Netanyahu’s Dangerously Slow Learning Curve

Well, you won your election, didn’t you Bibi – but blew this big time. A shame the elections weren’t just another week or two later; you’d probably been out looking for work. With any hope, another opportunity to send you packing won’t be too far off.

You were told by so many in and outside of Israel – by many of your own senior military and intelligence officers – that your politics and policies were ill conceived; your military perceptions and threats were leaking; that you were aligning in the wrong direction.

So, in response, you went even further towards the dark side and moved in with John Boehner and the self destroying American GOP instead. How has that Faustian deal with the GOP been working out for you?

You may want to get back in touch with Boehner and friends; see what his next piece of great advice might be. Its clear that your sad attempt to derail the negotiations with Iran one more time still isn’t going to work.

You can’t try to continually undermine the negotiations; spew out bile and rampant disinformation; deliberately divide and place Jew against Jew in ways that Arab nations could have only dreamed (the one thing with which you’ve done tragically and sadly well); continue to threaten Iran directly; refuse to collaborate or thoughtfully contribute whatsoever; constantly issue threats of armageddon as the boy who cries wolf; regularly insult senior world leaders and use cheap racism as political and electoral strategies and then expect to still be considered relevant.

Iran: What Do We Do…?…and how will Jews attacking Jews in ways all Arab nations never could help?

And Obama is not the reason for your thoughtless politics and is well within his right to be less than impressed with you, Bibi.

It’s Political Science 101, Bibi…and you blew it. That you further degraded and diminished yourself is part of it. The most important part is that you deeply embarrassed most of Israel and temporarily, anyway, diminished the Israeli government’s ability to offer coherent input; to be taken seriously.

But you did win the election, didn’t you, Bibi?

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-pyrrhic-victory-a-unified-stable-and-self-defined-opposition-needs-to-evolve/

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-cult-of-personality-and-the-politics-of-disintegration/

Towards an important point of information; countries which ‘recognize’ one another have still been going to war across recorded history. Reducing, rather than increasing, the risk of war is typically considered a good thing by most.

But don’t worry; we can always still go to war later. It is an option which, tragically, is never out of fashion and is always available.

Does that thought help make any of you armchair military hawks out there feel a bit better? And how many of you are preparing to enlist in the IDF; suggest to your adult children that they enlist in the IDF? Are you ready to fight, too, or just continue to write cheap histrionics and insults?

Tell me how many times has Netanyahu and his Israeli cohort have threatened a direct military assault on Iran. By the illogic of so many of you; that would justify Iran’s decision to launch a preemptive strike on Israel, wouldn’t it?

John Boehner just attempted, again, to commit great insult towards Obama by calling him an ‘anti-war’ President. I would think Obama should be deeply flattered in the recognition that he does not seek war; that he has not sent countless thousands of American military to die and so many more disabled; that he prioritizes negotiation.

Obama’s strategies and responses have hardly been perfect; but to hold to a philosophy of ‘anti-war’ while still showing strength (yes, he has very much so) is a likely proud legacy in and of itself. A shame even more, then, that Netanyahu still hasn’t figured this out. And Obama as ‘anti-war’ is even stronger in comparison to the death and destruction dealt out by the last Republican White House Administration.

To these syncophants of Netanyahu and the Israeli hard Right; write me back only if you have something to say. I am not an ‘Iran’ or ‘Hamas lover;’ and I am not seeking to ‘destroy Israel’ (Netanyahu is already making his unique contribution to Israel’s current instability). And, oh yes, Obama and I don’t secretly attend meetings of a Muslim Brotherhood cell in the basement of the White House.

I also do not care – in the least – in your perceived ‘mandates’ from the Old or New Testaments, the Talmud or other sources of the supernatural or ancient philosophy of mortal humans. Its interesting; it has messages. But do not quote from these story books as if they are historical, demographic or cartographic texts.

And don’t wait for God or Jesus to intercede, either; we….humans living in real time…are accountable. And if God or Jesus should be waiting to make a dramatic return, he or she is also likely waiting for his mere mortal creations to show responsibility and real accountability; even basic features of human decency on their own before he books his trip.

Netanyahu blew this big time and Netanyahu, by himself, is responsible. But rather than backing off to reorganize and reassess even a bit for himself and for Israel, he apparently is going to keep talking bad, self diminishing and deliberately divisive politics. It is this which poses the most immediate threat to Israel.