Benjamin Netanyahu

While Fox News Bashes Biden on Israel, Netanyahu Thanks Him for His ‘Incredible Support’

Posted by on October 12, 2023 at 1:48 pm. 2 Comments :

As the Hamas assault on Israel continues, the efforts by Republicans to politicize the terrorist atrocities grow ever more repugnant and despicably dishonest. They simply can’t resist any opportunity to demean America’s mission to aid Israel, even if – or especially if – it means maligning President Biden and other Democrats.

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Naturally, The GOP’s Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News, is at the forefront of disseminating lies and deliberate disinformation in pursuit of their partisan political goals. They would rather engage in smear campaigns against their domestic electoral foes, than to stand up for their international allies who are suffering a torrent of savagery. Consequently, the narrative at Fox News is that this is all somehow President Biden’s fault. It’s such a ridiculous proposition that Fox News can’t even sustain it…

SEE THIS: Even Fox News Exposes GOP Lies on the War in Israel and How the Party Harms National Security

To no one’s surprise, Donald Trump is thoroughly bought into the “Blame America First” brigade. And on Wednesday he gave a speech wherein praised the terrorists who are massacring innocent Israelis, and turned his wrath on our Israeli allies, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Trump may have been angry with for showing solidarity with Biden.

Trump’s tirade led to the Israeli Communications Minister, Shlomo Karhi, responding to say that it is “shameful that a man like that, a former US president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens. We don’t have to bother with him and the nonsense he spouts.” And Netanyahu expressed his unreserved gratitude to America in general, and Biden in particular, in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, saying…

“Mr. Secretary. My good friend, Tony. Thank you, thank President Biden, and thank you to the American people for your incredible support for Israel in our war against the barbarians of Hamas.”

It’s notable that Fox News covered that part of the Blinken/Netanyahu summit. But rest assured that it will not likely be repeated on their primetime Trump-fluffing programs. Nor will they air Netanyahu embracing Biden’s support and praising America “for standing with Israel today, tomorrow, and always.”

Much of Fox’s coverage of the Hamas crusade against Israel seeks to preposterously accuse Biden of providing the financing for it. They cite a recent prisoner swap agreement with Iran wherein the U.S. relaxed sanctions of $6 billion of Iranian money that was frozen in South Korean banks. None of that money, however, would go to the Iranian regime. It was to be held in Qatar and used only for verified humanitarian purposes that would have to be approved by the U.S. And now even that usage has been suspended.

What’s more, Fox News further sought to blame Biden for what they called the “lack of Senate confirmed elected officials” in foreign policy and military positions. However, Fox didn’t bother to mention that those vacancies were due to Senate Republicans obstructing the confirmation of nominees that the White House had already put forward.

SEE ALSO: Fox News Blames Biden for the Lack of Foreign Policy Officials – That Republicans Have Blocked

It’s profoundly damaging to the national security interests of the United States for Republicans and Fox News to be so brazenly disparaging of America and its allies during a time of crisis. But that’s where we are now as the MAGA GOP exerts their unsavory influences on the nation via their MAGA media outlets. It’s just further proof that they care more about their political prospects than they do about their fellow American, or the country, or the world.

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Ready For Bibi: Republican Leaders Trying To Draft Netanyahu For President In 2016

Posted by on April 1, 2015 at 11:25 am. 6 Comments :

The presidential electoral season is rapidly heating up with candidates for both sides jockeying for position. Most of the activity is on the Republican side as the Democrats have not yet fielded a candidate that is seriously challenging Hillary Clinton.

The list of Republican hopefuls is long and comical, including such farces as Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson. Those considered “establishment” contenders like Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham have been rejected outright by the Tea Party base. Consequently, there is a sucking vacuum of emptiness in the GOP that threatens to sink their 2016 aspirations before they even get started.

Given the lack of any candidates that can unite the party and generate the energy and passion necessary to win next November, the GOP is casting a wider net in search of a more palatable offering. The consensus among insiders in the party is that Israels’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu best fits the bill to fire up a demoralized GOP that has lost two straight elections to a black guy.

