Tag Archives: Likud

Biden, GOP, Israel, Joe Biden, Likud, Middle East, Uncategorized

Netanyahu and Biden and the Symbiotic Relationship…..

February 8, 2021 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

The media, in the US and Israel, and in the Middle East have been speculating about the cold ties between Joe Biden and Israeli PM Netanyahu. Speculation about when Joe will call Bibi. The Israeli PM is known for famously and deliberately disrespecting Democratic American officials, even before Trump. From Obama to Hillary Clinton to John Kerry. He delayed his traditional congratulatory message to Biden longer than any other world leader, then accompanied it with a message praising Donald Trump. Unusual. He knew that would not affect the overall Israeli stand in the USA. And he is right.

Fact is, Israeli-American ties have deepened over the decades, and on the American side they transcend party affiliation. It is different for the ruling Likud. It has deep symbiotic ties with the US Republican Party, rooted in a shared right-wing ideology and boosted by the American Evangelicals concentrated in the deeply Red States. To some extent one Party is is almost an extension, a branch of the other. Bibi Netanyahu is probably more influential in the GOP than any Bush ever was or can be. A friend of a friend of a friend once told me that “Bibi may be able to win a Republican primary against almost any GOP candidate whose name is not Trump“. Maybe he didn’t really believe that. Maybe.

So, this cooling of the relationship is just a partisan thing. Netanyahu can still be PM four years from now. He will no doubt root for the Republican candidate, whoever he is.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Israel, Middle East, Palestine, U.S. Foreign Policy

John F. Kerry of Arabia: an Honorable Man, a Futile Quest……

December 28, 2016 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

John F Kerry is an honorable man. We knew that from the 1960s. He served honorably in Vietnam, did not evade or avoid the war like most his current critics. He also honorably spoke out afterward.
Later today, soon, he will speak about the “Middle East” problem: Palestine-Israel. But he will get nowhere. The Israeli Likud has a lock on both houses of the U.S Congress, on both parties. It will probably be a good speech, but too optimistic. It will get nowhere.
Mr. Trump has already contributed his own drivel to complicating the issue.
Cheers
M. Haider Ghuloum

Israel, Middle East, Palestine

Kushner Of Arabia: Just Who Outside Europe Believes in a Two-State Solution Anymore?…..

December 27, 2016 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Can Obama save the two-state solution? ShibleyTelhami says the verdict is still out..…”

No, not really, although his abstention on UNSC 2334 was an attempt to keep the two-state idea alive.

Give it up? It is almost not a serious option now, given the deliberate facts being created fast on the ground. Obama is/was probably the last US president to actually believe in the feasibility of two states. The whole Israeli cabinet doesn’t believe in it. Most US senators/congressmen don’t believe in it (apparently it ain’t seemly for a real man to espouse a two-state/bi-state thing). AIPAC only pays lip service to it when it suits them and consistently supports policies that undermine it.

The fact is that many Palestinians don’t believe in it either: the same goes for many other Arabs and Muslims. Some pay lip service to it, some still think and often openly talk about one-state extending “from the River Jordan to the Sea“. So some Arabs and Muslims are as one-staters as the Israeli Likud and its allies are. And we all know what is also meant by this alternative “one state”.

Arab media have in past years extensively quoted former PLO leader Yassir Arafat that there is a plaque outside the Israeli Knesset that says: “Your land, O Israel, extends from the Nile to the Euphrates“. Many, nay most Arabs believed him. Some referred to a vague map on a coin as proof. I have always had my doubts. Could be just some irresponsible quote from the Old Testament (many such quotes exist in all Holy Books). It is more likely that some far-out Christian Zionists in America believe in such borders than Israelis or American Jews. Something to do with a Levantine version of Manifest Destiny and From Sea to Shining Sea.

AS for the Two-State solution, apparently only the Europeans consistently believe in it anymore. Plus some Arabs and a few marginalized Israelis. But there is a suspicion in Washington that the Europeans are a bunch of latent anti-Semitic wusses, right? (Well, probably some of them still are).

So: what to do? Mass expulsion (a k a ethnic cleansing)? It was done in Palestine post-1948, and it was also done to many Jews in the Arab countries around that time. Apartheid or Separate but (allegedly) Equal? History in South Africa and French Algeria and the American South does not give that a high mark. Separate never means equal.

A catharsis? Maybe Netanyahu and Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe) will show up on the steps of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and start a Kumbaya session with Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, for the benefit of the television cameras. Newly Likudnik Alan Dershowitz can be there too.

Maybe Trump will send his son-in-law as he has reportedly threatened, to do something. But being Jewish, even (or especially) Jewish-American is no guarantee of success over there. Besides, this is not some money-focused real-estate business deal in Manhattan: too many historical emotions are involved on both sides.

The prognosis doesn’t look good for the next four years, but the past eight years were not so great either for Israel-Palestine. Especially when the US Congress (both houses) talks and acts as an extension of the Israeli Likud and its more extreme components.

A Nobel Prize or two are waiting, but I know neither Trump nor Netanyahu nor any current Arab leader will do anything to deserve it. The Nobel Committee was bitten by that same bug a couple of decades ago.
Cheers

M Haider Ghuloum

Gaza, Israel

One Israeli View of Gaza and the Others………

August 5, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

“Illouz: Where you see human beings, Israelis see enemies. In front of enemies, you close ranks, you unite in fear for your life, and you do not ponder about the fragility of the other. Israel has a split, schizophrenic self-awareness: It cultivates its strength and yet cannot stop seeing itself as weak and threatened. Moreover, both the fact that Hamas holds a radical Islamist and anti-Semitic ideology and the fact that there is rabid anti-Arab racism in Israel explain why Israelis see Gaza as a bastion of potential or real terrorists.…………. The nature of Israeli leadership has also changed. The messianic right has progressively gained power in Israel. It used to be marginal and illegitimate; it is now increasingly mainstream. This radical right sits in Parliament, controls budgets and has changed the nature of discourse. Many Israelis do not understand the radical nature of the right in Israel. It successfully disguises itself as “patriotic” or “Jewish.”………………”