Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is probably the best propagandist in the Republican Party…but the bar is set pretty low in that category.
He is the kind of contrived yet successful-with-the-dumb-and-easily-scared type of fear monger that we’re so familiar with from the days of the Bush Administration, sprinkling tortured “cute wordplay” throughout the tortured logic of his Terror Talk to coax the ignorant into thinking he’s so clever, we should follow him off a cliff.
“The enemy of my enemy…is my enemy!” So brilliant, only a writer who couldn’t get a job writing in the professional world could have come up with that one.
Like any good propagandist, Netanyahu liberally mixed facts with hypocrisy and shook it up, the Republicans gobbling up his regurgitated fear like anxious baby birds.
His bottom line was that Iran is so close to making a nuclear bomb (which he’s claimed for many years and clearly has been true every time) and they are so untrustworthy and dangerous (yes, that part is true), Israel and the world would be better off without a deal than with one. Even though there isn’t even a finalized deal proposal created yet! So Netanyahu is condemning an agreement that doesn’t fully exist yet. Because he doesn’t need no stinkin’ facts to make up his mind, he just knows that he doesn’t want any agreement at all that isn’t total surrender.
And while this fraud of a politician tries to portray this deal as only between America and Iran, it isn’t. This negotiation is global, between what they call the P5+1 powers and Iran, which includes the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany. Of course, the rest of these countries wouldn’t give this propagandist such a stage nor does portraying this as a global negotiation help Netanyahu advance his propaganda that it is just the naive U.S. who wants this deal and needs to be persuaded otherwise…by Netanyahu who’s so much wiser than ignorant American Presidents and Democrats.
Okay, Mr. Prime Minister, let’s take your words and pretend they actually make sense so we can see what you really want.
Iran is a threat to the world, is on the verge of making a nuclear bomb and can’t be allowed to continue. So what’s best for “all of us”, is to not try to negotiate with them to stop them. So the day after a deal is killed, are they still all of the above? And if we decide that we shouldn’t try diplomacy and negotiations to stop them…but they need to be stopped…what one path is left to stop them?
Only war. That’s what Netanyahu’s speech was all about, all his fear mongering and hatefulness towards a negotiated solution. That’s what he’s advocating. Aside from Iran suddenly grovelling at his and the US’ feet and agreeing to all the demands that could be made, the only possible avenue Netanyahu leaves open to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb is launching a war against them.
And this is what the Republican-celebrated Netanyahu has come to our country, our congress and our national media to beat the drum for. Fuck diplomacy, let’s start a war with Iran.
Ironically, nobody wants Iran to get closer to making a nuclear weapon than Israel’s Prime Minister and current ruling party. That would be the sweetest nectar to them, to be able to point accurately (for the first time) at Iran and say, “Look, they’re about to have a nuclear weapon! Let’s bomb them now!” If Iran isn’t progressing as quickly with a nuclear weapon or even worse for Netanyahu, if an agreement with Iran on halting weapon development was to work, he wouldn’t be able to have the war he craves. So Netanyahu is the biggest fan of Iran nuclear development outside of Iran.
Also ironic is the constant condemnation by Netanyahu and his ilk that Islam is not a religion of peace…coming from those Jewish leaders in Israel who keep trying to use the preservation of Judism as justification for wanting to constantly bomb and kill those they see as their enemies instead of seeking a peaceful solution.
Being the Machiavellian politician that he is, Netanyahu also succeeded in corrupting Israel’s elections by staging this biggest campaign stop in his campaign just two weeks before his election. And John Boehner and the rest of Republicans in Congress acting as part of his campaign team is very sickening. Their exploitation of their position in power, to use OUR Congress to support the re-election of another country’s right wing war monger is a sick corruption and abuse of our nation’s government.
This was an offensive day to those who believe in the sovereignty of the U.S., who believe in diplomacy first and war as a last possible solution and respect for our nation’s government and President. The MSM may be quacking all day about the sideshow of conflict around this speech but the bottom line is that the power and prestige of the U.S. government was perverted today by Republicans to help a warmongering, dishonest politician from another country who is running for re-election, insult our President and win re-election.
