Likely Indictments Hang Over Benjamin Netanyahu and Imperil His Political Career

At LAT, "How will Netanyahu’s legal woes affect U.S.-Israeli relations and peace efforts?":

How will Netanyahu's legal woes affect U.S.-Israeli relations and peace efforts? https://t.co/xChELRpaGp

— L.A. Times World (@latimesworld) March 2, 2019

Even as likely indictments hang over Benjamin Netanyahu and imperil his political career, the embattled Israeli prime minister is receiving the enthusiastic endorsement of his good buddy and leader of the free world, Donald J. Trump.

“He has been a great prime minister,” President Trump said in Hanoi on Thursday after a nuclear summit with North Korea as plans to charge Netanyahu in three felony corruption cases were about to be announced in Jerusalem. “He's done a great job as prime minister. He's tough, he's smart, he's strong.”

Since becoming president more than two years ago, Trump has been a loyal, unquestioning ally of Netanyahu and his right-wing Israeli government. He has taken numerous steps in favor of Israel and promised to look out for Netanyahu’s interests as his son-in-law and other administration officials seek a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump has called that long-elusive goal the “ultimate deal.” But Netanyahu’s political and legal predicament has added even more complexity to what was already a tortured, long-shot process.

Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for more than a decade, also faces a tough reelection bid. He is running for a fourth consecutive term as head of the government in voting that takes place in 40 days, on April 9.

The fate of Netanyahu and the still-secret U.S.-crafted peace plan are in many ways intertwined. How he fares in the final weeks of the election campaign, whether his party continues to hold on to its lead or slips substantially, is likely to influence whether he welcomes a peace plan or turns his back on any such effort to appeal to his hard-line, ultra-hawkish base, Israeli and American political analysts say.

Trump handed the project of writing a peace plan to son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization attorney named special envoy for the Middle East. The two this week ended a second tour through Persian Gulf states attempting to find support for their ideas, which some leaders in the region have rejected for appearing overly pro-Israeli, disregarding Palestinian demands.

Kushner said he would not make the plan public before the Israeli election. It could, however, be published in the postelection period, a frenzied time when, in Israel’s parliamentary system, political parties who have won seats make alliances in an attempt to form a government that selects the prime minister.

At that point, analysts said, Netanyahu could appeal to a broader group of politicians, insisting he was the best leader to make peace while not sacrificing Israel’s security or other interests.

“There is a devil’s theory that Kushner and company will try to do a rollout to help Bibi form a coalition,” said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who teaches Middle East policy at Princeton University, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.

Or, if it would help Netanyahu more, Kushner “is likely to tiptoe back to Washington so he does not hurt Bibi,” Kurtzer said.

If Netanyahu loses in the election, there may be pressure for the Trump administration to delay releasing the peace plan to another date, if ever, because of the uncertainty and especially if a center-left government takes over, said Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

Yet if Netanyahu thinks his career depends on it, he could probably go harder right, Goldenberg and others said, which might render any peace plan dead on arrival because few governments and especially those in the Arab world would be willing to work with such a coalition.

Already, Netanyahu stunned many people in the U.S. and in Israel when he brought three extreme right-wing fringe parties into his coalition last week. One of the parties, Jewish Power, believes in Jewish supremacy and is led by disciples of Meir Kahane, the ultra-right-wing American-born rabbi who won a seat in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, before he was banned from politics in 1988 for advancing a racist agenda. He was assassinated two years later.

No criticism was forthcoming, however, from the Trump administration. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said that “we’re not about to get involved” in a democratic country’s election. Those statements came four days before Trump’s endorsement of the “tough, smart, strong” Netanyahu.

Prior to being formally indicted, Netanyahu is allowed to challenge the charges against him, which involve bribery and other corruption aimed at promoting his image and helping him hold on to power. If indicted, Netanyahu could continue to campaign, but whether he could serve effectively as prime minister remains unclear.

Initial polling after Atty. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit announced his intention to indict Thursday was grim for Netanyahu and his Likud Party...

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies." (Not posted yet.)



And at Theo's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – L’Chaim."

Caroline Glick, The Israeli Solution

President Trump is supposedly "backing off" the so-called "two-state solution" to the Middle East peace process.

We'll see, although this reminds me of Caroline Glick's book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu's Christmas Message (VIDEO)

I love Benjamin Netanyahu.

