Israel: Former PM Says “Washington is No Longer Our Closest Ally”
This Israel situation is becoming extreme.
People are making extreme statements, like “greatest ally, no more.”
RT:
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has reportedly warned that his country’s relations with the US have deteriorated so much under the leadership of his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Washington is “no longer our closest ally.”
Lapid made the comments on Monday at a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid opposition party, according to the Times of Israel. He argued that Netanyahu’s government is destroying the alliance with the US by trying to pass controversial judicial reforms.
“The Israeli government is leading us into this crisis, making the biggest and most dramatic changes to the regime in our history, without holding a single discussion – not even one – about the economic, security, social and political consequences of the move,” Lapid said. In a Channel 12 news interview, he argued that the nation is being “torn in two.”
That’s democracy, goy.
Or rather: that’s democracy, Jew.
“The Americans say they have no shared values with this government. It affects every aspect of US-Israel relations – their attention and their willingness to leave their comfort zone for Israeli interests. They will not do it for the most extreme government in the country’s history,” Lapid said, describing relations with the US as being at a historic low.
US President Joe Biden said in March that he was “very concerned” about Israel’s democracy amid months of protests over the proposed judicial overhaul. “I’m concerned they get this straight,” he said at the time. “They cannot continue down this road.”
Netanyahu responded by saying Israel is a sovereign country and makes decisions by the will of its people, “not based on pressures from abroad.”His national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said Biden “needs to understand that Israel is no longer a star on the US flag. We are a democracy, and I expect the US president to understand that.”
Israel is the only country that is allowed to tell the United States that they are a “sovereign country.” For the rest of the world, the United States decides if you are a sovereign country based on your willingness to serve American interests.
But are the Israelis allowed to do this?
That is not totally clear.
The basic situation is that Bibi wants to ensure his “security” objectives, including unlimited war and a right to push the Palestinians into the sea. This “judicial reform” that they keep talking about is basically removing power from the judicial branch and giving it all to the elected government. Bibi more or less does represent the popular will, so he is trying to remove these “checks and balances” in order to give himself unlimited power.
The United States, meanwhile, is not totally sure that they support this agenda. Some people in the United States do, but many in the Democrat Party want a less aggressive Israel so they can establish some normalization of the Middle East. They also, presumably, view this kind of “fascist” system Israel wants to establish as a threat to their “values.” Many of the Democrats are presumably tired of explaining why they support a racist dictatorship in the Middle East.
There is a lot of money on both sides. It is clearly Soros and co. that are backing the protests in Israel, and the Biden government seems to support these protests. There was little comment from the Democrats when Bibi did his most recent incursion into Palestine. They did not actively condemn it, but they did not come out and support it as they generally would have in the past.
Of course, the whole thing is largely irrelevant, given that the relevancy of the United States in the Middle East is rapidly shrinking, as Russia and China play much bigger roles in the region.
Israel is going to have to figure out some kind of deal with China, or their country is just going to collapse. Given the tensions between Israel and Russia, and the relationships the East has with most of Israel’s enemies, it seems like reaching a deal with that side is going to be pretty difficult.
If I were Bibi, that’s what I would be focusing on. Instead, he wants to make himself dictator and then force the US to go to war with Iran.