Netanyahu GOP

That makes the recent travels of Republican leaders to Israel a more significant news story than previously disclosed. Mitch McConnell, the GOP chieftain in the Senate was there last week and huddled with Netanyahu, taking his side against President Obama regarding the sensitive negotiations over Iran’s nuclear arms capabilities. Next up is John Boehner, the GOP Speaker of the House, who is also scheduled to fluff Netanyahu during a trip to the holy land. These trips, it turns out, were not solely excursions to attempt to embarrass Obama on an international stage. Sources in the GOP have revealed that they were arranged to recruit Netanyahu as the next Republican nominee for president of the United States.

While there would be some obstacles to a Netanyahu candidacy, there are also some distinct advantages from the Republican perspective. Netanyahu is a war hawk who gives American conservatives goose bumps when he talks about escalating hostilities in the already volatile region. He has demonstrated a total inability to manage his nation’s economy, which should also excite Republicans who have made that their trademark in the United States. And best of all, he hates President Obama with a passion that comes very close to that of the Tea Party right in America.

The question of his citizenship is expected to be buried in a campaign that emphasizes his strong personal character that has the divine power to overcome trivialities like constitutional law. Republicans are planning to flood the media with arguments of equivalency to Obama’s Kenyan nativity and even to Ted Cruz’s birth in Canada to a Cuban lieutenant of Fidel Castro.

The religious right has long been one of the most powerful and loyal constituencies in the GOP. Their influence in this can also be felt as they regard a Netanyahu presidency as a prelude to the End Times that they so fervently await. They see his ascendancy as a path to war in the Middle East and eventually to the Apocalypse.

Fox News is also on board as the network of Christian soldiers who believe that a return to the Crusades would benefit both their political goals and their ratings. With a roster heavily weighted by devout Catholics, they are the closest thing in media to a Vatican PR office. The Fox faithful include: Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer, Brian Kilmeade, Andrew Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Kucinich, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Father Morris. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of Fox News parent News Corp was himself inducted into the “Knights of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great” by Pope John Paul II. And if that isn’t enough, the current Senior Communications Adviser in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Greg Burke, was previously the Fox News correspondent covering the Vatican, a position he held for ten years.

No timetable has been set as to when Netanyahu would announce his candidacy. However, there doesn’t seem to be any hurry as their is only one announced candidate to date (Ted Cruz) and no one is taking him seriously. The first debate (on Fox News, of course) isn’t scheduled until August. That gives Netanyahu time to settle his affairs in Israel and make several trips to Iowa and New Hampshire. Historically, campaign announcements have not been made on or around April 1st for the obvious reason: That it is simply too early in the cycle.

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Bibi-lievers Beware: Fox News Is Already Making Excuses For Possible Netanyahu Loss

Posted by on March 15, 2015 at 6:55 pm. 5 Comments :

In the commotion surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before Congress, Fox News and their partners in rightist propaganda insisted that anyone who did not support his appearance and hawkish agenda were anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. However, that view is not shared by most Americans or most Israelis.

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Subsequent to the speech, Netanhayu’s popularity has dropped in the U.S. to 38% favorable. Clearly the speech was not well received by Americans. That decline puts Netanyahu’s rating more than ten points lower than President Obama. And if you think that’s bad, his host, GOP Speaker John Boehner, is now more than ten points lower than Netanyahu.

Critics of the speech warned that it was inappropriate for Congress to provide a platform for a foreign official who was currently engaged in a political campaign. Those warnings were borne out when shortly after Netanyahu returned to Israel to resume his reelection effort he released an ad featuring video of the U.S. Congress applauding him. So Boehner was successfully suckered by Netanyahu into helping him produce campaign materials.

Despite this international assistance, Netanyahu’s reelection bid is struggling. He has fallen further behind his main opponent, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog. And now, with the prospect of Netanyahu losing, Fox News and Republicans in Congress are laying the groundwork for an explanation for the failure of their hero. They are promoting an allegation that the Obama administration is interfering with Israeli elections in order to defeat Netanyahu. Of course they are. Like everything else – Netanyahu losing would be Obama’s fault.

