To Protect Its National Security, Israel Will Need to Compromise
By Amos Yadlin, FOREIGN AFFAIRS 7.3.23
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, January 2023 Ronaldo Schemidt / Pool / Reuters
These are trying times for the U.S.-Israeli relationship, which the U.S. government often defines as ironclad. Benjamin Netanyahu has returned to power as Israel’s prime minister in a governing coalition that is the country’s most right-wing and religious in history. He is facing off against Joe Biden: a Democratic U.S. president who, although a true friend of Israel, remembers Netanyahu’s fraught relations with former U.S. President Barack Obama.
At home, Netanyahu is legalizing outposts and building in settlements in the West Bank and undermining Israel’s independent judiciary, actions that the Biden administration has strongly criticized. Internationally, Netanyahu has hesitated to clearly support Ukraine in its fight against Russia, much to the consternation of U.S. officials. And during his previous terms, Netanyahu fostered closer Chinese-Israeli ties.Within Netanyahu’s first month of taking office, Israel hosted a succession of senior U.S. officials, all of whom reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, visited on January 18 to discuss the main issues on the countries’ joint agenda, such as how to coordinate policy against Iran. William Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, arrived on January 26 to discuss operational issues, most likely with regard to Iran and the Palestinians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken followed just four days later. Netanyahu, then, has had many opportunities to get Washington’s help advancing his top two international priorities: stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia.
But these U.S. officials made it clear that Biden did not agree with Netanyahu’s stances on the Palestinian territories, on internal Israeli politics, and on Ukraine. Indeed, Blinken made lodging the president’s objections a central part of his visit. Such disagreements could greatly complicate Netanyahu’s life. Biden is the only world leader who is capable of taking steps that will stop Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon, and he is the only leader who can give the Saudis the security guarantees they demand to normalize ties with Israel. But the U.S. president will not be able to dedicate substantial time to these two issues when the Palestinian theater is aflame, and he will struggle to convince his administration to help the Israeli government when Israel is distancing itself from the West (by not firmly supporting Ukraine) and weakening its democracy (by passing judicial reforms that will politicize the judiciary and undermine the rule of law).
In order to make headway on his top security and foreign policy goals, then, Netanyahu will have to make tradeoffs. He will have to compromise on aspects of Israel’s domestic and foreign policy and make goodwill gestures in order to get Biden’s full partnership.
OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES
In his speeches, Netanyahu has made his international priorities readily apparent. The prime minister wants to create as much pressure on Iran as he can to force the country into compromising on its nuclear program and curtailing its regional aggression. He also wants to fully normalize ties with Saudi Arabia, building on the Abraham Accords that he signed in 2020, which established diplomatic relations between Israel and Bahrain, Israel and Morocco, and Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Just two years ago, Netanyahu may have struggled to advance this agenda, especially when it came to Iran. When Biden entered office, he was determined to resurrect the Iran nuclear deal—a step that would have required loosening sanctions. But times have changed. Given Iran’s refusal to return to the nuclear agreement, its decision to provide Russia with weapons, and its violent suppression of antigovernment protests, Biden is willing to take a harder line against the country. Netanyahu knows this, and he hopes he can now coax Biden into helping him coordinate a better campaign of maximum pressure, including by credibly threatening military action against Tehran.
It is easy to see why Netanyahu is so keen on obtaining U.S. support. If both states formally declared that the nuclear deal was dead and that stronger penalties were coming, they might be able to jointly convince Iran to stop advancing its nuclear program and agree to the kind of “longer and stronger” deal that Blinken has said the administration wants. They might deter Iran from escalating, for instance, by making it clear they will use military force if Tehran crosses certain redlines, such as enriching uranium to 90 percent, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or taking steps to militarize its nuclear program. Washington might also exert more economic pressure on Iran to change Tehran’s calculus, including by significantly increasing the enforcement of existing sanctions.