His messages always make me feel so good and proud, and so welcomed in Israel.

I'm planning at trip to Israel, in fact. I'm not sure when. I have two trips on the agenda. I don't know if I can make it one big trip or not. I want to go to France, to Normandy, and I want to visit Auschwitz, in Poland. Then I want to go to Israel. That might be two trips, but we'll see. I'm not sure if my wife wants to go. She's not comfortable traveling outside of the U.S., and I don't blame her. But I'm not worried. Maybe this summer I'll be able to do some traveling. The time is right, financially as well as family-wise. I want my sons to go, especially my young son, who hasn't traveled a lot yet.

In any case, enjoy the prime minister's message, via the Conservative Treehouse:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Congratulates Donald Trump

I love Netanyahu.

And I love Donald Trump.

It's morning in America.

President-elect Trump, my friend: Congratulations on being elected President of the United States of America. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/mGqS8cYpws

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) November 9, 2016

Prime Minister Netanyahu Speaks Out on Orlando Islamic Jihad (VIDEO)

If only we had him here in the U.S. He's so awesome.

Via Legal Insurrection, "Prime Minister Netanyahu Says What We’re All Thinking About Orlando Terrorist Attack."

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Statement on the Occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (VIDEO)

Just having him in office over there makes me feel a little better.

But our election's coming, and I'm confident that the change we have this time's going to be for the better.

Obama Administration's Espionage Against Israel Should Be Major Scandal

Following-up, "Obama Administration Spied on Israel — And Members of Congress, Pro-Israel Interest Groups as Well."

At the New York Post, "Why Team Obama’s Israel spying should be a major scandal":

No one should be in the least bit surprised that the United States and Israel continue to spy on each other, despite being longtime close allies.

Israel’s strategic position in the world’s most volatile region pretty much guarantees that. So does Jerusalem’s dependence on continued US support and goodwill.

But news that the Obama administration targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for continued close electronic surveillance — even as it curbed it for other friendly leaders — still is pretty startling.

As is The Wall Street Journal’s disclosure that the sweep included conversations with US Jewish groups and members of Congress.

The last is especially critical: Careful rules govern how the National Security Agency can handle such intercepted conversations, and it’s not clear they were followed.

But it’s also significant that Team Obama apparently had no problem with spying on Americans engaged in legitimate political activity — in this case, trying to block the president’s dubious nuclear deal with Iran.

The White House took pains not to leave a paper trail. As one senior official told the Journal: “We didn’t say, ‘Do it.’ We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it’.”

Still more.

Plausible deniability.

This administration just reeks criminality.

Obama Administration Spied on Israel — And Members of Congress, Pro-Israel Interest Groups as Well

I mean if this kind of completely underhanded (and illegal) espionage of our purported allies were taking place during the Watergate era, it'd be right up there with the break-in at the DNC headquarters. It's not so much that we're spied on our only consolidated democratic ally in the Middle East, but that the Obama White House deployed bureaucratic legerdemain to establish plausible deniability. Obama set himself up to blame the NSA if anything went wrong, and this is two years after pledging to curtail spying on America's strategic partners.

And don't forget to add in the extra bonus of spying on Members of Congress and pro-Israel lobbying groups.

Man, this is really something else.

At the Wall Street Journal, "U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress" (via AoSHQ):

i'm sure everyone knows this but this Obama-spies-on-US-congressmen story is breathtaking https://t.co/K83Dadh4Pu

— The Scandalous DJT (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 30, 2015

Hey if a president knowingly spies on foreign allies, after promising not to, AND Congress -- We're just livin' in a YOLO Nation, right?

— The Scandalous DJT (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 30, 2015

Obama's going to be SO MAD when he reads about his own actions in the papers

— The Scandalous DJT (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 30, 2015

NSA’s targeting of Israeli leaders swept up the content of private conversations with U.S. lawmakers.

President Barack Obama announced two years ago he would curtail eavesdropping on friendly heads of state after the world learned the reach of long-secret U.S. surveillance programs.

But behind the scenes, the White House decided to keep certain allies under close watch, current and former U.S. officials said. Topping the list was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.

Before former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed much of the agency’s spying operations in 2013, there was little worry in the administration about the monitoring of friendly heads of state because it was such a closely held secret. After the revelations and a White House review, Mr. Obama announced in a January 2014 speech he would curb such eavesdropping.

