
nine Democrats and five Republicans.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he had “faith” Israel would
“maintain its rock-solid commitment to democracy,” but said he was
engaged on the issue.
“I don’t conduct all my relationships with Israeli officials in public, some of that happens in private as well.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, said he was in regular contact with diplomatic and
security leaders in the region.
“I have very serious concerns about the level of violence and threat
of escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories,
today and over the next several months.”
The judicial reforms are one element of what regional watchers are
saying is an unprecedented collision of political and security crises.
Israelis and Palestinians are caught up in a particularly heinous
cycle of violence, that includes civilian Palestinian casualties amid
Israeli security raids in the West Bank, Palestinian terrorist attacks
targeting Israelis and Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacking
Palestinian villages in retribution attacks.
This has been further inflamed by far-right members of Netanyahu’s
party, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calling for the
Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out” by the State of Israel,
after it was attacked by Israeli settlers following the killing of two
Israeli brothers by a Palestinian from the village.
“I don’t recall a moment like this where there are so many negative
forces that seem to be coming to a head,” said Aaron David Miller, a
senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has
served in Republican and Democratic presidential administrations focused
on the Middle East.
“What we’ve seen now is that you have a group of ministers who
declare themselves without shyness that they are basically Jewish
supremacists, that the land belongs to them based on their read of the
bible,” said Shibley Telhami, professor of political science at the
University of Maryland and senior fellow with the Brookings
Institutions.
__________UPDATE_________
Bezalel Yoel Smotrich - Wikipedia - websearch. He appears more a deranged zealot than a pure savage. It arguably is a close call, although some would say he is "strongly Orthodox" only. A zealot for certain, deranged being what is up for debate.
Times of Israel. A settlement zealot, cogent in his zeal, and Biden deserves praise for allowing him a visa to enter the US, (as a high-placed official of an allied nation), while showing disdain via a boycott - no US official would meet with the man while he visited to pump Israeli bonds at a rally. Persona non grata, but not barred temporary entry.
It most surely appears that Netanyahu has no problem with Smotrich in his coalition government, with Bibi's aggression against his nation's judiciary having Smotrich's backing.
Netanyahu is the ultimate problem. Not an underling who magnifies the problem. As with Trump the problem, magnified via the MAGA supporters. Scorn is deserved, but focus it on the core problem, the top of the problem.
FURTHER: Netanyahu mentioned here. Like Diane Feinstein he gained politically via assassination of a better person.
_________FURTHER UPDATE________
Another, seemingly as wigged out dangerous as Smotrich, and delusionally thinking himself Presidential; Mike Pompeo.
From Guardian reporting a month ago:
Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’
“[Israel] is not an
occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my
reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of
so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” he
said.
Pompeo, who referred to the occupied West
Bank by its Israeli name of Judea and Samaria, declined to support a
two-state solution of an independent Palestine alongside Israel – an
increasingly diminishing prospect after years of failed negotiations and
the rise to power of politicians in Israel who advocate annexing the
occupied territories.
[...] As secretary of state he reversed a number of longstanding US policies, including overturning legal advice from 1978 that declared Israel’s settlements in the West Bank “inconsistent with international law”. Most western governments, such as the UK, say the settlements and Israel’s annexation of occupied East Jerusalem are a breach of the Geneva conventions and are therefore illegal.
Pompeo was Trump’s CIA director before his appointment as secretary of state in 2018. He played an instrumental role in an administration thatrecognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
and moved the US embassy to that city from Tel Aviv. The move was
widely criticised, including by Washington’s allies, as pre-empting a
final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
[...] “What’s in America’s
best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen [Abbas], a known
terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans … to
draw a line on a map? That’s what the state department would do,” he
said.
“The previous secretary of state ran back
and forth from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and tried to draw lines on a map.
We said: ‘That’s not in America’s best interest. Let’s go create peace,’
and we did.”
Peace is not where one side has a modern air force and uses it against the other, a people which in turn have stones to throw. "Might makes right" is the mindset uniting Smotich and Pompeo.
Moreover, the Trump Administration's switch from a two state solution to a Greater Israel solution is in lockstep with Smotrich.
Pompeo convinced by his reading of the bible as an evangelical Christian is a dangerous tool of bias and infamy, who, under Trump headed first the CIA and then the State Department.
There is so much more that Trump should be brought down for besides Stormy Daniels hush money.