The United States could also work with Israel to internationally isolate Iran. Israel and the United States, for example, might point to Iran’s cooperation with Russia to get the European Union to extend its conventional weapons embargo on Iran. The two allies could also form a broad coalition of states to help and encourage the domestic protests in Iran. Together, Israel and the United States could even establish the foundations of a new Middle East security architecture in which participants share intelligence, air defenses, logistics, and other resources to protect freedom of navigation and coordinate additional steps against Tehran.
The Biden administration has recently signaled that it is willing to adopt a harder line on Iran, which coincides with Netanyahu’s vision: both agree that they want to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and on the need to deter it from doing so. Israel and the United States, for example, conducted joint military exercises earlier this year, indicating their combined resolve. But Washington is still maintaining some distance from openly embracing Israel’s strategy. The United States has denied having any involvement in the late January drone strikes on an Iranian drone factory in Isfahan or on Iranian weapons convoys at the Iraqi-Syrian border. It clearly remains anxious and concerned that Iran will retaliate, and this anxiety undermines Washington’s ability to deter Iran from attacking U.S. forces, partners, and allies—and to deter Iran from seeking nuclear weapons.
Washington is not as worried about promoting Israeli-Saudi ties. But even there, the Biden administration’s positions could complicate Netanyahu’s efforts. There are considerable—and growing—tensions between Biden and Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Biden once deemed a “pariah.” The Abraham Accords were dependent on support from Washington, which was willing to provide the United Arab Emirates with advanced weapons such as F-35 jets (the Biden administration halted that deal because of the United Arab Emirates’ ties with China) and change U.S. policy on Western Sahara (a self-governing territory that Morocco claims) to get the participating states to establish relations with Israel. Frosty U.S.-Saudi relations will make the path toward normalization with Riyadh harder and perhaps put it out of reach. Before signing off on any agreement with Israel, for example, the Saudis will likely want the Biden administration to provide solid security guarantees, unhindered supplies of advanced weapons, and an agreement to help build the country’s civilian nuclear infrastructure. Unless Netanyahu becomes more flexible and generates goodwill with Biden, it is hard to see Washington making such promises.
A FRIEND IN NEED
Netanyahu understands that preventing a nuclear Iran is a herculean task that requires American support. He is also well aware that the clearest road to Israeli-Saudi relations runs through Washington. Netanyahu should therefore know that if he wants the United States to invest its capital in support of his policies, he will have to align his own policies with Washington’s interests and values.
He can start with China. The United States’ great-power rivalry with Beijing is at the top of Biden’s international agenda and is one of the few issues on which there is bipartisan consensus within the United States. Although Netanyahu advanced pro-Chinese economic policies during the last decade, he clarified in December 2022 that Israel’s economic ties with Beijing are subject to national security considerations. It is a statement that suggests his government may be willing to constrain Israel’s relations with China to better address U.S. concerns. Indeed, Israel’s economic policies are already moving in a more pro-Western direction, including by reducing the country’s technological exposure to Beijing, establishing an oversight mechanism for foreign investment, and increasing public awareness about the risks of working with Chinese entities.
Netanyahu should still maintain productive economic ties with China, especially given Israel’s own national security concerns and unique characteristics. But Netanyahu can and should create better partnerships with U.S. friends in the West and in Asia—especially India, Japan, and South Korea. He should deepen relations with these governments and offer incentives for businesses in these countries to work more closely with Israeli firms.
Netanyahu will have a harder time aligning with Washington over its other main international priority: supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia. To ensure that Israel’s military campaign against Iran and its proxies in Syria (where Russia is active) can continue unhindered, Israel has sought to avoid confronting Moscow. It has also been preoccupied with preventing Russia from bolstering the Iranian military. And it wants to protect the Jewish Agency for Israel’s activities in Russia, including the agency’s efforts to allow Russian Jews to come to Israel.
But the purported policy benefits of staying neutral are not worth the costs. Moscow is far too busy in Ukraine to start attacking Israeli aircraft in Syria, even if Israel helps Ukraine protect its civilians and infrastructure from Iranian drones. Given the high tempo of combat in Ukraine, Russia does not have many weapons it can sell to Tehran. And although Moscow might disrupt the work the Jewish Agency is doing, this loss would be more than made up for by Israel’s reputational gain. If Netanyahu condemns the invasion and starts providing Ukraine with defensive weapons, he could acquire some capital with the Biden administration, which he could then expend to advance priorities that are far more important.