In closed-door debate, the Obama administration weighed which allied leaders belonged on a so-called protected list, shielding them from NSA snooping. French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders made the list, but the administration permitted the NSA to target the leaders’ top advisers, current and former U.S. officials said. Other allies were excluded from the protected list, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of NATO ally Turkey, which allowed the NSA to spy on their communications at the discretion of top officials.

Privately, Mr. Obama maintained the monitoring of Mr. Netanyahu on the grounds that it served a “compelling national security purpose,” according to current and former U.S. officials. Mr. Obama mentioned the exception in his speech but kept secret the leaders it would apply to.

Israeli, German and French government officials declined to comment on NSA activities. Turkish officials didn’t respond to requests Tuesday for comment. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NSA declined to comment on communications provided to the White House.

This account, stretching over two terms of the Obama administration, is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. intelligence and administration officials and reveals for the first time the extent of American spying on the Israeli prime minister...

More.

And see Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Obama Crosses a Line on Spying":

#Obama crosses a line on #spying. https://t.co/A5MOx2yTzu pic.twitter.com/bjj63DqGfC

— Jonathan S. Tobin (@TobinCommentary) December 30, 2015

Let’s specify that it must be understood that in the real world all nations probably spy on each other. That includes friends. Moreover, the generally very close relations between the U.S. and Israeli security establishments does not preclude them from seeking to gain more information than might be shared in the course of normal diplomatic intercourse. In the past, there have been documented cases of the U.S. spying on Israel. On the other hand, the Pollard affair demonstrated an instance in which some Israeli spooks and their political masters had the bad judgment to not only spy on the U.S. but to employ an unstable American Jew. That mistake has wrongly allowed anti-Semites within the U.S. government to wrongly place loyal American Jews under suspicion.

But the endless, eternal struggle for more intelligence that all spies wage against each other has become something very different under the Obama administration. The report about its anti-Israel activity makes plain that surveillance of Israel has gone beyond the routine hunger for extra tidbits of information that had not been previously shared by the allies. What has been going on is more like a campaign that was driven primarily by political motives more than ones rooted in security.

The Obama administration wasn’t content to merely debate the Israelis and the majority of Americans that opposed the Iran nuclear deal. The president and his foreign policy team were actively spying on them in a way that reflected more than ordinary curiosity about an ally. The information it sought and gathered actually had nothing to do with Israeli or American security. Rather it was conducting political espionage aimed at monitoring normal diplomatic conduct and legitimate political activity being conducted by American citizens and members of Congress that opposed the president’s détente with Iran.

The irony here is of Olympic in proportions. Rather than using its resources on legitimate security risks or even on sources of vital information relating to the defense of the homeland or our allies, the NSA was basically acting as an arm of the White House’s political operations ferreting out information about lobbying efforts of those opposed to the Iran deal.

That netted the administration some juicy tidbits about conversations between former Speaker of the House John Boehner and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer that led to an invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress (so much for the administration’s expressions of shock and surprise about the alleged breach of protocol by the Israelis!). While the Israeli decision to accept that offer was politically debatable, it was not a matter of national security one way or the other. Nor were any of the sessions that were apparently bugged involving Israelis, American supporters of Israel and members of Congress.

Leaving aside ethics and the law, this spying activity was largely pointless. It’s not as if anyone in Washington was in any doubt about Israeli displeasure with the president’s betrayal of the security interests of both nations in his pursuit of appeasement of Tehran. Everything they learned about opposition to the Iran deal by spying was already being talked of openly by all concerned. Using the NSA in this manner wasn’t just morally dubious; it was a waste of precious intelligence resources.

Nor can we be reassured by what the Journal tells us the NSA did to keep limits on the spying it was doing use the measures. Removing “trash talk” by members of Congress directed at the president from the transcripts it provided the White House was nice, but it didn’t address the basic problem of the executive branch spying on the legislature’s normal conduct of business.

Complicating this affair were the administration’s worries about Israeli efforts to find out what was going on between the U.S. and Iran in the nuclear talks. Apparently the White House’s greatest fear was that the Israelis would tell Congress what the president and his foreign policy team were giving away in the course of those negotiations.

