The Demonization of Benjamin Netanyahu

WSJ ^ | 11 Jun 2021 | Ron Dermer

[Rummyfan]

Opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, have worked for more than a quarter-century to tarnish his image in the U.S. and around the world.

In 1996, when Israelis first elected him to put a brake on a dangerous Oslo process, Mr. Netanyahu was depicted as an enemy of peace. For three years, his opponents insisted that if only Israel were rid of Mr. Netanyahu, it could make peace with Yasser Arafat. They were wrong. Ehud Barak defeated Mr. Netanyahu in 1999 and offered Arafat sweeping concessions at Camp David a year later. Instead of peace, Israel got scores of suicide bombings and the worst wave of Palestinian terrorism in its history—the so-called second intifada in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered.

....

Mr. Netanyahu returned to the premiership in 2009. The preceding bloody decade should have made it obvious to all that Palestinian leaders didn’t want peace. But Mr. Netanyahu was scapegoated again. Now Mahmoud Abbas was cast as a peacemaker instead of Arafat, who died in 2004. While few Israelis believed such nonsense any longer, many foreign policy makers did, including key officials in the Obama White House.

...

The demonization of Mr. Netanyahu says more about his critics than about him. He was never an enemy of peace; he understood that his critics were dangerously naive. By rejecting their ideas and following a path of peace through strength, his policies not only brought Israel the safest decade in its history; they also brought peace agreements and normalization with four Arab states.

Mr. Netanyahu is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. He is an Israeli patriot who has opposed the policies of even our greatest friends when he thought those policies endangered Israel.

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] The demonization of Mr. Netanyahu says more about his critics than about him. He was never an enemy of peace; he understood that his critics were dangerously naive. By rejecting their ideas and following a path of peace through strength, his policies not only brought Israel the safest decade in its history; they also brought peace agreements and normalization with four Arab states. The demonization of Mr. Netanyahu says more about his critics than about him. He was never an enemy of peace; he understood that his critics were dangerously naive. By rejecting their ideas and following a path of peace through strength, his policies not only brought Israel the safest decade in its history; they also brought peace agreements and normalization with four Arab states. [/snip]

[rmlew]

Interestingly, Netanyahu opposed US aid for decades. US aid to Israel is a rather insignificant 3.8 billion in an economy of 394 Billion. US gives aid to control the region. We also gave Iran over 100 Billion, destabilizing the region.

Is Netanyahu corrupt? The main charge against Netanyahu is that he allowed a donor to create a newspaper. He may be corrupt. However, the replacing coalition wants foreign aid. Judge Netanyahu for who he is, what he believes and what he has done, not based on your baseline grievance against Israel or the US relationship with it.

PS. The fact that so many here are annoyed with Israeli political decision and machinations shows that no one holds Israel above criticism.