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At Large
Right Man for the Job
A degree of murk attaches to the Israeli election results, to the surprise of none. It is a rule of politics in the Holy Land that if there is an easy way to do a thing and a hard way, the solution is to invent a third, more difficult way. Still, after the dust settles, the smoke clears and the fog lifts, it appears the next Prime Minister will be everyone's favorite MIT diplomate and well-met diplomat, Benjamin Netanyahu. And anyone who has kept up with his Hebrew lessons knows what Benjamin means: "Man of the right."
The freshly minted American administration is none too happy being left at the altar. They had hoped to "remake" Israel along with remaking the United States. Any movie buff can tell you the remakes are rarely as good as the original.
The tactic being employed by the administration and its surrogates is fascinating, though founded in falsity. They are planting stories everywhere about how prickly Netanyahu is, so curmudgeonly that even a nice even-keeled guy like Bill Clinton was subjected to a rough ride. Poor Hillary, these commentators cluck, now she is in for it. Unless of course Benjamin has matured.
This sort of setup is a classic pincer strategy elevated by leftists to an art form. If there is disagreement between Obama and Netanyahu, as there will inevitably be, Netanyahu is tarred (you should excuse the expression) as the bad guy. In a word much beloved of negotiators, he will be labeled intransigent. Reuters in a Feb. 9 piece has already dusted off a real nasty word: "truculence." If Netanyahu sells out his principles and betrays his voters, that will be heralded as a sign of statesmanship. It's a thing of beauty, this Machiavellian strategy, even if it is pernicious, obnoxious, fulsome and abhorrent.
Listen to this quote in a few recent articles, attributed to Dennis Ross: "Bill Clinton complained Netanyahu acted as if Israel were the real superpower."
The real truth, well known to both Washington and Jerusalem insiders, is that Clinton hated Netanyahu for no reason other than liberal hating conservative. The late Ralph de Toledano (1916-2007) wrote a phenomenal essay in the Conservative Chronicle during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. He pointed out how relaxed Bill's body language was around Yasser Arafat, a murderer of Israelis and Americans, soldiers and civilians, adults and children, not to mention a corrupt, dissipated lowlife. On the other hand, when Bill stood next to Benjamin Netanyahu, a fellow Ivy Leaguer with heroic achievements, he was distinctly ill at ease.
Toledano's point was brilliant and true: Clinton's problems with Netanyahu reflect on Bill's character flaws much more than on Benjamin's.
This story is public knowledge, repeated extensively in political circles: Clinton tricked Netanyahu by suddenly offering a pardon for Jonathan Pollard as a sweetener for a deal in the Wye Plantation negotiations. When Netanyahu showed interest in the proposal, Clinton had George Tenet leak the deal in such a way that a flurry of negative publicity ensued. The upshot was that not only was Pollard not released, Netanyahu was criticized for even suggesting such a thing.
On top of all this, the Clintons went out of their way to personally interfere in the Israeli election, helping Barak defeat Netanyahu. They snubbed Netanyahu, canceling scheduled meetings, while encouraging James Carville to go off to Israel and work on the Barak campaign. This was an unprecedented act of interference in another country's political process, and displays the classic Clinton vengefulness.
Hillary Clinton is not looking forward to dealing with him for the obvious reason that she stabbed him in the back. The likelihood of him being terribly forthcoming with her is small, although he has hitherto been careful to avoid taking direct shots at her. But every bit of scorn she gets from him in private or public is thoroughly well deserved and could not happen to a nicer person, ahem.
Hopefully Netanyahu's communication skills will enable him to bypass these weasels and win the hearts of the American public. He maintains a close friendship with Rush Limbaugh, and the two often get together to trade views while smoking stogies. If he has indeed matured, perhaps he can show the American right once and for all how to beat these mean-spirited lefties at their own game.
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Kitty| 2.12.09 @ 6:58AM
I doubt Netanyahu has forgotten HRC's infamous kiss: Back in November of 1999, at a West Bank ceremony, Hillary sat mute next to Suha Arafat as Suha accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian women and children. Afterwards, Hillary came back to life and planted a wet juicy on Mrs. Arafat.
