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| He can't fire Bibi |
My comment on Thomas Friedman's
column about the Israeli election yesterday was one of 21 designated as "
NYT Picks":
Bibi can afford to be honest thanks to the sea change in U.S. attitudes.
Israel's historic left-leaning U.S. supporters cared more about
democracy for democracy's sake than do her new friends on the right, who
don't seem to worry much about disenfranchised Palestinians on the West
Bank. With a GOP Congress and a better than even chance for a GOP
president, Bibi's sitting pretty for the time being as far as keeping
the U.S. is concerned.
At home, if he's being honest about
abandoning two states, he probably envisions a plan along the lines of
Naftali Bennett's -- annexation of the West Bank with a glacial phasing-in of Palestinians' rights. Meanwhile the Palestinians will continue to lobby
in international forums for de facto statehood. These visions will
inevitably and perhaps violently clash. Maybe that's just what Bibi's
evangelical end-time friends in the U.S. want.
Israelis can run
their country however they want. But I'm feeling more and more like
Israel is morally equivalent with China, Germany, and Japan as far as
U.S. policy is concerned. Relations among countries need to be
reciprocal and mutually beneficial. Since 1948, our main interest in
Israel has been that we loved her for the sake of who she was and what
she stood for. I still respect that, but the honeymoon's over. I don't
have to love Israel's democracy if Israel doesn't. And I am not going to
favor a Mideast policy driven primarily by end-timers. I don't like
their influence in Iran, and I don't like it here.
