Another plausible explanation for Netanyahu's behavior may be his genuine belief that no US senator or representative would ever dare to buck AIPAC's orders, knowing that this would be the end of his (or her) political career. Like the worst of the anti-Semites, Netanyahu believes that the Jews rule the world, or at least the US Congress. At the crucial moment, Congress will vote for AIPAC, against the US president.
Another explanation may be, paradoxically, a blind belief in President Obama's integrity. Netanyahu thinks that he can hit him on the head, spit in his eye, kick his behind, and still Obama will act coolly, rationally, and support Israel all the way, except on the Iranian deal. He will go on sending arms and dollars, vetoing Security Council resolutions, receiving phone calls from Israel in the middle of the night.
You know how these Americans are. Subservient. Especially black ones.
BUT THERE may be another explanation, that trumps all others.
Affronting the US president, his administration and his party, Netanyahu is gambling with our future. Which brings us to the emperor of the gambling world, the king of Las Vegas, the prince of Macao: Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson does not hide his support for Netanyahu the man, the family and the party. He spends huge sums of money on a Hebrew daily newspaper that is distributed gratis to Israelis, whether they want it or not. It is now the largest-circulation paper in Israel, and devoted personally to Netanyahu and his wife. It has no other purpose.
Yet Adelson seems to have no real interest in Israel. He does not live here, even part time. So what is he getting in return?
Adelson has bought Netanyahu for one single purpose: to place a stooge of his in the White House. It is an aim that any other multi-billionaire cannot even dream of.
To achieve this aim, Adelson needs to use the Republican Party as a ladder. He has to select its candidate for the presidency, derail Hillary Clinton and win the elections. To succeed in all these tasks, he has to mobilize the immense power of the pro-Israel lobby over the US Congress and destroy President Obama.
The first step in this long march is to defeat the Iranian deal. Netanyahu is just a cog in this grand design. But a very important cog.
Does this look like a caricature of Der Sturmer, the infamous anti-Semitic Nazi rag, or, worse, like a page out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery? It is the classical anti-Semitic picture: the ugly finance-Jew striving for world mastery.
For an Israeli, there is something revolting in this picture. The Zionist vision was born out of the total rejection of this caricature. Jews would cease dealing in stocks and shares and money-lending. Jews would till the land with the sweat of their brow, do productive manual work, reject all kinds of parasitic speculations. This was considered such a high ideal that it justified even the displacement of the indigenous Arab population.
And here we are, a state following the orders of an international casino mogul whose line of business is perhaps the most unproductive in the cosmos. Sad.
IS THERE a valiant opposition to this course in Israel? None. Literally none.
In all my long life in Israel I have never seen anything as close to a total absence of opposition as we have now.
A few voices in Haaretz, some solitary pronouncements on the extreme leftist fringe, and that's that.
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