(feh feh feh)
...
Bill| 2.12.09 @ 8:56AM
So a conservative leader is brought to the forefront to show the United States what is lacking in this country. Someone with back bone and clear vision, a leader of the people and for the people.
The contrast between the two countries and the leadership will be evident to all.
Keyser Sozay| 2.12.09 @ 9:30AM
Thank GOD, somebody, somewhere put the RIGHT man in charge. I may have to relocate from america with a small "a" to Israel. So long Komrades!
J David| 2.12.09 @ 9:33AM
Wave bye-bye to Iranian nukes, Damascus, and Hamas!
J David| 2.12.09 @ 9:35AM
Israel just got the leadership the elected because of the commies we just elected. Even the most liberal Israeli knows how close they now are to vaporization.
J David| 2.12.09 @ 9:37AM
Nuke 'em 'til they glow, Bibi!
M Turkelson| 2.12.09 @ 10:03AM
Jay's piece should be required reading at the NEW RNC. It is brilliant in so many ways:exposes the rottenness of the clintons; warns us of the nasty tricks we can expect from the current(ugh) resident at Penn Ave on their mideast bias against the Israelis;it is a tutorial on political action as we conservatives weep, wail and knash our teeth.
I must note that some many months ago Jay and I clashed to the point of exchanging personal e-mails. The subject was the American South and a Spectator article on Robt E. Lee. Subsequently, I have enjoyed his many thoughtful-well written pieces.
Angelo Z| 2.12.09 @ 10:27AM
Israel is about to be abbandoned by the USA, because the Obama adminstratiom is guided by the abstract notion that there could be peace.(Israel caving in ) As such, it desires to see a less belicose Jewish State. In other words, Israel ought to turn over and play dead. Therefore, the preference of the Obama White House, is the lovely and talented Tzipi,who may be tempted to concede more ground in the name of peace. However, Bibi will not be lured by the false pretext of peace. His sucess in forming the next government, scares Obama who wants to succeed where his predecessors Bush and Clinton that for different reason both were unsuccessful in bringing peace to th region.
Hugh Briss| 2.12.09 @ 10:33AM
Ross has ended the speculation and appointed himself:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/12/18569647.php
Hugh Briss| 2.12.09 @ 10:35AM
The money quotes:
"As the US State Department gears up for intensified diplomacy across the Middle East, former Clinton administration negotiator Dennis Ross has named himself to be US envoy to Iran.
"Since President Obama publicly named George J. Mitchell envoy to the Middle East and Richard C. Holbrooke the special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, there's been a lot of speculation about my taking the lead on US-Iranian negotiations," confirmed Ross while shopping in Bethesda, Maryland "I've decided to end the uncertainty by announcing that I'll fill this important position beginning in March."
Ross also confirmed while purchasing multiple copies of his own book "The Missing Peace" at Barns and Noble that US-Iranian diplomacy could require a tough approach. "If the Iranians refuse to understand that Arafat was wrong not to accept our offer of a bantustan of Palestinian territorial parcels, I intend to bludgeon sensibility into them with my book. These are being paid for with State Department salary advances that I am making to myself."
Michele San Pietro| 2.12.09 @ 11:15AM
I also hope Benjamin Netanyahu will be the next Israeli prime minister, he's definitely the man Israel needs right now. I totally agree with him when he says Israeli should not longer make any unilateral withdrawal and there should be no further peace talks as long as Arab countries do not fully recognize Israel.
mfalatko| 2.12.09 @ 11:28AM
With Obama and Clinton in charge of our foreign policy Israel will do well to make sure that Netanyahu is the next Prime Minister if Israel hopes to still have a country in the next few years. He is the only one who will not only stand up to Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas but also to the new leftist government of the United States. Hopefully Israel has wised up to the fact that those on the left (Obama, Clinton, the Nobel Committee who gave the Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, a terrorist killer who never even stopped being one and Jimmy Carter who is also no friend of Israel, plus the Palestinian-backing EU) are no friends to Israel and that their best hope for a peaceful future and any future at all lies with conservatives at home and in the United States.
