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| President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu (Axios) |
(As an aside, there is following from CNN:
Former Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and leading a failed plot to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
This tends to show that Trump himself is innocent of seditious conspiracy since Enrique Tarrio was the one convicted of it. The idea that Trump had anything to do with planning or coordinating it with him is ridiculous. But a jury in DC selected from a pool of jurors where 95% voted for his opponent might convict him anyway. But I digress.)
What separates me from most of the rest of Trump critics is is that I recognize his accomplishments as President, too. I look at that with an unjaundiced eye. Those who hate him so viscerally are blinded to those accomplishments. That kind of blind hatred taints their perceptions in my view. They will explain why they were not accomplishments at all. (One will find that level of Trump hatred mostly among the left who cannot stand the conservative policies of his administration.)
One of those accomplishments was the Abraham Accords whereby Israel established diplomatic relations and trade agreements with several Muslim countries. Trump haters immediately dismissed that as irrelevant and meaningless. Small countries like that had little influence on other Muslim nations. So that nothing had really changed with respect to Israel's standing in the Arab world. Which depended on making peace with the Palestinians. The cause of peace and security was therefore not advanced.
What they refused to recognize is the open door those accords created to bigger and better things. Like establishing diplomatic relations with larger and far more significant Saudi Arabia – America’s closest Middle East ally after Israel. This, they said, will never happen. Certainly not because of the Abraham Accords
The thing is that it actually might. Biden is actively pursuing this prospect. The door to which was opened by the Trump administration via those accords. Anyone that does not recognize that is clearly blinded by their hatred of Trump. Denials to the contrary notwithstanding.
What is true about Trump haters is equally true about Biden haters. They see everything he does as anti Israel.
That is absolutely false. Although his relationship with Israel is nowhere near as robust as was that of the Trump administration, they are still strongly pro Israel. He has never even hinted at reducing financial or military aid for the Jewish state. To put it the way he and his Democratic predecessor, former President Barack Obama did many times: The bond between the US and Israel is unbreakable.
If Biden succeeds in establishing diplomatic relations between those two nations he will have to credit his immediate predecessor, President Trump for opening that door. There is no way that this would have even been a dream without the Abraham Accords
Will it actually happen? Who knows. My guess is that there is about a 50/50 chance that it will. A lot of very difficult concession by both Israel and the US will have to be made But I really believe it is possible. More now than ever. And if it does, it will be a game changer!
Which brings me to an unabashed hater (among many) of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - New York Times columnist Tom Freidman. This is someone who along with many others accuses the current right wing government of Israel of attempting a coup against Israel’s long standing democracy. By way of removing the power of its self appointed and self perpetuated Supreme Court to override any legislation passed by its freely elected legislative body - that it doesn’t like.
While it might have been their intent to completely emasculate their Supreme Court, I don’t think that is the case anymore. I think it is fair to say that at this point it is more about equalizing the power between the two branches. So that there will actually be checks and balances rather than one branch controlling the other. But Friedman and his fellow travelers will not have any of it.! Unless power is fully restored to a left wing court to thwart a right wing government, they consider Israel to be undemocratic..
In his latest Times editorial, Friedman urges both Biden and the Saudis to not become ‘useful idiots‘ and to instead reject any deal to be made with the Netanyahu government.
Why? Because he says that Netanyahu will deceive both the US and the Saudis by making promises that he will not keep. Furthermore, giving Netanyahu a win will strengthen his right wing government.
Netanyahu may be a bit of a narcissist himself. But he is also pretty smart and the quintessential pragmatist. He knows ‘when to hold them and when to fold em’. A lifetime of service to his country shows that he cares deeply about its future. The kind of lie Freidman says Netanyahu would state would reverse any deal made with the Saudis and ruin his legacy. I don’t think Netanyahu will torpedo a deal of this magnitude with that kind of lie. Not to mention the harm that would do to Israel’s relationship with the US. I also think he will be able to hold his extremist coalition members at bay with such a momentous achievement at stake.
Of course his opponents insist that his legacy is already ruined. But If he pulls this off, it will surely help restore some of his lost luster among mainstream Israelis. Which is what Friedman and the left fear the most. They despise him and want him gone now and forever.
To sum up, unlike Trump and Netanyahu haters on the one side - and Biden haters on the other, I see the good and the bad in all 3 of them. And judge their actions independently.