And the unspoken but glaring bottom line in the content of Netanyahu’s speech was, “War is always the only answer.” For a country that is still suffering the losses of blood and treasure from the Iraq War that Netanyahu pushed and assured the world would leave the Middle East in better shape…there can be only one reply and it’s by a fellow lying war monger who collaborated with Netanyahu on the Iraq War:
Hey AdLib, great article. I just have to point out that North Korea already Does have a nuclear bomb, and they aren’t considered a threat to the world, despite how obnoxious and belligerent they continue to be. NK doesn’t have rockets powerful enough to get a bomb even halfway to the good ol’ USofA, although they might be able to send a bomb over to Israel, if they really wanted to (they don’t). Interesting that NettinYahoo isn’t focused on this, nor is anyone else for that matter.
That aside, the Republican clown car has doubled down on their foolishness for entertaining this foreign boob.
And then there was that stupid letter from the Repubs to Iran. Don’t get me started on that.
Yet.
Tens of thousands have attended an anti-beebeeb rally in Tel Aviv! Its a start!
Get outside the MSM and check posters of Orthodox Jews in New York and around the world.
I imagine many of them are cheering on Netanyahu though even hardliners in Israel are coming out against Netanyahu for damaging Israel’s relationship with the U.S.
The Mossad is against him and his propagandizing.
The after-speech glow is wearing off quickly and even if he wins re-election, he just alienated the top world powers against him and Israel by trying to sabotage their making a deal with Iran.
If Israelis don’t vote him and Likud out, they’ll only have themselves to blame for Israel being pushed farther and farther away by many in the West.
FUCK YOU Nuttayahoo.fuck you big time, YOU EFFING NEW HITLER.My people will not vote you in again.All Telaviv is against you.Sorry, AdLib.
ExFan – I completely understand how angry you are, I’m using a great deal of restraint against how angry I am at Netanyahu for trying to infect our government and people with the cynical hatred and fear/war mongering that drives him and Likud.
But he’s overplayed his hand and damaged himself, Obama’s ratings jumped up and Netanyahu has more adversaries right here in the US government than he had before he started this ignorant venture.
Nothing would be sweeter than to see him lose re-election and be cut loose. My fingers are crossed (making the typing of this far more difficult than it should have been).
Ditto to everything you said Adlib. Every time the Republicans pull something, it invariably blows up in their faces, makes them look like the idiots that they are, and President Obama’s popularity increases. How could it not? PBO is gettin’ it done. The Repubs are ruining themselves and everyone around them. Shame on anyone who still supports them.
For all those people who want to go to war with Iran, I always point out:
Iran — 77 million people, 640,000 square miles.
Iraq — 36 million people, 437,000 square miles.
How did that Iraq War turn out… ?
Haruko, not to mention:
Iraq War = $2 Trillion in taxpayer money.
How many more trillions of dollars can we throw on another unnecessary war without destroying every meaningful program in the US?
The answer? No more.
Absolutely !!!!
Benjamin Netanyahu:
No thank you. I am not buying what you are selling.
There is, also, a domestic audience that he is preaching to. There is an election in Israel and he has to establish his national security credentials in Israel.
As for other countries: he has told that story on more than one occasion.
agrippa, yes, much of this was about Netanyahu making a campaign stop in the US Capitol, thanks to Boehner’s handing over of Congress to a foreign power.
However, sounds like around half of Israelis also see him for the liar and fraud that he is. Would be sweet for him to lose re-election.
Will be keeping my fingers crossed.
Kalima, who are we going to believe, our own lying eyes and ears or Netanyahu?
He’s cut out of the same cloth as Karl Rove, doing something that’s unprincipled then declaring, “There’s nothing unprincipled about this.”
Sure, such idiocy may work on their mindless followers but these types are very mistaken in thinking such a lame imitation of a Jedi Mind Trick would work on reasoning people.
In the end he discredits himself far more than he tried to discredit the President and those countries involved in sealing a deal. Iran will never agree to dismantling their nuclear project, and knowing that makes his lame-arsed suggestion of no deal even more dishonest. He certainly made no new friends in the world by trying to upsurge Obama in Congress by dissing other nations involved in the process. In fact I imagine his plan backfired and he lost a lot of the international support he had left. Serves him right for being an arsehole without a trace of integrity and lack of manners on the international stage.
