I’m starting to think that this isn’t going to end well for Benny. Biden’s under a lot of pressure to do something because America standing back and clapping while Israel does a genocide is giving him a real bad look. Biden casually hinted that there would be ceasefire talks over/after the weekend, but Benny says they’re not sending a delegation.I think the US is quickly getting annoyed with Israel not taking any of the outs we’re trying to hand them; for me, the air dropping of aid seems like decent evidence to that end. Not exactly like we went rogue, but it’s something Israel would be very hard pressed to come up with an excuse to say no with, since there’s always some excuse about aid trucks. I think there’s very much a sentiment that Israel is biting the hand that feeds, and we’re not going to put up with it much longer. You lose that autonomy when you hitch yourself to the imperial teet. I think if Nettanyahu doesn’t play ball, it’s going to turn real sour real quick.
But Israel has always pushed the envelope and always been rewarded from daddy USA. Netanyahu, thinks he can do what he wants and he’s never been wrong.
And that’s the thing. It’s hard to think of a country with more political capital with the US. The UK, MAYBE. Israel has an enormous presence via both the evangelical bloc and the MID (probably more, but those are the major influences). When we went into this, the Biden admin told the state department that the word ‘ceasefire’ was verboten. Now you’ve got both the president and VP saying it. In one week we’ve gone from the president casually hinting that Israel’s going to work out a ceasefire to the VP making a speech that Israel must work out a ceasefire after it became clear that Nettanyahu wasn’t going to play ball. That’s a huge deal for a country with as much capital and goodwill with us as Israel has.
Because politicians seem to assume that the israeli lobby is the almighty god of politics. At one point they will need to realize that blindly obeying their will actually costs votes.
I disagree with you. I’ll paste here a comment I wrote over two months ago about Netanyahu.
My theory is that he prefers the GOP over the Dems anyway since they’re a lot more supportive in terms of finances but also political support, whereas the Dems are threading more lightly around this issue. I think that partly fucking Biden over by not doing his bidding is an added benefit to him. Not only does he get to do what he wants but he’s also creating domestic problems for Biden which in turn would mean that the GOP gets a better chance at unseating him and unlocking even more support for Israel.
I think Netanyahu is just banking on the fact that he can keep this going for long enough until the GOP gets into power. Fucking Biden over just keeps raising those chances. I think that it’s working as intended for him.
This is a war, not some fancy anime with rules and regulations. Even the geneva conventions become nothing more than a suggestion when the goal is to win.
I still remember when people here were trying to explain that the war would magically end if Hamas released all the hostages because that’s definitely how geo-power works.
Netanyahu does not want lasting peace because the moment this war is done so is his political career. Even if his Likud party survives (and given the recent far-right/religious victories in Israeli municipal elections that’s a possibility), he’s very unpopular. As early as last November Biden was telling Netanyahu his days were numbered and to prepare the lessons he wanted passed on to any successor.
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