Absurd Alhazred posted:

That's simple, actually. The US has basically said it's working under the assumption that he's abandoned the two-state solution, so he loses nothing by acceding to Bennett's demand.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Have we not seen Netanyahu repeatedly act as if only Republicans matter, though? Cat's out of the bag, he has a coalition to create, Bennett is going to insist on this, I don't see him walking this back. It's going to be in the charter for the next government.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Have we not seen Netanyahu repeatedly act as if only Republicans matter, though? Cat's out of the bag, he has a coalition to create, Bennett is going to insist on this, I don't see him walking this back. It's going to be in the charter for the next government.

quote:

Asked if U.S.-Israel relations were at a dangerous point, McCain, a leading voice on foreign affairs in the Republican-controlled Congress, said: "I think that's up to the president of the United States."

"Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President," McCain said on CNN. "The least of your problems is what Bibi Netanyahu said during an election campaign. If every politician were held to everything they say in a political campaign, obviously that would be a topic of long discussion."

Main Paineframe posted:

Honestly, I think casting Netanyahu's actions as US partisanship is missing the point. Rather than that, I would say that Netanyahu acts as if only the people who support his side of things matter. Certainly, he has closer ties to Republicans, but if a bunch of Senate Dems had rebelled against Obama's Iran policy and invited him to speak in front of Congress about the threat of Iran, he would have accepted that invitation just as he accepted the Republican invitation. He naturally tends to align with the Republicans more for a variety of reasons, but looking at his actions through the lens of US partisan politics is probably fundamentally flawed - ultimately, I think he supports whichever team gives him exactly what he wants at the time, and his actions only look partisan right now because the Dems are pushing back against the policies he wants and the Republicans are responding by giving those policies unprecedented support. Of course, because the Republicans and Netanyahu are both right-leaning, they're going to agree on things more far more often than the hated leftists, but I doubt Netanyahu seriously cares about US internal politics as long as he gets what he wants. If the US opposition is friendly and the administration is hostile, he'll happily back the opposition - just as Obama yearned for the Israeli center-left to defeat Netanyahu.

In essence, while Netanyahu is working with the Republicans right now, he's doing it to get what he wants, not what they want. He couldn't care less about Republican goals in general, except where they align with his own, and he's only working with them when it can be made to benefit him somehow too. The Republicans, for their part, didn't really want to make these partisan issues either. In fact, they chose to pick a fight over Israel and Iran precisely because it was a bipartisan issue - rather than casting it as R vs D, they targeted Obama exclusively and tried to make it a Congress vs President fight so they could attract enough pro-Israel Democratic members of Congress to their side to really bully and humiliate Obama. They hosed it up and went too far with the letter to Iran, but with just the Netanyahu speech they at least had a chance/at making the administration sweat (though I doubt they would've been able to pull it off). Now, though, the extremists have dragged things too far and everyone (except Obama) shooting their mouths off in hilariously dumb ways that make them look like fools.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

He has consistently been playing with Republicans, though, while ignoring Democrats who ended up not supporting a bipartisan sanctions bill because of his very actions, which were orchestrated through an Israeli Ambassador who is a Republican insider. And you seem to be glossing over his obvious partisan support for Romney during the 2012 elections, as well as his main benefactor, bankroller of several news-sources dedicated to singing his praises, Sheldon Adelson. He may not care about Republicans directly for all we know, but he cares about Adelson, and Adelson cares about Republicans, so those concerns seem to not infrequently overrule any alleged independent agenda he might have.

Main Paineframe posted:

Zeitgueist posted:

To be fair, McCain would be an expert on running to the right to pick up crazies and race baiting.

Zeitgueist posted:

To be fair, McCain would be an expert on running to the right to pick up crazies and race baiting.

A big flaming stink posted:

I think some people itt are getting hung up over the polling percentage of american support for israel. its pretty obvious that if you put the question to someone they'll say israel good arabs bad the vast majority of the time, but I'm kind of doubtful anyone but a significant minority actually care enough to have it change their vote, especially since the potential reprisal is just doing nothing.

quote:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed regret Monday for his statements during the elections last week, in which he called on his supporters to vote, warning that "the Arabs are voting in droves."