Still, Israel may have to do more than just cooperate over China and Ukraine if it wants renewed support from Washington. During his visit to Israel, Blinken made it clear that Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians was the greatest threat to the U.S.-Israeli relationship. This needle will be extremely difficult for Netanyahu to thread. The prime minister, like his predecessors, has a duty to protect Israel from terror, and the level of terrorism in the Palestinian territories has been on the rise since March 2022. Netanyahu’s government is also awash with far-right ministers who want to annex more Palestinian territory, expand Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, collapse the Palestinian Authority, and inflict a decisive victory over the Palestinian enemy. Yet Netanyahu can help improve ties with Washington by engaging in a quiet dialogue with the White House, away from the public eye, in which he clarifies his policies, explains the limits on the power of his ministers, and demonstrates that he is willing to improve the lives of the Palestinians while still countering rising terrorism in the Palestinian territories and in Israel.
And ultimately, Netanyahu should avoid taking many of the measures that his far-right allies advocate, including allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, supporting the de facto annexation of new land, and legalizing outposts in Judea and Samaria and creating new settlements there. Avoiding these measures may antagonize Netanyahu’s coalition, but allowing them inflames the Palestinians and thereby diverts international attention and U.S. and Israeli resources away from his top foreign policy aims. Last month, for example, just as the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it found weapons grade-level uranium in Iran enriched to 84 percent, Israel and the United States had to discuss how to prevent a UN Security Council resolution against the Israeli decision to legalize nine West Bank outposts—instead of on Tehran’s march to the bomb. The following weeks saw Egypt, Jordan, and the United States meet with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to avoid further escalation, but lethal terror attacks on Israelis were followed by a settlers’ rampage in the Palestinian village of Hawara, where the settlers torched homes and attacked civilians. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich supported calls to raze the village, only to recant them. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and traveled to Israel in early March and discussed how to prevent escalation. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is following suit. Clearly, if Netanyahu wants to focus both Israeli and the U.S. attention on Iran, he should not let his right-wing partners fan the flames in the Palestinian arena.
Following through on right-wing provocative and escalatory measures would also infuriate Western leaders. Biden may even interpret these steps as a personal insult, damaging his commitment to confronting American critics of Israel. Such anger would build on Biden’s existing displeasure with Netanyahu’s proposed judiciary reforms, which would allow the Israeli parliament to override Supreme Court decisions—eliminating a critical check on Netanyahu’s power. Biden expressed opposition to the changes in a statement to the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and during Blinken’s visit to Jerusalem, the secretary of state warned that the reforms would undercut the shared democratic values on which U.S.-Israeli ties rest.
Weakening the judicial system will also impair the already tense relationship between American and Israeli Jews, encourage divestment and emigration from Israel, and damage Israel’s credit rating—as leading credit-rating agencies have recently warned. Netanyahu must, at a minimum, ensure that any judicial reform enjoys broad agreement within Israel and broad support in the Israeli parliament (including from the opposition) and does not jeopardize Israel’s democratic nature. Otherwise, the changes could fracture ties between Israel and the United States and polarize Israel’s own society, degrading the country’s national resilience and undermining its national security.
NETANYAHU’S RUBIK’S CUBE
Netanyahu does not have to join with Biden on every issue. The two politicians lead different countries with varied interests: sometimes their paths will diverge. Yet such differences are at play in almost every alliance based on shared values, and they usually do not preclude close cooperation. If Netanyahu can make tradeoffs with Washington, his and Biden’s disagreements do not have to impede their partnership.
