March 18^th

Netanyahu has won the Israeli election; now he has to recover the damage he has done to his reputation among many European nations and among liberal Americans.  He has always been seen as a “hard liner” even among his supporters in this country.

Israel and Netanyahu have had a recurring problem with the truth. In the 1967 war Israel insisted that Egypt had struck first. They hadn’t; Israel had. This first strike, once it was obvious, was seen as a legitimate act of preemptive war. Even so Israel’s initial lies about Egypt striking first did not help Israel’s reputation for veracity.

Then Netanyahu, in order to garner more right wing support, reversed his previous commitment to a two state solution between Palestinians and Israel.  His commitment to a two state solution was never believed by Israel’s Arab neighbors. George Mitchel, who had successfully brokered the Northern Ireland peace treaty, was given the task of investigating the possibility of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. In this capacity he claimed that after interviewing the heads of nearly twenty Arab countries and telling them of Netanyahu’s commitment to a two state solution all of them told him that Netanyahu was lying. Now we find that the Arabs were right.

Settlement of the conquered territories has been an issue between the US the UN and Israel since the ’67 war. On this matter Israel will do as it pleases in spite of US and UN objections. They quite deliberately began new settlements to coincide with Vice President Biden’s recent visit. Sticking your finger in your benefactor’s eye can have interesting consequences. We shall see.

Israel is land poor. The country occupies about 8 thousand sq. miles with a population of about 8 million people. The conquered territories add about another 3 thousand sq. miles available for Israeli settlement. While Israeli inflation is in check, housing prices, particularly in the major cities, have soared by 50 percent in the last seven years. At the same time the Israeli government is encouraging more Jewish immigrants. Netanyahu, in response to attacks on a Synagogue in Holland, recently said that all Dutch Jews should immigrate to Israel so that they would be safe. As Europeans become more disgusted with the disproportionate Israeli response to Palestinian attacks on their citizens, European Jews are increasingly targeted. As more European Jews are targeted more move to Israel exacerbating the housing problem there which, in turn, leads to more settlements on the occupied territories. This is hardly a virtuous circle!

Of course Netanyahu has many dear friends in this country, some very rich like Sheldon Adelson and some just ordinary Republican Senators who support, without question, any right wing cause.