According to two newspaper reports I have read, Benjamin Netanyahu is losing popularity in the run-up to the forthcoming election. Of course, he is still going to win but given the vagaries of the Israeli proportional representation system he will, as always, have to share power with one or two minority parties. His problem is that the particular party growing in popularity at his expense is even further to the Right than he is! He, and all of Israel, now know without a doubt that they no longer enjoy the support of the White House. Even worse, they now know that the always somewhat mythical 'Jewish lobby' is a busted flush. American Jews continued to vote for Obama despite his hostility to Israel. As one wiseacre (I forget who) put it, the vast majority of Jews in the USA are second or third generation away from the Holocaust and they are now far more Democrat than they are Jewish. Oddly enough, in reading about Anne Frank (see previous post) an American Jew who wrote a play about her was quoted as saying that he had spent eighteen months in Israel and hated every minute of it!
There is now little doubt that Iran (with a little help from its North Korean friends) will not only possess a nuclear capability but also a means to deliver it. Netanyahu has played a mean game of bluff poker so far but if his power is to rest in the hands of politicians even more nationalist than him then he may be forced to put up or shut up! Who would want to be a small, independent, democratic country whose threatened defences depend utterly on Barack Obama? Hmmmn, perhaps that's a question we should be asking ourselves!
NOTE: I'm not sure whether it's MS8 or TypePad but now, everytime I write a post, it automatically offers up linked articles. I will try to pick out relevant ones but of course I have not necessarily read them. There you are, you lucky people, all part of the excellent service you enjoy here at D&N!
I'm having trouble with your blog, Duffers: when I open comments I then find that when I try to return to your home page I get a blank window.
Posted by: dearieme | Saturday, 05 January 2013 at 11:26
A "blank window". Perhaps this is a post-modernist critique of my style!
I can't really help, DM, everything seems to work OK here. *Please* let me know if it continues and I will pass it on to 'Mary-Belle', or 'Sue-Ellen', or 'Jody-Ann', the statuesque Californian blondes (in my mind) who man, er, I mean, woman the desks at TypePad.
Either that or shuffle after me into the 21st century and get MS8 from my new best friend Bill!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 05 January 2013 at 11:42
Not on an iMac, Duffers. No fear.
Posted by: dearieme | Saturday, 05 January 2013 at 16:05
You only bought that because it had "Mac" in the title!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 05 January 2013 at 21:54
"As one wiseacre (I forget who) put it, the vast majority of Jews in the USA are second or third generation away from the Holocaust and they are now far more Democrat than they are Jewish"
Norman Finkelstein?
Posted by: Louise | Sunday, 06 January 2013 at 12:10
In a nut-shell, and I do mean "nut"!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 06 January 2013 at 13:26