In the end, Obama got his nuclear deal with Iran via concessions and even was able to implement it despite the opposition of the majority of the House and Senate as well as the American people. The spying on Israel didn’t help, but it did further undermine the already fragile trust between the Jewish state and its one superpower ally.

What comes through loud and clear from all of this is that the Obama administration is more worried about letting either its allies or the representatives of the American people know about its conduct toward Iran than they were about the nuclear threat. That meant using the NSA in a manner for which it was not intended: to spy not just on foreign friends but on American citizens and members of Congress...

Still more.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Stares Down United Nations in Rebuke to Iran Nuclear Deal (VIDEO)

At Town Hall, "Chilling: Netanyahu Glares at UN Delegates for 45 Seconds for Their 'Deafening Silence' on Iran Deal."

Chilling:

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Condemns Iran Nuclear Deal: 'One of the Darkest Days in World History' (VIDEO)

At Newsmax, "Netanyahu Denounces 'Historic Mistake' in English, Farsi":

The ink may still be wet on a nuclear accord reached between Iran and Western powers but critics — including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have already taken to social media to decry it.

And at the New York Times, "Iran Deal Denounced by Netanyahu as 'Historic Mistake'":

JERUSALEM — Furiously denouncing the accord to limit Iran’s nuclear program on Tuesday as a “historic mistake,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would not be bound by the agreement and warned of negative repercussions in a region already riven with rivalries and armed conflict.

Contrary to President Obama’s assertion that the agreement will cut off every pathway for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, Israel’s leaders rejected the deal as a dangerous compromise that will exacerbate regional tensions and pave the way over time for Iran to produce multiple bombs — “an entire arsenal with the means to deliver it,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its survival. For Mr. Netanyahu, the accord is the bitter culmination of a long struggle that has severely strained Israel’s relations with the United States, its crucial ally...

More at Israel Matzav, "One of the darkest days in history."

Benjamin Netanyahu at Annual Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony — Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem

He's a great guy.

The French Are 'Dismayed' by How Much Obama Has Given Up in Iran Talks

The irrepressible Dr. Krauthammer, on yesterday's All-Star Panel.

The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations

At Commentary, "A Statement on the Crisis in the U.S.—Israel Relationship":

The relationship between the United States and Israel is in jeopardy because, from the moment his administration began, Barack Obama has consciously, deliberately, and with malice aforethought sought to jeopardize it. He did so in part because he is committed to the idea that Israel must retreat to its 1967 borders, dismantle its settlements, and will a Palestinian state into existence. He views Israel’s inability or unwillingness to do these things as a moral stain.

But the depth of Obama’s anger toward Israel and Netanyahu suggests that there is far more to it than that. Israel stands in the way of what the president hopes might be his crowning foreign-policy achievement: a new order in the Middle East represented by a new entente with Iran. Netanyahu’s testimony on behalf of his country and his people is this: A nuclear Iran will possess the means to visit a second Holocaust on the Jews in a single day. His testimony on behalf of everyone else is this: A nuclear Iran will set off an arms race in the Middle East that will threaten world order, the world’s financial stability, and the lives of untold millions. Simply put, Obama finds the witness Israel is bearing to the threat posed by Iran unbearable.

Elliott Abrams has called the speech kerfuffle a “manufactured crisis.” He is right, and the assembly line has been rolling without letup for six years.

Read it all.

The editors point out that the Democrats have increasingly become anti-Israel, and it's apparent that the sources are both bottom-up and top-down. On the one hand, the virulent racist anti-Semitism on college campuses has seeped upward into the precincts of the Democrat Party establishment (at the presidential nominating conventions, for example), and on the other, the Israel-hatred at the Obama White House has tricked-down, providing über-legitimacy for the entire spectrum of Israel-hatred on the political left.

'If you're anti-Israel then you're anti-America...'

A message to scummy leftists reading this blog, from Howard Stern:

HOWARD STERN: "If you're anti-Israel then you are anti-America." #StandWithIsrael pic.twitter.com/jQ87Sr1ey7
— slone (@slone) March 20, 2015

'Obama Loathes Netanyahu More than Any Other World Leader'

Once again, the inimitable Dr. Krauthammer speaks truth to despicable leftist hatred:

"All he said was: 'The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out. Get out to vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud in order to close the gap between us and Labor'..."