"I know the things I said a few days ago hurt some Israeli citizens," Netanyahu said during a meeting Tuesday with representatives of Israeli monitory groups.

"My actions as prime minister, including massive investment in minority sectors, prove the exact opposite," he added. "I think, similarly, that no element outside the state of Israel should intervene in our democratic processes."

The prime minister added: "I see myself as the prime minister of each and every one of you, of all Israeli citizens without differentiating between religions, races and sex. I see in all Israeli citizens partners in building the State of Israel, one that is thriving and safe for all Israeli citizens."

https://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.648441

PhilippAchtel posted:

Wasn't he the victim of such in 2000? Something about an illegitimate black child? And are we to believe President McCain would have accepted a foreign power and the Democratic party trying to strong arm him like they've tried to do to Obama?

I guess consistency with one's own principles is too much to ask nowadays.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

That's simple, actually. The US has basically said it's working under the assumption that he's abandoned the two-state solution, so he loses nothing by acceding to Bennett's demand.

quote:

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized Monday for racially provocative remarks he made about Arab voters on Israel’s election day last week, but the move failed to assuage critics of his campaign-trail tactics, which sparked outrage in Israel and drew rare public rebukes from the White House.

The Obama administration made it clear Monday that it wasn’t letting Netanyahu off the hook for either the anti-Arab statements, in which he urged his supporters to turn out because Israeli Arabs were voting in “droves,” or remarks in which he vowed that a Palestinian state wouldn’t emerge under his watch, effectively rejecting the two-state solution that’s long been the internationally recognized framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told a national convention in Washington of J Street, a left-leaning, pro-peace group that’s positioning itself as a counterweight to more traditional pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC.

Netanyahu delivered the apology at a meeting in his official residence with an invited Arab delegation that did not include members of the Arab party, known as the United List, which won 13 seats in the 120-member legislature.

“I know that what I said a few days ago offended Israeli Arabs. This was never my intention. I am sorry about that,” Netanyahu said to applause and cheers from his Arab listeners, who included members of his conservative Likud party. “My actions as prime minister, including huge investments in the minority sectors, prove the opposite.”

“I consider myself the prime minister of each and every one of you, all the citizens of Israel, regardless of religion, race or sex.”

The apology was promptly rejected by Ayman Odeh, the head of the newly elected Arab party that will be the third largest bloc in parliament. He called the remarks “another zigzag” by Netanyahu that could not substitute for concrete steps to ensure genuine equality for Israel’s Arab citizens.

“This is not a real apology,” Odeh told Israel’s Channel Two television. “What is required is a policy of real equality for the Arab population.”

The Obama administration struck a similar line, with spokespeople across the government insisting that Netanyahu “match words to actions.”

For now, a public dressing down is as far as U.S. officials will go, however. McDonough and other officials stopped short of spelling out any tougher response, whether through the United Nations or other avenues. In Geneva, the United States on Monday backed Israel by refusing to participate in a U.N. Human Rights Commission discussion of alleged Israeli human rights abuses.

Still, administration spokespeople continued to take special aim at the longtime notion of U.S. and Israeli “shared values,” warning that Israel’s democratic ideals are threatened by the open-ended occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, unfettered settlement expansion, and the de facto second-class citizenship of Arabs and other minorities.

“At the heart of any democracy is the right for all citizens to participate equally,” McDonough said to raucous applause at the J Street convention.

Since his re-election last week to an unprecedented fourth term, Netanyahu has tried to soften or qualify the controversial statements but to little success. Last week, Netanyahu explained in several interviews with U.S. news outlets that he had not meant to reject a two-state solution and only intended to say that conditions did not now exist for it to go into effect. The Obama administration rejected that version, however.

In his remarks at his official residence Monday, Netanyahu took a swipe at President Barack Obama, who had publicly criticized the prime minister’s election day appeal and brought it up with him in a phone conversation on Friday.

