Benjamin Netanyahu is a horse's ass. We all know this. He's the ultimate hack politician--someone who believes nothing but will fulminate about anything if it gains him some sort of advantage. Evidently a high-ranking member of his government is now talking sanctions against the United States for insisting that Israel follow its own commitments with respect to the West Bank. In reality, this is an attempt to raise the stakes and to try to rattle Obama rather than to engage in economic brinksmanship with the U.S.A. And it's befitting a hack politician like Bibi.
One wonders if it will work. What I find interesting is how intransigent Israel is, and just how tone-deaf Netanyahu has turned out to be. I, along with a lot of other people in America and around the world, was horrified by Israel's little Gaza war--both by the brutality and the enthusiastic warmongering from Peres et al. After Gaza, Lebanon II, the collapse of the peace process and the election of the anti-two stater Netanyahu, Israel's reputation on the world stage has never been lower. A wise, skilled politician would have taken this opportunity to revisit the settlement question and try to regain some global credibility. Instead, Netanyahu has doubled down on settlements, ratcheted up the rhetoric on Iran, and in general adopted such extreme stances and coalition partners that even the government of the United States is trying to rope them in. Seriously. The same government that vetoes even minor symbolic U.N. resolutions against Israel is applying significant pressure. We haven't done that for twenty years.
Netanyahu refuses to give up the ghost of a "greater Israel" and is trying to use every lever of influence he can to keep his power, and it just might work. If he can work up enough anger among actual American Jews about Obama's demands--or if this escalates into a battle over foreign aid--then Bibi might win. I don't see Obama escalating it that far. But it strikes me that Jews--70% of whom supported Obama--are simply liberal across the board, and Bibi is simply too right-wing to know how to appeal to them. Bibi isn't just going to do Obama a favor, so the question becomes what's next. How to show Israel about Obama's seriousness--perhaps by not vetoing a U.N. resolution on the West Bank? Might not catch headlines, but the people who need to know will know what's new.