Eric Eller| 2.12.09 @ 11:48AM
The irony is that while the big O doesn't want Netanyahu, the first interview he gave as President was to an Arab network where he cozied up to the Arabs, told them how we would be their friends, and how he could identify with them since he lived in a Muslim country as a child. Exactly how DID he expect that to play in Israel? Clearly Obama is either an incompetent boob or a . . . uh, incompetent boob.
As for Israel electing Netanyahu, if they expect to survive they better dan well elect him, because the big O sure is going to do anything to protect them.
Doctor Right| 2.12.09 @ 1:07PM
How I long for the day when an American President with real backbone will say loudly and proudly to the Israeli Prime Minister:
"You do WHATEVER you have to do to secure your people, your borders, and your sovereignity - WHATEVER it takes. We are with you 100%"
With Netanyahu back where he belongs, we're one step closer to that possibility.
Now, if only we had a REAL man in the White House...
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 5:02PM
J David said, "Nuke 'em 'til they glow, Bibi!"
Oh good grief! This is just the kind of absurdly militaristic rhetoric that gives "conservatives" a black eye. Being flippant about the killing of other human beings is neither conservative nor Christian. That kind of nonsense belongs at Free Republic, not a nuanced and somewhat paleo sympathetic American Spectator.
Angelo Z said, “Israel is about to be abandoned by the USA”
America should not be supporting Israel. (Or whatever the opposite of abandoning is.) We should be neutral. Our “entangling alliance” with Israel is just the kind that George Washington warned us about. It is neither the constitutional nor the moral obligation of the US to support Israel. Israel can and should take care of itself.
It’s called non-interventionism, and it is the foreign policy that authentic conservatives support. Militarism and global interventionism is a dying cause on the “right,” and non-interventionism is the rising tide.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 5:15PM
Islamofascists, as Commies and Nazis, only respect force.
that is why they are called Islamofascists and not buddhist vegetarian gay pansies
Michele San Pietro| 2.12.09 @ 5:16PM
In my opinion, America cannot afford to be neutral in the Middle East as long as the Arabs do not recognize Israel by deeds, not just by words.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 5:33PM
Arabs will never recognize Israel.
actually, the best thing to do would be to move Israel somewhere else (Bavaria) and let the r*gheads kill each other off as Iraqis and Iranians did 1980-88.
if only it could be!
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 5:38PM
Alan, Islamofascist is a nonsensical smear word. That said, the best way to protect America from future Islamic terrorist acts would be immigration restrictions and disengagement from the Middle East. Attacking nation states for the acts of stateless terrorists in the name of pre-emption/prevention is grossly unchristian and counterproductive. Study up on Just War doctrine.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not America’s concern, and being seen as so closely tied to Israel hurts us with the Arabs and makes us more likely to be the target of terrorist attacks, not less.
DaveS| 2.12.09 @ 5:40PM
BenNet is the next PM, Livni. You can't form a government with a coalition minority (dope). Watch the stammering come from Iran as they start watching the western sky for the sun instead of the eastern sky. The Iranian nuclear program is heading for the dustbin of history.
DaveS| 2.12.09 @ 5:43PM
Red Phillips: put 'The Nation' down.
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 5:51PM
Yeah, because The Nation is likely to cite Christian Just War Doctrine, endorse immigration restrictions and claim that non-interventionism is the authentic conservative position. And I'm sure The Nation readers blog at a site called Conservative Times that has Burke, Calhoun and de Maistre on the masthead. But I'm not reading The Nation. I'm reading George Washington's Farewell Address.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 6:03PM
right, they're not Islamofascists, they are bleating lambs of innocence.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 6:09PM
Red,
isn't 'reactionary' a nonsensical smear word for conservative?
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 6:14PM
Alan, words should mean things. Fascist means something very specific. Think Italy and Mussolini. Whatever Islamist may be, they ain’t fascists. A type of authoritarian, yes, but fascists, no.
Fascist is a boogie word thrown around by the left to smear people to their right. Conservatives should not join in this silly ahistorical game.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 6:17PM
you did not answer the specific question!
typical lib evasiveness.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 6:21PM
btw Mussolini was a nun compared to Stalin and Hitler.
