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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Bibi Gives Away the Game by Publicly Patting Himself on the Back: Israel is the Tail Wagging the American Dog

Bibi Gives Away the Game by Publicly Patting Himself on the Back: Israel is the Tail Wagging the American Dog

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Looks like Bibi Netanyahu just proved Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib were correct. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Congressman Crenshaw or the arbiter of American anti-Semitism, Megan McCain, to acknowledge their errors and apologize for their incendiary remarks.

Here’s the translation courtesy of The Times of Israel (1. So no one can accuse me of doing a biased/slanted translation from the Hebrews. 2. Because I really don’t like having to translate it myself at this hour with my rusty, out of use Hebrew. 3. Emphasis mine.):

In recording, Netanyahu boasts Israel convinced Trump to quit Iran nuclear deal

Public broadcaster airs clip of PM telling Likud activists US exit came after he stood up ‘against the whole world’ by opposing accord

In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal.

In the video, which the Kan public broadcaster said was filmed two weeks ago, Netanyahu can be seen speaking to activists and senior members from his Likud party.

“We convinced the US president [to exit the deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement,” Netanyahu says in the video. “And we didn’t give up.”

Netanyahu does not explain in the video aired by Kan how he convinced Trump to exit the deal. Trump had vowed to scrap what he assailed as the “worst deal ever” before becoming president.

It doesn’t matter if Bibi actually did this or not, but by making these statements publicly in a place where they could be recorded and then made public he’s just rubbed the President’s nose in it, as well as everyone else in the America’s too.

Just another example how, under the President, the US has devolved from being a superpower into being the client of many hostile foreign actors.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Not even a client, really. We get nothing except further advertising of the fact that our president is an idiot.

  3. 3.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Even worse: you only do something like this if you don’t expect there will be any repercussions.

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Thanks, Adam. This is amazing. I have been struggling to write a post on how inadequate Trump is in foreign affairs, but last week’s events kept outpacing me. So many revisions, so little time. This is a nice strong way to lead a post.

    Trump historically doesn’t like other people stealing the limelight and obviously making him do things. He also loves tyrannical leaders. His dealing with the conflict should be interesting. I wonder if that’s part of what drove his tweeting today.

    I’m headed for bed now, will check in tomorrow morning.

  8. 8.

    TomatoQueen

    We have a deep bench. Who among them do we trust to deal with Bibi?Or Putin, for that matter?

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Cheryl Rofer: Thanks.

    He’s going to do what the authoritarians who helped clear the way for him, and who are continuing to clear the way for him, want. That’s why he won’t publicly get crosswise with Putin or with Bibi.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mary G: Yup. It’s like an endless list of dishes that can be made with one main ingredient, but the list is endless ways Dump is a POS working against the US.

    (Yes, I have been watching recipe videos.)

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TomatoQueen: Warren and Harris. Also, Klobuchar. I have no concern that any of those three are willing to throw elbows when necessary.

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    @TomatoQueen: Hillary Secretary of State Part II with permission to do whatever it takes. Vlad hates her for a reason. Bibi seems like Trump to me, so faulty that eventually he’ll implode.

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    Peas in a pod:

    Netanyahu planning to pass in the new Knesset law preventing the High Court from blocking any government or Knesset decision; there thereby allowing Knesset to confer upon him immunity from prosecution. Devastating scoop from @chaimlevinson https://t.co/4ErHDA8ONc— Anshel Pfeffer (@AnshelPfeffer) May 13, 2019

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mary G: Hillary: Sup Vlad. Still stuffing ballot boxes these days?
    *Putin turns into crappy rip-off of Anger from Inside Out*

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: Beyond that he was teasing this before the election, this would basically reduce Israel’s High Court from being a High Court of Justice, meaning a court of last resort for all matters criminal, civil, and foundational/constitutional to simply being a subordinate court of appeals. It also places the Prime Minister and the Knesset above judicial review in general and the Prime Minister above the law in specific. Basically Bibi would break the Israeli judicial and constitutional/foundational law systems to protect himself.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    They seem nice…

  27. 27.

    Mandalay

    Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal

    I suspect it has far more to do with Sheldon Adelson’s talent for writing large checks.