Some of these tradeoffs could be reciprocal. Netanyahu’s government, for example, could decide that Israel will increase its contribution to the United States’ innovation base, improving Washington’s position in its technological competition with Beijing even if Israel itself does not begin competing with China. Israel could also denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and help the latter protect against Russian attacks and Iranian arms. In exchange, the United States and Israel could work jointly against Tehran’s regional aggression and weapons proliferation, including by building a plan for military action if deterrence fails. Israel’s new policies on Beijing and Moscow would have to be carried out carefully in order to protect Israel’s economic ties with China and its interests in Syria and elsewhere. Yet the course correction would be worth it should it result in help from Washington.
And in many cases, the agreements between Israel and the United States would be mutually beneficial. By expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia and making the agreements more durable, Washington could provide better regional security while also fostering a pro-American coalition that would be less amenable to Chinese and Russian influence in the Middle East. By avoiding more escalation with the Palestinians, Netanyahu could decrease the danger to Israel’s own population and help Washington (and other countries) focus on Iran instead of the Palestinian territories.
None of this will be easy. Netanyahu is faced with a political and strategic Rubik’s cube. To achieve his international goals—containing Iran and normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia—he will need strong support and understanding from Washington, which in turn requires taking steps opposed by his radical coalition partners both domestically and on the Palestinian front. But ultimately, to solve the most critical face of the cube, Netanyahu must prioritize coming to terms with the United States. No matter how angry Israeli officials may be with Washington’s overtures to Iran or criticisms about Israeli domestic politics, the United States is indispensable to Israel’s safety and security.
AMOS YADLIN is the former head of military intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces and the former Executive Director of Israel’s, left of center, Institute for National Security Studies.
T. Belman. The way I see it, its the US that can’t have it all.
Yadlin lists most of the disagreements between Israel and the US, of which there are many, and suggests that Israel’s primary concern is to get America’s support in deterring or attacking Iran and in getting Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords. He may be wrong in this. To my mind, Israel can attack Iran without American support and can do without Saudi Arabia joining the AA. Let us assume for a moment, that Israel’s priority is in defeating the Palestinian terror, wiping out illegal Arab construction and building settlements, she can do this on her own. That will greatly reduce the US leverage on Israel. The US will still need Israel’s cooperation regarding Ukraine, China and Russia.
Why is the US so invested in the Palestinian cause? I keeping asking myself this question.
My article, “Since when did the Palestinians become entitled to a state?” provides some background as does my other article “The conspiracy to shrink Israel”.
Here’s where and when it all began.
Roosevelt and Ibn Saud built groundwork for current world order, on a boat
That was then. What about now?
@Ted
Correct! but I would make one very important addition to your comment:
Its support is limited, conditional and diminishing.
The limited and conditional nature of American support is neither improving nor even stable. The open opposition to Israel within Washington has never been so vocal nor so acceptable as it stands today. This is more true today than a year ago, and was even more true ten years ago than it was a decade before that. I am greatly concerned that this is a trend which is not yet reached its zenith but will continue to expand and grow. I would suggest that the considerable acceptance of Kanye’s ridiculously antisemitic rant among many in the American conservative movement was evidence of this fact. Of course, the Liberals are already covered over in accepting such vile antisemitic institutions as BLM, CAIR, and J-Street.
What we all agree on is that its not about the Palestinians at all. Its about containing and constraining Israel in order to curry favour with OPEC and with the NWO. The US is not our friend. Its support is limited and conditional.
@peloni Right. Never was an oil shortage except when artificially created. The drive for oil is therefore not a credible explanation for their continuing support for the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people, lip service aside.
@Sebastien
As an oil exporter, it was important for the US that the price of oil was not dropped too low or raised too high.
Recall the intervention by Trump to intercede between Russia and Saudi Arabia in 2020. The price of gas was so low that it was driving many oil producers in the US to bankruptcy due to them having bought into the market when gas was priced high. Stability in the gas market is essential for the market to remain profitable. As the Saudi’s demonstrated with their feud with Putin, they have the ability to drive the profits into the ground and undermine their competitors. As a major exporter of oil, the US relationship with OPEC is important for this point alone, as it is not just the gas producers who are affected by dwindling US oil exports – the foreign dollars coming to the US thru the sale of oil was a major boon to the US economy, and this is beyond the value of not having to export dollars to foreign economies to gain access to the oil.
