A perennial challenge faces the new American president as he prepares to take office next January. The words Middle East, Israel, Palestine, etc. have passed the lips of presidents almost daily for over half a century. At the center of course is the situation in Palestine/Israel. Shortly after the new president is inaugurated into office, the Israeli people will go to the polls to elect a new government of their own. Recent polling places Benyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party in the lead and likely to form the next government of Israel. To govern, the Likud would need the support of a coalition of Israel’s smaller parties. For Likud this means the far right religious parties like Shas. Netanyahu has already announced he has no intention of continuing the current U. S. backed peace plan. Well that’s okay since it wasn’t really a peace plan and the ruling Kadima party hadn’t been following it anyway. That plan, such as it was, fell apart when the Palestinian people had the audacity to elect Hamas instead of the American backed Fatah. I guess democracy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You try to do something nice for someone like let them have a vote and they turn around and bite you in the ass by electing the opposing guy. America won’t make that mistake again. You can be sure that in Afghanistan next year and Iraq when its turn comes around that the American authorities will be ‘deadly’ sure their guy wins.
Netanyahu’s partners are even more scary than he. A leading rabbi in the Shas Party in a recent sermon called teachers in secular schools “asses” and said they taught only foolishness. He said that they knew nothing and only taught things like history and nonsense about world nations. And you can guess what portfolio in a Netanyahu coalition cabinet the Shas Party wants. That’s right, education.
Some of the players within Likud itself are threats to humanity. Former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon is suggesting the assassination of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop Iran’s nuclear program. He believes strongly in Jewish colonization of the West Bank and Gaza, opposing any form of autonomy or self-government for the Palestinians. He has also been warned not to travel in several Western European countries as he has been identified internationally as a war criminal and may face arrest. The pièce de résistance is Moshe Feiglin. Some Israelis have compared him to Adolph Hitler. Feiglin calls for all out genocidal ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories and a holy war against Islam, the goal of which would be the annihilation of all 1.5 billion Muslims.
A backdrop to this is the recent Israeli Defense establishment paper calling for preparations for a military strike against Iran if the U. S. and Iran negotiate a deal. Israel will not tolerate Iran moving forward on nuclear development, even if it is arguably for domestic purposes. The IAEA has said Iran is not currently capable of producing a weapon but may be within 1 to 2 years.
None of this bodes well for peace in the Middle East any time soon. The new president of the United States will have some difficult decisions to make. Advising him will be his White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who in Gulf War 1 volunteered for the Israeli Defense Force rather than fighting with U. S. forces. During that time Benyamin Netanyahu was also prime minister of Israel. Caught in the middle once more are the Palestinian people. Left with little or no hope as the most powerful state on earth supports an enemy bound to their eternal subjugation at best and their obliteration at worst. I wonder how any of us would react in such a position.
