Bibi is trying to hide from his own words.

"Read Ari Shavit’s brilliant conundrum of a book, My Promised Land, and you will get chapter and verse about the massacres perpetrated by Jews in 1948 to secure their homeland. It may be argued that the massacres were necessary, that Israel could not have been created without them, but they were massacres nonetheless. Women and children were murdered. It was the sort of behavior that is only possible when an enemy has been dehumanized. That history haunted Netanyahu’s rhetoric in the days before the election, when he scared Jews into voting for him because, he said, the Arabs were coming to polls in buses, in droves, fueled by foreign money.

It should be noted that those Arabs represent about 20% of the population of Israel. About 160,000 of them are Christian, and some of them are descendants of the first followers of Jesus. Almost all of them speak Hebrew. Every last one is a citizen—and it has been part of Israel’s democratic conceit that they are equal citizens. The public ratification of Netanyahu’s bigotry put the lie to that."  Time.com

----------------

Klein is writing of  the Israeli Arabs, people who hold Israeli citizenship as opposed to Palestinians who are resident in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.  Those people are NOT Israeli citizens and were never going to vote in this or any Israeli election.

The Israeli Arabs are in an odd position.  They live apart from the Israeli Jews in their own towns or parts of towns.  They have little daily contact with Israeli Jews except for soldiers and police.  I have some doubt about Klein's assertion that "almost all of them speak Hebrew." I have known a few who spoke some Hebrew but that seemed to be mainly for the purpose of chatting up Israeli Jewish girls.  They have a taste for them and can sometimes meet them in the towns.  They are citizens of Israel but in spite of their possession of Israeli passports and ability to elect people to the Knesset they have many civil disabilities.  They are subject to movement and residence controls.  They are treated with suspicion whenever they enter ot leave the country.  Their residence in Jerusalem, the ancestral home of many, is severely restricted and discouraged.  Ordinary Israeli Arab citizens are barred from service in the IDF although Druze of Arab ethnicity serve freely in the IDF snd police.   There are also "tracker" battalions recruited (not drafted) from among Sinai tribal Bedouins.  

Natanyahu is now trying to "walk back" his appeal to Jews to vote because "the Arabs" (Israeli citizens) were voting in large numbers. He also now says that his statement that he would "never" accept a two state solution did not really mean that.  IMO, Natanyahu has injured Israel's prospects for the  future.

Americans have always wanted to give Israel the benefit of the doubt.  Now there is no doubt.  His words in the last days of the campaign were unmistakably the words of someone who cannot be trusted and who will always lie to have his narrow nationalist goals advanced.  pl 

http://time.com/3749912/benjamin-netanyahu/

Comments

[Babak Makkinejad]

Col. Lang:

I think he has also injured the United States and Arab friends of the United States; in effect, saying that the last 40 years of effort for Peace in Palestine was a lie.

[Rocketrepreneur]

Of course it was a lie. It's just that Netanyahu finally let slip with the truth. The sad thing is the gaffe probably won't hurt him that bad--the warmongers on the right already knew he was a racist, and had no problem with it. The Palestinians are just untermenschen anyway.

The only possible consequence I could see for Bibi's gaffe is if Obama decides to instruct our ambassador to the UN to sit out the next vote on sanctioning Israel over its settlements. But I doubt our president has the cajones to do that.

~Jon

[DC]

What's interesting is that he gave up the pretense that Peace is a Israeli national goal -- which pretense has always been useful in keeping the U.S. strung along -- for the importance of retaining his position of prime minister. That's a significant trade-off. It only makes sense if Bibi is narcissistic and power-mad to the bone, such that he's willing to sell off his country's long-term and historic interest for it, OR the Israeli government had already decided to shrug off the pretense in favor of the next step in their expansion. Which one is it? What's he got up his sleeve (if anything)? We shall see.

[William R. Cumming]

The fundamental governance problem in Israel is not Bibi but that it is a theocracy not a democracy.

[Jonathan House]

I am glad Time.com published that piece.
Bibi's attempt to walk back what he said is now paralleled by the NYTimes walking back what it published, deleting and rewriting a piece on Bibi racist fear mongering. Both the original and the 100% rewritten articles can be obtained at Mondoweiss in a piece entitled: "New York Times published piece about Netanyahu’s racism, then rewrote all of it" see
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/published-netanyahus-rewrote#sthash.e1HiSrUY.dpuf

[Matthew]

John: I heard David Axelrod on Chris Hayes last night criticizing Netanyahu yet proclaiming the importance of the US-Israeli relationship. And that relationship is more important than Netanyahu and Obama.

Great. So the referee will never call fouls when his "son" is one of the players.