Similarly, pricing gas too high will destroy the economies of our allies who either lack oil resources or lack the sense to drill it. Oil is a geopolitical commodity, and, as such, controlling the flow of oil such that it is maintained at a reliable rate is critical to economies and interests of all parties. To this end, having an influential input with Opec will always remain a relevant US foreign policy goal, but it will be far less vital when the US becomes energy independent again than it is today while the US stands as dependent on foreign oil for her own needs.
@Ted Why? And how does that relate to relentlessly supporting the Pal Trojan horse. Moreover, how does it make sense to coddle Iran over the Gulf states if ut’s all about the drive for oil? All these drives are at cross-purposes. Taken as a whole, they make no sense.
@Sebastien
Even after the US became an oil exporter during Trump’s presidency, it was still important to have a good relationship with OPEC, just less so.
Peloni,
Excellent…. your comments weave together some excellent points focusing us on the bigger picture. This should give us all something to think on.
@Te @Edgar Apparently, I mispoke. Taiwan is a key manufacturing and processing hub for said rare earth minerals, as well as micro-chips. Even worse:
and
“Lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite are crucial to battery performance, longevity and energy density. Rare earth elements are essential for permanent magnets that are vital for wind turbines and EV motors.”
https://www.iea.org › reports › exec…
Executive summary – The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions – IEA
—
All the more readona windmills are drazy
@Ted, @Edgar Is switching to electric rational when that requires certain rare elements for batteries which are the one thing we don’t have? Does it make sense for us to have granted Communist China Taiwan’s seat and veto at the UN, while making ambivalent noises about protecting Taiwan’s independence when Taiwan is the richest source of those rare elements needed for said electric batteries?
@Ted, @ Edgar But, the U.S. has more oil, as well as coal and gas, not to mention corn for ethanol. and now Israel, it turns out, has gas and oil. Even in the 50s and 70s, if they had allowed Israel to keep Sinai, those oil reserves would have been developed and for decades they paid Saddam Hussein to keep Iraqi oil off the market to keep the prices up. No, it’s not rational what they’re doing.
TED-
Absolutely right.
As soon as I saw the beginning of your comment on opening the site. I immediately said.”The Oil Weapon”.
It lurks just beneath all talks and agreements with the Saudis and the other oil states. When the chips are down even though they think nothing of the YESHA Arabs they rally against the “enemy” .
ALL “non’believers” are enemies of Islam.
@Peloni
This question is obviously rhetorical. The US does not care about the Palestinians.. All they care about, starting with Roosevelt’s commitment to Ibn Saud to not support an independent Israel, is Arab oil. Beyond that is their embrace of the NWO which sees Israel as a thorn it its side as you rightly point out.
I made a post of my past articles on Saudi Arabia which adds to the two articles I linked to. These articles are also very informative.
@Sebastien
A rather poignant point to make. Very well said!
@Ted When teaching beginning violin or viola, in explaining the importance of reinforcing what was just learned through repetition when practicing, I often quipped, “You may have heard the most powerful force in the world is love. It’s not. It’s habit.”
😀
Though on a serious note, if I may be forgiven, I recall reading or hearing that the ordinary duties like feeding your child are higher mitzvahs than extraordinary heroism one is not required to do, because the fact that they are habitual means you will consistently
do them.
@Ted
Israel is an economic, intelligence, and technological dynamo set within very narrow borders. Should she ever gain the freedom in which her people could work their will to their own ends, she could form the envy of the world, even more so than she does today. This is why the US saw fit to deny her part of her gas fields, has revived the Pal albatross around her neck, and seeks to raise Iran to a point of regional dominance over her. Meanwhile, the Globalists controlling the US is hell bent upon the world’s nations coalescing into a single enterprise. To achieve this, there can be no strong national identities to challenge this feat, and it likewise requires all nations to sink together, and thus usher in the one world, digital currency, globalist realm, where the masses will be happy with less, and the elites will be happy to let them be so ‘happy’.