“No element outside the state of Israel should interfere in our democratic process,” Netanyahu said.

The anger at Netanyahu stems from a Facebook message he posted as Israelis went to the polls last Tuesday warning that “the rule of the right is in danger” and that Arab Israelis were “going in droves” to polling stations in buses provided by left-wing groups.

White House officials have used undiplomatic language to criticize the warning for days.

In an interviewed published Saturday, Obama told The Huffington Post that he’d told Netanyahu in a phone call that his warning about the Arab vote contradicted Israel’s democratic traditions. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called it a “cynical election day tactic” meant to “marginalize” Israeli Arabs, who are 20 percent of Israel’s population.

Netanyahu’s primary opponent, Isaac Herzog, called Netanyahu’s remarks “racist” and said that he’d “humiliated 20 percent of Israeli citizens for the sake of his election campaign.” Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, a one-time Likud politician, criticized them on Sunday.

Odeh, the head of the Arab party, called Netanyahu’s apology lip service in response to a chorus of criticism from abroad, and he noted that Netanyahu had promoted a controversial “nationality law” that critics said would demote the status of Israel’s Arab minority.

“He incited against citizens who exercised their basic right to vote for parliament,” Odeh said. “We are waiting for a real apology, in other words, a policy of real equality.”

Many U.S.-based Jewish groups also rejected both the anti-Arab remarks and the apology Monday. Speaker after speaker at the J Street conference drew cheers from the 3,000-person audience by attacking Netanyahu’s comments as unrepresentative of Israeli values. Stav Shaffir, the youngest member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, got a standing ovation for vowing that Israelis “will not stay silent to racist rants.”

“It looks like the prime minister said, ‘I’m sorry if you were offended,’” said Naomi Paiss of the New Israel Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit that funds human rights and civil society groups in Israel. “And anyone in a romantic relationship knows that that is a weaseling out of responsibility. It’s even more true when you’re talking about insulting 20 percent of the country of which you are prime minister.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Netanyahu’s apology and his earlier attempts to walk back his comments on the two-state solution had done nothing to enhance the prime minister’s credibility.

“I think it’s just understandably confusing for people about which of his comments to believe,” she said. “ He said diametrically opposing things in the matter of a week. So which is his actual policy? That’s why what we said is, words aren’t enough at this point. We need to see actions – actions and policies.”

quote:

White House Chief of Staff Says Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank 'Must End'
By Harriet Salem
March 23, 2015 | 8:54 pm

After a divisive election campaign by incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that further soured his already troubled relationship with the US, President Barack Obama's chief of staff said Monday that Israel's occupation of the West Bank "must end," and that Obama will "never stop working for a two-state solution."

Speaking to a left-leaning audience at a conference hosted by J Street, a pro-Israel group aligned with the Democratic Party, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough received a round of applause after he said, "Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely."

In the final hours of his campaign last week, Netanyahu, known as "Bibi" to supporters and critics alike, promised that a Palestinian state would not be established under his watch. He also pledged to continue building Jewish settlements in Israeli-occupied territories beyond the 1967 lines.

In a last-minute bid to push surge of conservative voters to the polls on election day, Netanyahu's Likud party sent out a barrage of text messages to Israeli cellphones warning that "the Arabs are voting in droves."

Netanyahu has since attempted to backtrack, claiming in an interview with MSNBC that he is actually in favor of "a peaceful two-state solution." He also issued a public statement of regret over any comments that may have offended Israeli Arab citizens, who comprise 20 percent of the country's population.

"This was never my intent. I apologize for this. I view myself as the prime minister of each and every citizen of Israel, without any prejudice based on religion, ethnicity or gender," Netanyahu said Monday at his Jerusalem residence during a meeting with members of the Arab community.

Netanyahu's political flip-flopping has not been well received in the US. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Obama described a frosty phone call in which he told the Israeli prime minister that it would now be "hard to find a path where people seriously believe [peace] negotiations are possible."

