Netanyahu's Likud sinks to new lows in Israeli polls

Whether the system is broken or not is irrelevant. This is how politics works now. You pander to the crowd that will get you enough votes to win the election. Once you get into office, you change your platform.

 

thank you. senator jesse helms from n carolina, one of the most influential republican politicians of all time and someone ted cruz loves and wants more of in congress, was famous for doing what netanyahu did x100. it worked for him. you may not like it, but being in congress is like tweaking. you'll do whatever it takes to stay in office because it's like crystal.

 

This is short sided.

I think Israel does some really horrible things, but I also understand why they do them.

They live in a dangerous neighborhood, and to deal with their enemies they have to become like their enemies.

Saying that had Israel given back the land in the 90s would have led to peace all around Israel just seems like a detraction from reality. Hezbollah has started wars with Israel over what? Because they simply hate Israel. If tomorrow Israel gave up the entire West Bank and stopped choke holding Gaza, does anyone honestly believe that Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS and so forth would just lay down?

Common.

Islamic extremism is real. Israel has to deal with it much closer to home than any other Western country in the world. I understand where they are but feel for the Palestinian cause at the same time. Its a complicated situation for a reason.

 

The Netanyahu speech in front of Congress and the letter written to the Iranians leaders most likely written by AIPAC) have started to split the American Jewish community mainstream commitment to Israel right or wrong Below are some excerpts from an interesting article exploring this split.

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No doubt there have been many moments of strain between the liberal Jewish community and Israel. Sabra and Shatilla, Cast Lead, Lebanon, Operation Defensive Shield during the Second Intifada. At each of these horrors, segments of the Jewish population fell out of love for Israel, from Breira to Jews Against the Occupation to Jews Say No, but that splintering didn’t really matter in the official world. The lobby was able to marginalize dissidents


The Jewish community split on Israel not because of Netanyahu’s racism or his massacres or his rubbishing of the two-state solution; but because he acted in such a way as to place American Jews’ loyalty to the United States in doubt by making the historic speech to Congress on March 3 that even the New York Times has called “subversive.”

The power-play surely reflected the importance of conservative Jewish money in our political process– Bill Kristol’s group the Emergency Committee for Israel had given $1 million to make the career of the Republican freshman senator at the head of insurgency– and it was agonizing to Jews and Democrats who are also beholden to the lobby.

Today that deal has been broken; and the American discourse will only get better. J Street tried to circumscribe the official statements on its stage to Zionists, and Halperin pledged to fight the boycott movement; but free speech is free speech, and many panelists expressed heretical views. Marcia Freedman spoke up for cultural Zionism, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum called for Jewish spaces to open their doors to anti-Zionists, and Huda Abu Arqoub called for the boycott and downfall of the Palestinian Authority.

Once this American conversation begins, it will never end. More and more Jews will understand that Zionism is incompatible with liberalism. And Jewish Voice for Peace and the BDS movement will be the beneficiaries.


- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/american-taking-israel#sthash.9X9Z1o3M.dpuf