Israel, as THE Jewish State, already stands in defiance of this goal. Indeed, her identity and unique history has drawn her to become the very antithesis of the Globalist model, drawing her people from across the globe into a single, tiny, but viable and vital nation state which quite sets her apart from coalescing into an amorphous global entity as envisioned by the Globalists. Should she become even more self reliant than she currently stands, as would be the result of enacting judicial reform and mounting a successful response against the Iranian menace, Israel would become an even more vibrant role model to stand against the Globalist agenda.
Furthermore, the economic future for Israel in having finally, perhaps, established a peace with her neighbors would make her already vibrant economy even more vibrant. This would be 0something of an oddity which would sharply contrast with the race to the bottom economic frameworks adopted by much of the world, making Israel yet another obstacle to the Globalists as they need all economies to slump together so they can capture and control all the world economies in a single centrally controlled digital currency.
In addition to this, the policies of Trump alone stands against that preferred by the West of weakening Israel to mollify her to the desires of her allies and her enemies, from Eisenhower to the current Washington regime. In contrast to this, Trump sought to empower and embolden the Jewish State to stand tall and to take a leadership role in the region. In doing so, he sought to have Israel highlight her many successes, making her anti-Globalist qualities shine all the more brightly. Might this not be the real reason why every aspect of Trump’s Israel policy was so harshly opposed by the Western leaders? Rather than being due to their opposition to Trump alone, could it not also be due to their opposition of empowering Israel towards her true potential and thereby stand as a model for other nations to mimic. Perhaps.
In any event, I believe it is a fair conclusion that the growing Israeli independence and power in the region stands quite in contrast to the goals of the Globalists which have now supplanted Trump in controlling the US currently.
This is, of course, quite apart from the motivations which your prior two articles cited, though, in part, the globalist agenda goes back some time, and is not mutually exclusive to the motivations set forth in either of your two previous articles, which still stand as being quite insightful. Israel has always been an inconvenient entity for the US/West, even before it had the independence which Bibi’s economic reforms gave it, and also before the importance which Bibi’s response to Obama’s attack on the Sunnis gave it. I would suggest that the purpose behind the motivations of the West vis a vis Israel has changed, but not the outlook, which has always been negative. Israel was subjected to the torments of the New World Order even before Russia, only then it was because we stood at odds with the need for oil from the ME, and today it is because we stand as a model around which nation states might find a path to scuttle the Globalist designed future enslaving the entire world.
Indeed, as the west goes into decline and tries to take the entire world with it on the rush towards a globalist state run by that most vile of institutions, the UN, Israel is a threat which must be saddled, threatened, divided and even conquered if need be. Whatever needs be done, she must be absorbed into that collective Globalist motif as has been successfully achieve in Europe and is even now being attempted in the US. This will not be an easy feat to accomplish, near impossible actually, and they damn well know it – which is why we are currently being setup for a proxy fight with our greatest enemy Iran, while our supposed ally, the US, abandons us and supports them. Of course, the plan to raise Iran to a position of regional control is not a new one, and has always threatened our existence, but the motivations, I would suggest, are different today than they were in the era going back over the past 40yrs.
Globalism stands as a threat to all nations, but more so to those nations who have an ability and inclination to excel and thereby define the manner in which the Globalists might actually be defeated. Which is why they seed Israel with insurrectionists NGOs, oppose judicial reform, support state sponsored terrorism, demand Israel be partitioned and indicted, and undermine Israel’s efforts at both achieving peace in the region and dealing with the Iranian menace.
I would suggest that it is Israeli exceptionalism, like American exceptionalism, which stands as a splinter in the mind of the Globalists and a puzzle they can not solve, so they must corrupt and conquer it by whatever means they can. Something to think about.
Ted:
I answered this. It probably got JUNK/SPAMed
Hi, Ted. Yes, it is a “pet peeve”, if you will. I have taken an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States, but owe no direct fealty to Biden, Schumer and the Executive Branch.
