(The Age, 30/5/2024)
Finally the world is waking up to what many of us has known for years – the USA and Britain are just puppets for Netanyahu to manipulate for money and protection whilst he continues his murderous Genocide – shame on them all – Mark
When former US president Barack Obama hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office in 2014, the Israeli leader lectured him about Gaza’s future, a Palestinian state and an Iranian nuclear deal in a tone that Obama found condescending and dismissive.
After the meeting, an aide asked how it went. Netanyahu “peed on my leg”, Obama replied, according to two people familiar with the exchange who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation.
The moment was emblematic of a dynamic that is culminating in the bitter debates over Israel now erupting across the American political landscape. Over the past 16 years, Netanyahu has departed sharply from his predecessors’ studious bipartisanship to embrace Republicans and disdain Democrats, an attitude increasingly mirrored in each party’s approach to Israel.
The war in Gaza has vastly accelerated the shift, as the once-broad support from Americans for Israel is shattering along partisan and generational lines. The divide, playing out in angry protests and Democratic debates, marks a fundamental shift in US politics.
“I don’t think there’s any other way to say it: Netanyahu has been an absolute disaster for Israel’s support around the world,” said Senator Chris Murphy. “Here in the United States, Netanyahu made a reckless decision to integrate himself with the Republican Party, taking very clear sides in US politics, and it has come with serious consequences.”
Netanyahu is not solely responsible for the shift. Israel has moved steadily to the right and the Democratic Party to the left in recent years, while memories of the Holocaust, which long undergirded Americans’ sympathy for Israel, have increasingly faded into the past.
But Netanyahu has led the change with a strategy of aligning himself with the American right, former aides say – a decision that underlies his growing rift with Biden, who personifies the traditional Democratic affection for Israel.
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