Outraging his foes, Netanyahu has shown the Americans that defeating Iran and Hezbollah is the rational alternative to Biden/Harris’ dead-end diplomacy
(Sep. 30, 2024 / JNS)
Since Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely played by the rules set down by his American allies. Though it didn’t spare him from constant unfair criticism in which President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken often echoed Hamas propaganda about civilian casualties in Gaza, Netanyahu was determined to avoid an open split with the United States.
But in the last weeks as he began serious efforts to force Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters to back down and stop firing on northern Israel, the prime minister is trying something different. Rather than be tied into the futile and self-defeating Biden policy that treats diplomacy as an end unto itself, he has chosen a strategy that gives his nation a reasonable chance to achieve victory over its enemies.
This has proven to be as great a shock to Washington as it has been to Tehran and its Hezbollah auxiliaries in Lebanon. As a series of articles in The New York Times, acting as always as the reliable mouthpiece of the administration and the foreign-policy establishment, has made clear, the expert class thinks Netanyahu has gone rogue. From their point of view, he has exposed Biden as unable to “control” what the administration still considers a dependent minor ally and to prevent a war that it wants no part of, regardless of the consequences.
One may dismiss any Times analysis of the current situation as coming from the same outlet that eulogized slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as a “skilled orator” who was as much a warrior for social justice as for terrorism and whom it incredulously claimed believed in a future for Israel in which all people would live in peace and justice with each other—a messianic era that could, of course, only be achieved, after the Jews were subjected to genocide.
A worldview turned upside down
More
www.jns.org
(Sep. 30, 2024 / JNS)
Since Oct. 7, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely played by the rules set down by his American allies. Though it didn’t spare him from constant unfair criticism in which President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken often echoed Hamas propaganda about civilian casualties in Gaza, Netanyahu was determined to avoid an open split with the United States.
But in the last weeks as he began serious efforts to force Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters to back down and stop firing on northern Israel, the prime minister is trying something different. Rather than be tied into the futile and self-defeating Biden policy that treats diplomacy as an end unto itself, he has chosen a strategy that gives his nation a reasonable chance to achieve victory over its enemies.
This has proven to be as great a shock to Washington as it has been to Tehran and its Hezbollah auxiliaries in Lebanon. As a series of articles in The New York Times, acting as always as the reliable mouthpiece of the administration and the foreign-policy establishment, has made clear, the expert class thinks Netanyahu has gone rogue. From their point of view, he has exposed Biden as unable to “control” what the administration still considers a dependent minor ally and to prevent a war that it wants no part of, regardless of the consequences.
One may dismiss any Times analysis of the current situation as coming from the same outlet that eulogized slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as a “skilled orator” who was as much a warrior for social justice as for terrorism and whom it incredulously claimed believed in a future for Israel in which all people would live in peace and justice with each other—a messianic era that could, of course, only be achieved, after the Jews were subjected to genocide.
A worldview turned upside down
More
By seeking victory, Israel exposed Washington’s false assumptions - JNS.org
Outraging his foes, Netanyahu has shown the Americans that defeating Iran and Hezbollah is the rational alternative to Biden/Harris’ dead-end diplomacy.
www.jns.org
