Exactly Why Is It that All American Presidents Dance to Bibi's Tune?

[Celerity]

Trump is the most pliable. But Netanyahu plays them all like cheap violins, despite being wrong about every important matter of the last 25 years.

https://newrepublic.com/article/197001/netanyahu-american-presidents-israel-war-iran

https://archive.ph/v3kdG


Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on April 7

Despite the extremely stiff competition, it’s fair to say that Donald Trump may be about to win the historical contest to become the all-time “Bibi’s Lapdog” among American presidents. After repeatedly rejecting the idea of joining with Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and distancing himself when it finally happened, then reversing himself again to take partial credit for it, Trump appears to be ready to go one massive step further and turn the Israeli attack into a full-fledged American war. To be more than fair to two profoundly corrupt leaders who don’t remotely deserve it, this is alas nothing new: Israeli prime ministers who bend American presidents to their will have a long and distinguished pedigree.

The last U.S. president to stand up to Israel and demand that it reverse itself in a matter of war was Dwight Eisenhower, who, after the 1956 Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt over the closing of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping, insisted on an immediate withdrawal. (It did not endear Israel to Eisenhower that he was trying to focus the world on Moscow’s invasion of Hungary at the same time.) Even then, France and England immediately complied. Israel took its time and eventually extracted most of the concessions it wanted from the U.S.

This phenomenon has only grown in scope with the rise of the myriad groups that make up the extraordinarily influential “Israel lobby,” together with the growing power of Christian Zionism in the Republican Party. Robert Gates, who spent decades of service in top national security positions under both Democratic and Republican presidents, once observed that of all the presidents he had served, literally “every” one of them would, at some point in his presidency, “get so pissed off at the Israelis that he couldn’t speak.” They would all “rant and rave around the Oval Office” out of “frustration about knowing that there was so little they could do about it because of domestic politics.”

To say this is understandable would be a considerable understatement. Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg reported a now-famous conversation he had with an official at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during the Clinton era. Goldberg asked the official if AIPAC had lost influence after a leader had been caught on tape speaking in an impolitic fashion. The official interrupted him and pushed his napkin across the table: “You see this napkin?” he asked, before explaining, “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”

snip

[dlk]

1. Follow the money...

[TnDem]

3. Truth...Also remember

That all "wars" follow this same path....Ukraine included....Billions of dollars have been funneled there too and they are about as strategic to the US as a doghouse in Guam.

[Bayard]

2. trump sees Bibi as a kindred soul

Like Putin--self-centered tyrants all.

[Ocelot II]

4. AIPAC money?

[NewHendoLib]

5. $$$. Period.

[OrlandoDem2]

6. The Israeli lobby pours tons of money into US politics

[czarjak]

7. Religion. Period.

Just trying to do their version of god's will. Which, unfortunately, is total bunk. Bad people. On both sides. Nazis and Klansmen unifying over Israel? That'll be the day!

[tman]

8. Some less so than others. Netanyahu hated the 2015 nuclear deal but Obama proceeded anyway.

[DFW]

9. For the same reason that the world's biggest economies still do business with the USA

A rogue government, especially one in a country that has (so far) consented to a peaceful transfer of power, is recognized to be of transitory nature, whether good or bad. In December of 2000, European newspapers started asking facetiously about Bill Clinton, "can we have him when you're done?" The world waited for the end of Cheneybush (the worst to date at the time) and breathed a sigh of relief when Obama took office. They recoiled in horror at Trump I, but breathed a sigh of relief in 2021, figuring that was the end of Trump in politics. They were wrong, but they know that the pendulum will swing back yet again. Should Putin and his Republican puppets manage to prevent that, the world of commerce might find a completely different axis on which to spin. I think contingency plans of that nature are already in motion in Europe, but they are so far just that: contingency plans.

The world looked on in horror when Franco took over Spain in 1939, but he already saw which way the wind was blowing in 1942, and de-coupled himself from the Axis and declared Spain "neutral." It remained a Catholic-Fascist dictatorship, but ever-loosening the reins of control, ever since his Axis pals started ending up deceased. He even joined NATO, to the disgust of many Spanish fascists and NATO members alike. Even Franco, the old fascist of the 1930s told his intended successor, Juan-Carlos I, "you will be able to do things I never could." He knew which way the wind was blowing, even while recognizing that he would never be able to blow in that direction. Trump is incapable of such logic, but if he should leave office before his term is up, for whatever reason, a successor might (not for sure, by any means) see beyond his own small term in office. Netanyahu stands a good chance of not being around for much longer, as well, since his coalition is wobbly at best. At some point, preferably soon, and preferably before some Iranian missile forces the point, he, too, will realize that history has passed him by, and his services are "no longer required."

[Passages]

10. It's not primarily the lobby over US interests, they work hand in hand...unfortunately our foreign policies

regarding the Arab world, have been catastrophic, for the most part.

We see Israel as a reliable partner...but reliable for what? That is the point of contention.

Objective eyes can see how turning a blind eye for decades has brought us to where we are today.

[usonian]

11. votes

Pro-Israel voters.

OTOH, "pro-Gaza" voters were enough, or close to enough to torpedo Harris. And to torpedo Gaza at the same time.

Some leverage there!

Votes --> money and power