Ad, for some reason I can’t twitter-link this using the button on the site. FYI
Netanyahu has made it very clear several times that he views the fight against terror groups as useless unless you take out the state sponsor of the terror group. He is an advocate for regime change (which always works).
This is why he was so strident in his encouragement to go into Iraq and overthrow Saddam. Not just because of all of the WMD’s and centrifuges they’d find, but that Iraq is a rogue state that will continue to fund and weaponize and support extreme agents throughout the Middle East.
At least he’s consistent.
His position is very simple: Iran needs to accept a deal that it will never accept or we reduce them to rubble at a cost that makes Iraq and Afghanistan look like shopping at Massud’s Dollar Store.
Easy. See how much this helped with negotiations?
I don’t think Netanyahu feels threatened by Iran’s nuclear program (which by most credible accounts is still nearly non-existent) I think he feels VERY threatened politically by a normalization of relations between the US and the Shiite power in the region.
BTW, I thought you laid out the case against Netanyahu very clearly and cogently. Great job.
AdLib, I think you hit the nail on the head. The only thing I would add is my being pissed off with the Democrats who attended the speech and sat on their hands as Netanyahu disrespected President Obama, the Office of the President and “we the people”. He was in OUR HOUSE. He didn’t speak in some random auditorium. He spoke in the “Peoples House”. And I think those of us who are disgusted have every right to be.
What is also pathetic is the RWNJs who are in ecstasy over Netanyahu disrespecting the United States. They didn’t learn a damn thing about putting foreign “leaders” like Putin on pedestals only to have the pedestal fall and President Obama stand tall.
Funk, I don’t think Netanyahu feels threatened by Iran’s nuclear program either. How many nukes does Israel have? By the time Iran develops a nuke, Israel can lobe several at them. Seriously. What a bunch of crap. Who’s going to fight this conventional war? Our troops were pulling 4 & 5 tours in Iraq and Iran is 3 times larger than Iraq. Are Republicans going an attempt to institute the “draft”. Because if not, who’s doing this fighting?
Funk, the Twitter button was working for me…hmm…can you try it again?
Netanyahu is the same as the moronic Neocons in the US, they think that “regime change” will solve everything and bring democracy. Look at all the ME countries where there has been regime change in the last few years, only one has a democracy and that one’s very fragile.
Taking down a tyrant in the ME just means opening the door to the extremists they were keeping at bay and other tyrants taking over.
As you say, the true agenda of insisting that only a deal that asks Iran to agree to something they’d never agree to is an agenda for war. “Iran, you can either kiss the back of your own head or we will go to war with you, your choice.”
And I do agree, he knows he’s full of crap and Iran is not an existential threat to Israel but that’s beside the point to him, eternal war is what he and Likud are all about.
Ow, my brain!
The New RW and Vapid MSNBC starts off its analysis of Netanyahu’s speech by having some Fox-like news bimbo point at a screen and say they analyzed the speech by what words were repeated and guess what???
The word “Iran” was repeated 107 times! And you know what that reveals that we didn’t know before? Netanyahu wanted to stress something about Iran!
But what?
Aha! He mentioned “Nuclear” 46 times! That must mean that was important in some way in his speech! If only another word was repeated in his speech! What, there was?
“Deal” was repeated 40 times. Hmm…he must have wanted to address some “Deal” but why?
“Israel” was repeated 30 times! He must have strong feelings about Israel.
I’ll wait for MSNBC to analyze those so they can tell us what Netanyahu was trying to say.
RIPMSNBC.
OMG!May I tell you all a story?
In a long-ago and distant era, I was once in grad school. Computers were in a much less developed state then than they are now, but they were available to most people in university settings and they were becoming the Next Big Thing and the favorite toy of the day. There was nothing they couldn’t do and they were going to completely transform the way history was written.
A fad developed — consisting of running historical documents (and even novels) through computers to get exact counts of how often given words appeared. I was young and lacked the confidence at the time to say that I saw absolutely zero use for this information. I thought I was just too tech-ignorant to figure it out. I eventually left the program, feeling that I didn’t have what it took to be a historian in the modern era. I became a nurse.
The fad passed. As far as I know, no Pulitzer winning history was written using this technique.
After reading this about MSNBC, I realize that bad ideas never really die. They only briefly fade away.
Did you know that the word “whale” appears very often in the novel “Moby Dick”? 😀