Sebastian, The prospectus lists all the assets of the Principle, hereafter reffered to as God. They include the known universe, plus all parts unknown.
The instrument is not a loan, so you receive no interest. Everyone accepted as an investor is a joint heir with God of all things.
The price per share is your whole heart, your whole soul and your whole strength.
@Sebastien
Old habits die hard.
@Ted Right, but those reasons no longer make any sense, as you just pointed out.
@Michael @Sebastien
You both ignored the articles I linked to. They suggest that the Palestinian support goes back to US/Arab oil politics. Not mentioned in these articles is the commitment Roosevelt made to Ibn Saud in 1945 not to support the creation of Israel.
As a result of this commitment, the US placed an arms embargo on the Middle East that lasted until after the Six Day War. The US also believed that Israel would be defeated in their War for Independence.
Saudi Arabia and UAE are not increasing oil output to please the US and the EU so why are they still so committed to backing the Palestinians at Israel’s expense.
As for Michael’s pet peeve, I use the US because these policies are done in the name of the US. Foreign policy is conducted by the executive rather than Congress as everyone knows.
I’d like to see an article entitled “Lapid, you can’t take it with you.”
@Michael Thank you, Michael, I would very much like to see the prospectus. I’m sure I would get a reasonable interest rate with a guaranteed return because I have heard that Jesus saves.
Hi, Ted and Sebastien. I see you’re both talking about investments. First, Ted:
As usual, I should add the caveat, “the US”??? You think a senile old man, his puppeteer ex-President (Obama) and his chain of command up to DAVOS, Soros, etc. = “the US”? Maybe that’s the root of your wonderment. I honestly think that I am in the US, and have been here most of my life; and people I associate with are not invested in the Palestinian cause — all except a Jewish congregation that I once knew, and a preacher who kicked me out of his church.
I AM invested, of course, in Blackrock, State Street and Vanguard, buy products from the CCP and pay tax dollars to fund every wicked cause; but it’s hard to keep body and soul together without doing that — they own virtually everything that can be bought (including my governor and congressmen).
Now, Sebastien:
After such an absurd statement by you, I don’t think you really expect a reply. If you’re really interested in my investment in Jesus, though, just email me via Ted, and I will send you a prospectus.
Oh, and case in point on steroids: David Singer and his surreal Hashemite Kingdom fantasy which he still thinks the powers that be are discussing.
I knew somebody who flew into a rage because I said I didn’t like her favorite tv show, “Law and Order.”
George Soros is the author of “Foreign Affairs”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/george-soros
I would therefore put a POISON label on what [he] has to say about
“To Protect Its National Security, Israel Will Need to Compromise”
@Ted Could it be the same reason Michael is so invested in Jesus, Reader and Felix are so invested in Marx, Trotsky and the Soviet Union, Honeybee is so invested in Texas and Edgar and Felix are so invested in Ireland, Democrats and Rinos are so invested in hating Trump and Russia, their israeli equivalents are so invested in hating Bibi.
Because people get attached to their pet ideas long even after they have outlived their connection to reality.
Tradition takes many forms.
https://youtu.be/gRdfX7ut8gw
“Blinken made it clear that Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians was the greatest threat to the U.S.-Israeli relationship.”
Why is the US so invested in the Palestinian cause? I keeping asking myself this question.
My article, “Since when did the Palestinians become entitled to a state?” provides some background as does my other article “The conspiracy to shrink Israel”.
That was then. What about now?
The article assumes that stopping Iran is not in the interests of the U.S., a.k.a. “The Great Seitan” and only in the interests of Israel, a.k.a., the little seitan.” (Not to mention vegetarians the world over.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitan
The most grotesque sentence in this article is with no doubt this one: “[Israel is] weakening its democracy (by passing judicial reforms that will politicize the judiciary and undermine the rule of law).
“Politicize the judiciary?” Don’t make me laugh. The judiciary HAS BEEN POLITICIZED since the 1990’s, and that’s exactly what the judicial reform intends to improve. The sooner the better.