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 6:35PM
Alan, what question? Reactionaries?
Actually, I think the American right could use more reactionaries? Currently it has too many who think that slowing our slide into socialism and post-Christianity is striking a conservative blow.
Do you really think I am a lib? If you think that you haven't been reading my posts.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 6:43PM
my guess is you are a libertarian, Red.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 7:08PM
guy on the phone:
"you don't say"
"you don't say"
"you don't say".
he hangs up.
wife: "what happened, dear?"
guy: "he didn't say"
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 7:34PM
Alan, I am a paleoconservative.
DaveS| 2.12.09 @ 7:49PM
Dear Red Phillips: you are all over the map and too much in front of the mirror.
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 8:11PM
Huh?
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 8:28PM
perhaps you meant to type in American Conservative, but you were thinking of something else while doing so?
DaveS| 2.12.09 @ 8:47PM
...down to one word; just one more to go.
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 9:06PM
Yeah, DaveS you wish. We non-interventionist authentic conservative ain't going no where. We will be around to call you on your liberal, Jacobin global crusading.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 9:13PM
Jacobin.
you could have written 'Napoleonic' or fallen back on 'Quixotic', but you chose Jacobin.
Red Phillips| 2.12.09 @ 9:41PM
Yes, Jacobin because it was an ideological crusade. At least it was as conceived by the neoconservatives who peddled it. Napoleon was just rank conquest.
stmichrick| 2.12.09 @ 10:12PM
The irony of all this leftist angst is that with a 'hawkish' right-winger in charge there will probably by less killing and uncertainty than a with a weak 'let's talk while the missiles fly' Labor type.
Alan Brooks| 2.12.09 @ 10:33PM
Rank conquest?
you mean it was not even to spread the ideals of the Revolution and the code Napoleon? it was just rank conquest?
Geez, I guess human motivations are simpler than previously thought.
Redbeard| 2.13.09 @ 5:57AM
It is interesting to see how close ideologically many of those who call themselves Paleoconservatives have come to those who call themselves Liberals. Both seem to hold that the highest value is to be unbiased between good and evil.
DaveS| 2.13.09 @ 7:38AM
Red: you are way off gauging my political/philosophical bents. Divine something else for us - accurately this time.
Red Phillips| 2.13.09 @ 9:44AM
Redbeard, if you think paleoconservatives have trouble calling evil evil, then you haven't read many of them. They denounced pre-emptive and preventative war as evil in line with the Christian tradition. In fact, they are often criticized for their perpetually grumpy low assessment of the modern state of affairs.
Franklin D. Rosenfeld| 2.13.09 @ 11:22AM
Mr. Red Phillips - let me know if you agree to the following:
America should not be supporting Great Britain/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/Australia. (Or whatever the opposite of abandoning is.) We should be neutral. Our “entangling alliance” with Israel is just the kind that George Washington warned us about. It is neither the constitutional nor the moral obligation of the US to support Great Britain/Japan/South Korea/Australia/Taiwan. They can and should take care of itself.
It’s called non-interventionism, and it is the foreign policy that authentic conservatives support. Militarism and global interventionism is a dying cause on the “right,” and non-interventionism is the rising tide.
Or is an alliance only "entangling" when one dares to support the evil Joooos?
Red Phillips| 2.13.09 @ 11:52AM
Ah Mr. Rosenfeld, you think you got me.
"America should not be supporting Great Britain/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/Australia."
I absolutely concur with that. We should give no foreign aid to ANY COUNTRY. We should give security guarantees to NO COUNTRY. We should withdraw from NATO and the UN. And we should bring almost all our foreign stationed troops home.
We should be friendly to and trade with every country that isn’t openly hostile.
Now clearly there are countries that we have certain natural affinities with - the Anglosphere, Taiwan, Japan, and yes even Israel - but we should be officially neutral in foreign conflicts that don't impact our proximate vital national interests. We should work for normal friendly relations and not antagonize countries.