[Cee]

Col. Lang,

Thank you for your submission. Excellent. I've been meaning to ask you who is was that didn't want your help because you spoke Arabic. Feith?

On Hebrew speakers...

Why did Israel target and kill Hebrew speakers in Gaza?

Asa Winstanley

According to several different eyewitnesses he spoke to, offering corroborating accounts of different incidents, it seems that Israeli soldiers were executing a new practice during this latest Gaza war. As Max puts it: "wanton targeting of Palestinian civilians who spoke Hebrew".

One example: "In Khuza'a just east of Khan Younis, multiple witnesses described soldiers gathering locals in the centre of town as they occupied the area on July 23, then asking if anyone spoke Hebrew. When a 54-year-old man stepped forward to answer in the affirmative, they shot him in the heart."
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/inquiry/14582-why-did-israel-target-and-kill-hebrew-speakers-in-gaza

I watched Andrea Mitchell trying to help Bibl rehabilitate himself. NO CHANCE!
Plus, Obama has no plans to deal with Bibi again. That will be left to Kerry.

[BabelFish]

Jon,

I'm clicking my heels three times and hoping that, in the midst of normalizing relations with Cuba and suggesting that everyone be mandated to vote (has to ask Walrus is that is a positive in Aussieland), he wakes some near day in a really bad mood and lets Bibi have it, in public.

[oofda]

And there are other votes in the UN and other international fora where the united States can not veto a vote against Israel.

It will be interesting to see the fallout from Europe- which is getting tired of his act.

[b]

What Netanyahoo said or says is irrelevant. Look at what he has done and what he is doing.

He was always against a two-state solution or a one state solution with democratic rights for all its inhabitants. He was always a racist. Combined with his economic policies that is clearly fascist territory.

It will change little though. He knows that he and Israel will over time lose the liberals in the U.S. and he therefore decided to bet exclusively on the rightwing republicans. Their support will be enough to keep the extortion practice towards the U.S. going on and on. The U.S. billionaires supporting him will take car of that too.

He lost nothing but gained another 4 years to work for "greater Israel". The Obama administration is too timid to get in his way.

[Rob Waddell]

Dear all..

Although unrelated the USA's bizarre relationship with Israel and politics and politicians in general but in relation to Pat's last paragraph, maybe SSTer's can help me out by confirming the following. In a court of law, if a witness, defendant or prosecution has been determined to have told a lie, then all their evidence previously, present and in the future is null.
I believe it's true because I saw it on Judge Judy some years ago but maybe others in the legal fraternity can comment in a more precise manner.
Rob

[turcopolier]

Cee Feith. pl

[oofda]

Rob,
I don't believe it is the case that all previous evidence given by that witness and any future testimony is rendered null. I would expect the jury to be instructed to take the lie into consideration when assessing that witnesses testimony. Likely, the jury would give a lot of weight to the lie or lies. Judge Judy is a an entertainment show and is not a court of law. Not close

[Cee]

Matthew,

Axelrod said that Bibi mortgaged the future of Israel.

Foreclose!!

[steve]

No. A party might be able to obtain a jury instruction that the jury is free to disregard a witness's testimony in whole if there is evidence that the individual lied in some aspect.

But there's nothing mandatory that requires a jury to disregard the testimony. A jury is free to pick and choose what it wants based on its own opinion of a witness's credibility.

[The Beaver]

Jon

I would love to see the assembly walks out on him at the next UNGA meeting in NYC in September.
For sure, Canada and the US will stick around . This will signal that people don't trust him or his words.

[Rocketrepreneur]

More Bibi backtracking. Turns out he didn't really mean it about the whole "No two state solution, never" thing: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/netanyahu-nbc-u-s-has-no-greater-ally-israel-n326391

Oh, and Israel is the US's strongest ally...

~Jon

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Another factor is that they have a proportional representation system with a very low percentage-of-the-total-vote threshold for a party to qualify for representation in the Knesset. That empowers a proliferation of parties with small handfuls of votes, each with their own agenda of hot-button issues. It's not unusual for a government coalition to have four or more parties, which seriously constrains policy options.

[Rob Waddell]

Thanks steve & oofda for your clarification. My comment re "Judge Judy" was intended to be trenchant.
rw

[different clue]

Rocketrepreneur,

Was it a lie at the time of the Oslo negotiations and the Oslo adoption by Rabin and his getting re-elected on turning the Oslo process into a 2-State peace result? The Likudists and others thought it was a sincere truth on the part of the Rabinists and that is why Netanyahu worked so hard to create the "climate of assassinationism" against and around Rabin in which the Rabin assassination could then be carefully engineered and pinned on a supposed "lone gunman". And that was less than 40 years ago. Here is a weblink to an article about that assassination and its meaning.
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/07/violent-bear-it-away.html

Any expressed interest on any Likudist's or Kadimist's part, or on Ehud Barak's part, in the 2SS was certainly a time-buying lie. But on Rabin's part? If so, then the assassination was based on Likud's/Netanyahu's/certain ShinBet elements' total misunderstanding of the Rabinists' true intentions and was not even "necessary" at all.