Max Boot discusses the rift between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, at the L.A. Times, "More 'daylight' between Netanyahu's Israel and the U.S. -- is that what Obama wants?"

"Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls."

Boy, that's really "racist." But with idiot leftists, that's all they've got.

Hateful. Leftists are nothing but hateful.

A Complete Timeline of Obama's Anti-Israel Hatred

An astonishing fit of hatred from this president.

From Ben Shapiro, at Breitbart.



More, "Barack Obama and the War Against the Jews."

Netanyahu Foils Obama's Plot to Depose Israel's Likud Government

Here's Ezra Levant:



And at the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. support for Israel at the U.N. is in jeopardy, White House says." Obama's a fucking sore loser. See the Guardian UK, "Obama snubs Netanyahu and criticises Israeli PM's 'divisive rhetoric'."

More from Noah Rothman, at Hot Air, "Sour grapes on the left over Netanyahu’s landslide victory."

Netanyahu Soundly Defeats Chief Rival in Israeli Elections

Good for him.

At NYT, "Stage Is Set for a Fourth Term for Israeli Leader":

TEL AVIV — After a bruising campaign focused on his failings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process.

With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

Mr. Netanyahu and his allies had seized on earlier exit polls that showed a slimmer Likud lead to create an aura of inevitability, and celebrated with singing and dancing. While his opponents vowed a fight, Israeli political analysts agreed even before most of the ballots were counted that he had the advantage, with more seats having gone to the right-leaning parties likely to support him.

It was a stunning turnabout from the last pre-election polls published Friday, which showed the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog, with a four- or five-seat lead and building momentum, and the Likud polling close to 20 seats. To bridge the gap, Mr. Netanyahu embarked on a last-minute scorched-earth campaign, promising that no Palestinian state would be established as long as he remained in office and insulting Arab citizens.

Mr. Netanyahu, who served as prime minister for three years in the 1990s and returned to office in 2009, exulted in what he called “a huge victory” and said he had spoken to the heads of all the parties “in the national camp” and urged them to help him form a government “without any further ado.”

“I am proud of the Israeli people that, in the moment of truth, knew how to separate between what’s important or what’s not and to stand up for what’s important,” he told an exuberant crowd early Wednesday morning at Likud’s election party at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. “For the most important thing for all of us, which is real security, social economy and strong leadership.”

But it remained to be seen how his divisive — some said racist — campaign tactics would affect his ability to govern a fractured Israel.

Mr. Herzog also called the election “an incredible achievement.” He said he had formed a negotiating team and still hoped to lead “a real social government in Israel” that “aspires to peace with our neighbors.”

“The public wants a change,” he said at an election-night party in Tel Aviv, before the Likud’s large margin of victory was revealed by the actual vote count. “We will do everything in our power, given the reality, to reach this. In any case, I can tell you that there will be no decisions tonight.”

Based on the results reported on YNet, Mr. Netanyahu could form a narrow coalition of nationalist and religious parties free of the ideological divisions that stymied his last government. That was what he intended when he called early elections in December. President Reuven Rivlin, who in coming days must charge Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Herzog with trying to forge a coalition based on his poll of party leaders’ preferences , said shortly after the polls closed that he would suggest they join forces instead.

“I am convinced that only a unity government can prevent the rapid disintegration of Israel’s democracy and new elections in the near future,” he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Both camps rejected that option publicly, saying the gaps between their world views were too large. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Herzog started working the phones immediately after the polls closed, calling party heads to begin the horse-trading and deal-making in hopes of lining up a majority of lawmakers behind them.

The biggest prize may be Moshe Kahlon, a popular former Likud minister who broke away — in part out of frustration with Mr. Netanyahu — to form Kulanu, which focused on pocketbook issues. Mr. Kahlon leans to the right but has issues with the prime minister, and he said Tuesday night that he would not reveal his recommendation until the final results were tallied.

Kulanu — Hebrew for “All of Us” — won 10 seats , according to the tally YNet reported Wednesday based on 99.5 percent of ballots counted. That is enough to put either side’s basic ideological alliance over the magic number of 61 if they also win the backing of two ultra-Orthodox parties that won a total of 14 seats.

“The clearest political outcome is that Kahlon is going to be the kingmaker, and it really depends on how he is going to play his cards,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “It very much depends on Kahlon.”

Keep reading (via Memeorandum).