If Bermuda rolls up on the North Carolina shore or Canada invades Maine then we should go to war, pretty much otherwise we should mind our own business.
First use of the anti-Semitism smear is really tacky. Shouldn't you wait for some evidence first?
Peace Not DEATH| 2.13.09 @ 12:55PM
Britain is the HEART of the BEAST, all others are distant relatives. If you want to know what evil looks like you need to fully understand Britains true historic policies relating to America Canada, Austrilia, and Europe. Satans Kingdom dwells in the United Kingdom. They make and break NATIONS, BRITAIN made ISRAEL, and they will destroy Israel. America is still paying TAXES to BRITAIN, and claim to be a REPUBLIC.
Washington DC, and ROME, and the CITY of LONDON are Independent States answerable only to the Queen of England. No man owns any thing, and can be taken away at the stroke of a pen. And all Americans are Slaves of the United Kingdom. When the poor left the UK most of them could not read, so the laws set up in Rome and the UK was not fully understood by the people fleeing the UK.
No man in America Canada, and the British Commonwealth, owns any thing on the surface of those countries. The only people who knows that is the Lawyers who study these acient laws, Americans are no more than the people they took from Africa as slaves, the fact is they don't know they are strill slaves to the British Common Wealth, and worth no omer than the Slaves from Africa because they belong to the Queen, and next the King of England, when she dies.
People who have ben too involved with what Britney is doing should be more concerned about them selves. People in Britain have been fed this false ideology that they are free, and they own property, the fact is they own nothing, it's based on the good will of the Crown.
Now that the Queen is losing money, all Americans freedom is near an end, then the people of the UK, and Africa with all its mineral wealth goes to the Crown as money become worthless, the price of Gold increase, and their lives becomes worthless.
The idea that Britain gave the LAND of PALESTINE to form ISRAEL, and Israel kicked them out of Plaestine, they want Israel destroyed and will do nothing to change that. Britain is not interested in Israel no more than they were concerned that they gave Palestine to a group of people who were not Jewish or Christians, people who claim to be Jewish from Europe, are people seeking land for free but some one paid for that LAND, for a reason. It had nothing to do with people who were Jews. But more to do with the cost of the 2nd world war.
Israel has all it's enmies around it which is what the Bible said would happen. Israel was the cause of the 1st and the 2nd world war, and will be the cause of the 3rd world war. If Israel survive at all they will emerge as the most hated people on earth. If their sons and daughters lose their live, for theses people, when they could have had peace, will paint a picture of hate and death. The Europeans are with them today but they will change, they will see the destructions of their own economy and civilization. Israel is not the world, and it would be wise for those in and out of Israel to make a note of these facts.
Jeremiah| 2.14.09 @ 7:20AM
Is that you, Daphne?
Red Phillips| 2.14.09 @ 8:38AM
That was pretty much a tread killer. How do you respond to that?
Michele San Pietro| 2.14.09 @ 2:21PM
I don't see why Israel should move to Bavaria or anyplace else, it is where it is in a legitimate way, it is the pretention of Arab countries to destroy Israel that is totally illegitimate.
Illegal Country in the wrong | 2.14.09 @ 3:45PM
Michael San Pietro.
Why don't you let Israel come and set up a country inside America, and then attack the rest of the United States, and see how it would go down grow up monkies and get real.
manfrensengen| 2.14.09 @ 11:35PM
Hey Illegal,
What? You've gotten it backwards my friend. It is the lunatic Palestinians that behave in the way you are attempting to attribute to the Israelis. Israel existed as a nation loooooooong before there was a "Palestine". I don't know if you are aware of it, but there exists a time and history prior to 1948..........The WWII allied nations didn't originally create Israel. They re-created it.
S.L. Toddard| 2.15.09 @ 6:34PM
Right on, manfrensengen! Jews were at home in Palestine long before there was a cancer called islam. Ragheads have no business living in Palestine, in fact they have no business living anywhere on this planet. They're even worse than liberals; quite an achievement!
Occam's Razor| 8.7.09 @ 5:47PM
Red, you need to read your Edmund Burke.
Essentially, you are a spineless, Jew Hating weasel.
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