The conspiracy revolves around their discovery that a former Obama campaign operative is working for a group that opposes Netanyahu’s reelection. That is an entirely routine activity. It is precisely what campaign consultants of both parties do for a living. But that didn’t stop Fox News from reporting in multiple segments an alleged effort by the administration to oust Netanyahu. The allegations are so important to Fox that on Sunday morning anchor Uma Pemmaraju interrupted a segment about Hillary Clinton’s email to ask about the Israeli election and a rumored Senate inquiry:

“There is a Senate probe apparently, that is launched, a bipartisan probe, to investigate concerns about a non-profit agency taking government funds to try and be involved in interfering with Israeli elections set for Tuesday. […] This particular group, apparently, has ties to the White House, no direct link has been determined at this point about whether the White House has been sending operatives into Israel to be involved with interfering in upcoming elections set for Tuesday. But the fact that if this group is found to have used government grants, up to $350,000 from the State Department, that would be a real violation of ethics and raise some big concerns.”

Twice in that “question” Pemmaraju used the loaded phrase “interfering with Israeli elections,” even though she also admitted that there was “no direct link” to Obama. Media Matters documented efforts to advance this smear a month ago by rightist fringe groups. Now it has percolated up to Fox News and senate investigators. Media Matters showed that political consultants from both sides frequently do work in other countries (like good capitalists). They also showed that former Obama operatives have worked in support of Netanyahu. And the allegations of federal funding were shown to have no merit as the funds were not used in conjunction with any campaign because the elections had not even been announced at the time.

So the facts show that there is no effort on the part of the White House to interfere with the Israeli elections. However, Speaker Boehner and Republicans in congress did interfere with Israeli elections by providing candidate Netanyahu with a platform and campaign material. They also permitted Netanyahu to interfere with American politics by trying to sway foreign policy in opposition to diplomacy with Iran.

And after this brazenly partisan, factless, regurgitation of an unsupported wingnut conspiracy theory, Fox News returned to their regular anti-Obama programming with Pemmaraju employing this subtle segue: “Turning now to the Select Committee investigating Benghazi…” Of course. What else?

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Sarah Palin And Other Netanyahu Groupies May Soon Find Themselves Leaderless

Posted by on March 3, 2015 at 8:13 pm. 11 Comments :

The much anticipated speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress has come and gone leaving a notable aroma of anti-climax. After being hailed by many in politics and the press as an historic occasion, there was nothing of substance revealed in the address. It turned out to be a tale of a dystopian future that mimicked the doomsday rantings of Glenn Beck, complete with caliphates and the collapsing of civilization.

John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu violated decades of protocol and was a blatantly political slap at President Obama. Republicans heralded the speech as a vital moment to embrace an important ally. In fact, they implied that any opposition to the controversial appearance was tantamount to being anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic (as Andrea Tantaros of Fox News opined twice). The American right is shamelessly infatuated with Netanyahu and regard him as a superior model of leadership to our own president who was popularly elected twice.

Netanyahu enjoys the admiration of conservatives who favor posturing for war over diplomacy. They have elevated him to hero status and fantasize about having him replace Obama in the White House. Sarah Palin has gone even further by seeking to profit from her crush by selling t-shirts emblazoned with his picture and the oath “I Stand With Bibi.”

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However, these conservative Bibi disciples may come to regret their insistence that loyalty to the current Israeli Prime Minister (a war-mongering conservative) is equivalent to loyalty to Israel. That’s because in a couple of weeks there may very well be a new Prime Minister with a very different worldview. The Guardian reports that…

“Binyamin Netanyahu’s campaign for re-election for a fourth term as Israel’s prime minister appears to be stumbling, with recent polls suggesting he is marginally behind his biggest challenger, Isaac Herzog.”

Herzog is the leader of Israel’s Labor Party and has a more liberal, inclusive political philosophy. He represents a coalition that seeks peace through cooperation. He is a lawyer, a member of the Knesset (Israel’s legislature), a former IDF intelligence officer, and is every bit as determined to insure Israel’s security as Netanyahu. But he believes that a two-state solution negotiated and enforced with neighbors in the region is the way to end the decades-long hostilities.

