The grubby underside of US electoral politics is on show once again as the race for the US presidency begins. And it doesn’t get seamier than the battle to prove how loyal each candidate is to Israel. Donald Trump has hailed his Republican party platform for breaking with decades of US policy and effectively denying the Palestinians any hope of statehood.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the appointment of a new foreign media adviser and spokesman this week, the latest in a series of moves viewed as snubs to the Obama White House. US-born David Keyes replaces Mark Regev, who became familiar to English-language audiences as the voice of the Netanyahu government during Israel's repeated attacks on Gaza.
New legislation is designed to intimidate and silence Israeli human rights organisations – the international community’s eyes and ears in the occupied territories. These groups are to be defined as “moles”, or agents of foreign governments. The problem is that the governments funding the human rights activity are not Israel’s enemies, but some of its staunchest supporters – European states.
Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of a meeting this week with Barack Obama – their first in 13 months – to suggest it was time the US president recognised Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan. Though he did not mention it, Netanyahu's motives may have included the fact that last month US oil firm Genie announced it had found reserves there with the potential to produce "billions of barrels”.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has said in January that “Israeli” settlements amount to “creeping annexation” of Palestinian territories by “Israel” and have taken a “heavy toll” on the rights and sovereignty of Palestinians.
The Israeli election’s one certain outcome is that, whoever wins, the next coalition will, actively or passively, allow more of the same: a slow, creeping annexation of what is left of a possible Palestinian state, as the US and Europe bicker.
Image: Shmuley Boteach image for his New York Times ad, which he says thye paper insisted he change
Netanyahu’s depiction of Hamas and ISIS, or Islamic State, as “branches of the same poisonous tree” is a travesty of the truth.
Image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he delivers a speech during a press conference at the prime minister office in Jerusalem, on 27 August.
Israel’s latest settlement drive confirms its leaders have no intention of making a concession on Palestinian statehood to Abbas
“For every settler home built, Palestinians lose territory needed not only for a state but also to keep individual families living where they are now. The innocuous term “settlements” conceals their true role: as Israel’s primary vehicle for ethnic cleansing Palestinians through dispossession and harassment”
by Jonathan Cook
by JONATHAN COOK Counterpunch
(Nazareth) – Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rarely been so politically embattled. His travails indicate the Israeli right’s inability to respond to a shifting political landscape, both in the region and globally.
Israel still angling for attacks on Syria and Iran
Netanyahu and Obama at the United Nations, 2011. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
by Jonathan Cook
Counterpunch