If the "Zionist List" or whatever that center-left zioliberal bloc is called feels the Likudyahu positions on Israeli Arab Citizens and on 2SS are unacceptable then the Zionist List will avoid any part in Netanyahu's next coalition government. If they join or even co-operate with that government, then they will be retro-actively adopting Netanyahu's lie as their lie as well. So the coming weeks are a visible assessment opportunity for the Zionist List. Whatever they do will inform us as to what they want and what they are.

[different clue]

If the Obama Administration wants to, it could either lead Netanyahu ( or let Netanyahu lead himself) into reputational killbox after reputational killbox so that Netanyahu's visible reputation gets killed more and more and more. Metered and measured non-cooperation with things important to Netanyahu's image and standing within Israeli domestic politics could be engineered to destabilize and cripple the coming Netanyahu government and drive it into very early elections, could it not?

[Peter C]

When there is diminished military aid, and loans/giveaways to buy arms to Israel is the only concrete outcomes that mean anything.

[ToivoS]

The last few days of news have been very interesting. There are two things that have come up that are new and Netanyahu lying on NBC news is not news -- that is definitely olds. Those who write headlines, it seems to me, have missed these stories.

First was how Netanyahu when he believed he might be losing the election decided to come right out with a strong denunciation of a Palestinian state and openly anti-Arab racist statements. This resulted in his polling at 20 seats in the Knesset to 30 in just four days. The problem here is not Netanyahu, the problem is the Israeli people who responded positively to his comments. Max Blumenthal in his book Goliath made a pretty good case that Israel was a racist society. His book was ignored by most of the US book reviewers and in the few cases where it was reviewed was strongly attacked by liberal Zionists types. This election shows that Max's thesis was correct. It will be very difficult for those "progressive" supporters of Israel to deny that thesis.

Second, which has not really attracted that much reaction from the usual pro-Israel sources (yet) or the mainstream media (or do I repeat myself), is the response of State and the Whitehouse. They have strongly hinted and came very close to coming right out a saying, that Netanyahu's statements in the last week may result in major changes in US support for Israel. Someone inside the admin even suggested that the US would stop vetoing UNSC resolutions critical of Israel. They might even support the Palestinian statehood bid before the UN! This is a development that is without precedent at least since Bush Sr and Baker ran US foreign policy.

The statements and leaks from the admin can be easily disavowed if they feel under too much pressure, but so far they have not disavowed them. This second issue is one that has really surprised me. It seemed inconceivable that Obama would defy the Lobby. But maybe he has?

[confusedponderer]

"It will be very difficult for those "progressive" supporters of Israel to deny that thesis"

You may be expressing hope rather than reality here.

I think that depends how much they are invested in Israel as a Jewish state and the Zionist program. If they are heavily invested emotionally then denial will be rather easy - they are more likely to rather double down than quit.

Advance fee fraud scammer's buisness models rest on this fact, and IMO that reflects a very realistic assassment of human nature.

I think that the primary benefit of Bibi's unabashed dishonesty is the demolition of remaining illusions about the actual character of Israel's colonial project on the side of the gentiles.

The Israelis getting uglier in their conduct will make supporting them unpalatable. Israeli discrimination of Arabs will, as it already does, IMO largely take the form of administrative law, and extralegal action. It is gaudy already:

"A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counsellors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and "rescue" them.

The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate - and little discussed - initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.

In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.

Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel's ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behaviour as a threat to the state's Jewishness."

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/israeli-drive-to-prevent-jewish-girls-dating-arabs

"Some 82% of the religious students believe Arab Israelis should not be allowed to vote in Knesset elections, versus 47% of seculars. Overall, 56% of the high school students polled believe Arabs should not be allowed to vote."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3861161,00.html

These trends will continue. What's in the pipe? Jim Crow laws? Miscegenation laws? That prospect isn't unbrealistic at all given such attitudes. And while that sure will damage American Jewish support, it will certainly drive away Gentile support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel#Legal_and_political_status

[MRW]

"Thank you for your submission. Excellent. I've been meaning to ask you who is was that didn't want your help because you spoke Arabic. Feith?"

Got a link for that post?