If Herzog prevails in the March 17 election, it will be interesting to see if the right-wingers in the U.S. continue to regard the Prime Minister as the official proxy for all things Israel. Will they invite him to speak before a joint session of Congress? Will they hang on his every word. Will they repudiate as disloyal anyone who dares to disagree with him? Will they hawk t-shirts with his smiling face and promises to stand with him?

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It doesn’t take much courage to slide out on a limb and predict that the wingnut contingent would not give Herzog the same measure of respect that they give to Netanyahu. And you might wait a long time to be able to buy a Herzog t-shirt from Sarah Palin’s PAC. So while Israel would benefit enormously from the election of a Labor Party majority, There’s another reason why Americans should root for that outcome. Because it would just be so much fun watching Republican pols and pundits squirming to validate their disdain for an Israeli PM after demanding allegiance to their hero Netanyahu.

Wingnuts Pan Obama’s Funny Video As Undignified, Praise Netanyahu’s As Delightful

Posted by on February 13, 2015 at 7:38 pm. 3 Comments :

There is something about the modern conservative establishment that fosters a deep infatuation with foreign leaders. Whether it be Vladimir Putin or King Abdullah or, most recently, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Konservative Komedy

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This fascination with tyrants and other non-American heads of state is decidedly unpatriotic. And coming from these Tea party, Republican, nationalist zealots, it is also extraordinarily hypocritical.

This week President Obama and Buzzfeed produced and released a short video to alert citizens that the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) would end on February 15, and that anyone interested in acquiring health insurance would need to to do so before then. The video was a humorous affair that sought to inform without banging people over the head with a rhetorical sledgehammer.

The reaction from the rightist killjoys was not dissimilar to that of radical Islamists who would stone people for the sin of dancing. How dare the President lower himself to expressing humor in order to give out useful information. Obviously he’s the Anti-Christ. This is identical to the response by tight-assed GOP’ers to the President’s appearance on Zach Galifianakis’ “Between Two Ferns,” and his interviews with three YouTube celebs. Some of the criticisms include…

  • Brain Kilmeade, Fox News: Bad message to friends in peril & heartening to our enemies.
  • Jim Geraghty, National Review: We’re not living in silly times, but we have a silly president.
  • Marc Thiessen, Washington Post: What president says YOLO [You only live once]? It’s just not funny.
  • Michelle Malkin: America’s commander-in-chief is goofing off w/Buzzfeed while the world burns.
  • Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Fox News: On the very day Kayla Mueller is confirmed to be dead at the hands of terrorism, how does our president respond? “YOLO.”

And you wonder why there aren’t any conservative comedians? Maybe because they don’t have the slightest hint of a sense of humor. Maybe because they can watch that video and conclude that it is “heartening to our enemies.” And maybe because what they actually do regard as funny is Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu pretending to be a “Bibisitter,” in a campaign ad. The reaction to Netanyahu’s fairly lame ad by right-wing aficionados of funny included:

  • KT McFarland, Fox News: Whoever said Bibi netanyahu doesn’t have sense of humor? Watch the Bibisitter campaign add – it’s hilarious!!
  • Laura Ingraham, Fox News: Hilarious Benjamin Netanyahu Election Campaign Advertisement.
  • National Review: Bibi Sitter: Benjamin Netanyahu’s new campaign commercial. Very funny.

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No one can argue that the world around Israel is less embroiled in hostilities than the United States. The Middle Eastern nation is surrounded by enemies devoted to their destruction. Yet somehow it’s OK, even hilarious, for Netanyahu to make “funny” videos to promote himself during a reelection campaign despite the turmoil his nation faces. But if Obama makes a funny video to help, not himself, but others who will benefit from having health insurance, he is an ogre who spits on the graves of murdered hostages.

There is an Olympian heap of irony in the fact that conservatives spent years pushing the insane conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in this country, but at the same time they openly yearn for foreigners, some of them unabashed dictators, to take control of America. And yet they still regard themselves as patriots as they feverishly insult our democracy, our President, and the majority of Americans who voted for him twice.