The president also said Netanyahu's actions "erode the meaning of democracy," and give "ammunition to folks who don't believe in a Jewish state."

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is expected to officially recommend Wednesday that Netanyahu head the formation of the country's next government. Consultations over the weekend showed the Likud leader commands the support of enough parties to pull together a coalition with the required 61 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

In Israel, the "Joint List," a coalition of Arab candidates who stood on a shared platform during the recent election, sharply rejected the prime minister's attempt at an apology, issuing a statement Monday that called his remarks "empty words intended to preserve his racist regime."

"Sadly, the racism of Netanyahu and his government did not start with this statement and it surely will not be its end," the statement said. "Racist and exclusionary legislation are part of Netanyahu's work plan for the next Knesset, and thus we have no choice but to reject this apology."

Speaking on an Israeli television channel, Ayman Odeh, the head of the Joint List, reportedly said the prime minister's apology was "not real," and accused him of shameless "zigzagging."

Asked Monday about Netanyahu's apology, State Department spokeswoman Melanie Hart told reporters that he had said "diametrically opposite things in a matter of a week."

"When he says one thing one day and another thing another it's impossible to tell if he's sincere," Hart added. "We can't read his mind."

Despite the ongoing disputes, the US has emphasized that it will continue providing its annual $3 billion in military aid to Israel, and that security and intelligence cooperation between the two countries will not cease.

Kim Jong Il posted:

That's not Netanyahu though. The core of his very being is that he has no principles beyond staying in power.

Main Paineframe posted:

Not that I expect any real significant policy changes toward Israel to come out of it, but it's still incredibly funny to see everyone - the Obama administration, the Israeli left, the Joint Arab List, the Palestinians, and even J Street and other American pro-Israel organizations - openly roasting Netanyahu for trying to pull "All that poo poo I said yesterday? I didn't mean it, honest" in an incredibly obvious way. It's rare that people drop the pretense of respect and straight-up hold a politician accountable for the poo poo they said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/03/23/260671/netanyahu-apologizes-for-anti.html

Absurd Alhazred posted:

As soon as the Obama Administration had made it clear that it was not going to allow him to walk back his "no Palestinian State" remarks, he lost the only reason to keep up that facade. Meanwhile, this might be a dealbreaker for Bennett, whose party he needs. Therefore, he has no reason to pursue this and every reason to follow through.

quote:

Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.

Avshalom posted:

seriously considering applying for israeli citizenship so i can have the satisfaction of voting for someone other than bibi

Fizzil posted:

Once you do, also try and heal Sharon from his coma so he can fix this.

Avshalom posted:

uh

actually i just had a dream this afternoon where he begged me to come to israel, break into his hospital room and wake him up before it was too late. i was like "ariel i have some bad news for you"

Fizzil posted:

Also how long before the PA collapses? and what would be the consequences of that? will Israel police the territory themselves?

Fizzil posted:

Oh no, what are you waiting for? only true love can awaken sleeping beauty from his eternal slumber

Fizzil posted:

Once you do, also try and heal Sharon from his coma so he can fix this.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Sharon's coma went from 'coma' to 'literally dead' about a year ago.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Sharon's coma went from 'coma' to 'literally dead' about a year ago.

Doflamingo posted:

You're not truly dead until you're forgotten about imo.

quote:

Israel denies 'utterly false' claims it spied on U.S.

Israel on Tuesday vehemently denied claims that it had spied on the U.S. during the Iranian negotiations, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Official in the Prime Minister’s Office called the allegations "utterly false."

"The State of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share," they said.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Israel had not received an official complaint from the American administration over such claims and that "there is no way, and there was no way, that Israel spied on the Americans. That is seriously forbidden among every level of Israel's policy leaders."

"Israel's security-intelligence relationship with the U.S. has suffered no harm, someone is just trying to stir conflict," Ya'alon said. "It's a shame that such winds are blowing into the clandestine channels in which we conduct this relationship."

https://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.648550

SNAKES N CAKES posted:

"The State of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies."