Natanyahu takes office today with his cabinet of extreme nationalists, religious parties and a variety of other "friends of AIPAC."
What can be expected from this cast of characters?
- An endless evasiveness on the subject of a state for the Palestinians. Bibi and co. will instead try to sell them on the idea of a comfortble life as serfs, helots or whatever term one prefers.
- An effort to strike a clearly unequal bargain with Syria. The deal must be seen by the Likudniks as unbalanced and in Israel's favor or they will not feel good about themselves. After all, if you are not screwing your "enemies," then who are you? This is a very Middle Eastern attitude, a place where a game that is not a zero sum game is thougt to be a defective game.
- An endless hostility toward Iran. An Iran that fulfills the need for enemies, enemies that can be defeated and frustrated as a kind of memorial to bygone enemies. Bibi's government will lean toward a unilateral first strike on Iran if the USA can not be maneuvered into doing the "business."
- the Iran "issue" will probably be the proximate cause of the confrontation between Bibidom and the Obama White House that I have been expecting. Bibi has let it be known that he will not "tolerate" an American effort toward an "opening" with Iran. Bibi thinks the United States is a sort of "cash cow" to be manipulated by clever people like him. He, Avigdor Lieberman, et al will seek to bully and dominate the US using propagandists in the media, propagandists from captive think tanks, friendly media outlets and servile members of Congress. In the end, a personal confrontation involving President Obama himself is an inevitability. Then we will see... pl