    If Adelson ordered Trump to bomb Calgary in order to keep the donations flowing then that would be the end of Calgary.

  28. 28.

    Jay

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Saw a cartoon today of. WWII Veteran in a wheelchair telling his granddaughter,

    “ Back in my day, we had Polio, Measels and Nazi’s to worry about”,….

    And the great grandaughter thinks “how do I tell him?”.

  30. 30.

    Arclite

    When I read the headline, I thought this was going to be a story about how Bibi convinced Trump to send the Lincoln CSG to the Gulf this week.

  31. 31.

    Jay

    @Arclite:

    It was already scheduled, since before April,

    A regular “show the flag tour”,

    Bolton Bullshit.

    Iraq told him and Pompeo to fuck off.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jay: Unfortunately. I saw pictures from last years Armistice Day ceremonies in Britain where you had a bunch of WW II vets standing around war memorials in various city centers and a bunch of young pro-Brexit asshats making NAZI salutes and screaming about English or British sovereignty. And all I could think was how sad it was for those veterans to watch the grandchildren and great grandchildren of their neighbors celebrate the day with the salutes of the enemy that almost destroyed Britain.

  33. 33.

    jl

    ‘convinced’? Netanyahu is getting arrogant. Can’t ‘convince’ Trump of anything. Can flatter, cajole, hector, filibuster Trump for a random period of time until someone else catches his ear.

    Someone convinced Trump that trade wars are actually juicing the economy. Because it raises business and consumer confidence that the US is getting tough and will start ‘winning’ in trade negotiations rather than ‘losing’.

    No human can convince Trump of anything. But it is true that whatever he did, Netanyahu has been successful at screwing things up for the world, the region and the country he falsely claims to lead for its benefit.

  36. 36.

    sukabi

    @Mary G: Bibi’s been around for a very long time, always with surrounding scandals, and manages to come out the other end barely mussed.

  38. 38.

    low-tech cyclist

    What’s in it for Bibi? That’s what I don’t get. It seems blatantly obvious that an Iran without nukes is way better for Israel than an Iran with nukes.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    @low-tech cyclist: Bibi thrives on creating conflicts that he can then do some-sort of half-baked action on (e.g. invading Gaza) to appear to be the Strong Leader That Protects Israel™. Iran is (allegedly) the (only) power supporting all of Israel’s local enemies, so keeping it off-balance and out of the world economy is to his (but not Israel’s) benefit.

    And telling his supporters that only he is able to lead Donnie around like a monkey makes him the Indispensable Man™ so they have to protect him from the justice that he so evidently deserves.

    At least that’s my impression of his “thinking” on this. Could be wrong.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Late to the thread, but this could serve as a goad to Iran as much as anything else. “Neener, neener, both of us hate you.” Bibi thinks that Israel is totally protected from Iranian missiles. And any attack by Iran could be spun into a causa belli.

    Why anyone in Israel would want a war with Iran is beyond me, but there you are.

  41. 41.

    daveNYC

    @Cheryl Rofer: Well… to be completely fair, most of the people who want a war with Iran pretty clearly want a war between America and Iran.

    @Adam L Silverman: Against Putin sure, but against Netanyahu? Obama and Bibi basically hated each other and the most notable things that happened were some strongly worded statements about settlements and us not using our Security Council veto once. In the 2016 election, Bernie had the better position on Israel, which consisted of muttering something about how maybe we should consider that the Palestinians are people too. Woooo…

    I’d love it if the Democratic 2020 nominee had an official position of telling Israel to get rekt (relatively speaking), or even if our Israel-Palestine policy was strongly questioned during the debates, but I just don’t see it happening. Anything that strays from ‘Israel is our bestest ally and the only democracy in the Middle-East’ draws accusations of antisemitism from Israel and her allies, and nobody wants to be on the receiving end of that.

  42. 42.

    rp

    @jl: Yes — it’s almost pathetic. Anyone with two functioning brain cells knows Trump pulled out of the Iran deal because it’s part of Obama’s legacy. There’s nothing more to it than that.

  43. 43.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Years ago it occurred to me that the US had failed the final exam on the 20th Century and would have to repeat it, hopefully with less violence. But I was thinking of economic policy, labor, and civil rights. I failed to consider Nazis coming back too.

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