shakedown
I meant to comment on this piece before Friday and I just ran out of time. Ynet News
Interior Minister Eli Yishai has been officially invited to visit the White House. The decision is apparently the result of the US Administration’s desire to forge closer ties with the minister they perceive to be behind the east Jerusalem construction turmoil during Vice President Joe Biden’s visit in Israel.
During Biden’s visit last month, the Interior Ministry approved the construction of 1,800 housing units in east Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood. The invitation was handed to Yishai by Dan Shapiro, Director of the Middle East department at the National Security Council.Shapiro was also the one who reprimanded Yishai following the east Jerusalem construction decision, yet despite the harsh tones, the interior minister was asked to visit Washington at that time already. The official invitation, as noted, was extended Wednesday.
What you have to ask yourself is why would the White House extend a personal invitation to the leader of a small fraction within the Likud coalition? The White House couldn’t pass up another chance to diss Bibi or meddle in the internal affairs of another country? And if the White House was going to invite anyone in the Likud coalition certain Israel Beitneiu holds more mandates but I believe the answer lies in a well known insider joke in Israeli domestic circles which characterizes the Shas party as the most eminently ‘bribe-able’ of political parties. Given that this is Israel – that’s actually quite a feat.
Being the most ‘bribe-able’ party in Israeli is all very well and good except the Obama Administration possesses no coinage of value to pay Shas. It cannot guarantee increased housing for their members, increased funding for their members in the educational system or any increase welfare payments to Yeshivas and their students.
Now the Obama Administration might feel all hard-core having been baptized by the Chicago political process but the truth is; attempting to shake down the guys who invented the political shakedown and have been practicing it in a tradition older than the city of Chicago exposes a most alarming nativity.
I suppose the Obama Administration felt a personal invitation showed their ‘nuance’ and allowed them to exercise a certain ‘Machiavellian’ quality to their diplo-speak which might have worked if the Obama Administration had invited Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the real spiritual leader of Shas rather than Eli Yishai. Now that would have been Machiavellian, and besides, Yishai will not and cannot agree to anything without checking with his Rav first.
Of course, there is always the chance that the White House felt a personal invitation would allow the President the opportunity to dress down the Yishai and put the fear of an American G-d into him… and good luck with that! This is probably why Lieberman probably didn’t get an invite since Lieberman would probably bite back and the Obama administration couldn’t risk for the POTUS to lose his ear.
You know, I have to say that reading your blog and “Elder of Zion” have been extremely educational. I didn’t quite realize what heap of lies were being generated by the pro-Arab press and how eagerly the Western press ate it up until I started following the Elder quite closely. Now, when I read about the foolish behavior of the Obama Administration, I am disgusted and repelled. Now, I DO agree with SOME of his domestic policies (I sound like a Victorian with all the Caps and words in all caps) but this constant hectoring and interference with Israel is simply stupid and counter productive. If Obama and his administration want to have a “good” effect on Israeli politics, why not support the various groups (Arab, Jewish, et al) who are trying to clean up the polutedJordan River. Give support to the people in the area who are working on common problems and don’t try to impose “your” solution for a situation (ie the housing issues) in Jerusalem that are so complicated that it would take a..well, an extremely wise Rabbi to figure them out.
Now you will think that I’m spamming your blog but it’s such a treat to “talk” to somebody like you on the subject of Israel. I don’t dare bring the subject up among my friend because they’ve drunk the “indigenous” Palestine kool aide and see the Jews as murdering colonialists, etc. Anyway, I found myself wondering if Obama (and my sort- of friend) were reading this book, which portrays the Jews in the worst possible light. It was written by a PLO terrorist, “Murdered” by Mossad back in the 70’s but this syndicated twit swallows the lies in the book without question.
What literature can do: the case of Palestine
http://readwritered.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-literature-can-do-case-of.html
Isn’t Benjamin Netanyahu to be in Ottawa about end of May?
Let’s see if there is conflicting speeches.
Beachnut, it will be interesting to see what Netanyahu has to say considering Cannon added Canada’s voice condemning the Israelis for daring to build in their ancient capital. If I remember correctly, the last time Netanyahu came to speak in Canada it was at Concordia University and he was not allowed to speak owing to the fact the pro-palestinian fraction decided to riot and did thousands of dollars worth of damage to the university.
Oy vey! These are your associates? I pity you, I really do. So go ahead and spam away – you have earned the right. While I am sure the book makes for a compelling narrative as long as one is willing to suspend any sense of plausibility and employ the the ‘fake but true’ defense but I cannot imagine anyone who would willingly abandon their child…especially in Haifa of all places – although I suspect Abu Mazen’s refugee experience is far more common than anyone openly admits to anymore.
What always amazes me is how the writer employs Marxist interpretation to the conflict but totally ignores who were in fact the underclass in the struggle and the history of say just the last few hundred years prior to the Israeli war of independence. Certainly, the Arab riots of the 20’s and 30’s the Jews were the victims and underclass – the Arab rallying cry from 1917 on was ‘the Jews are our dogs’ meaning the Jews were thought to be naturally subservient and would always be so which was why the Arabs were so affronted with even the idea of the Jewish longing for the right of self-determination.
I just finished reading Anita Diamant’s Day After Night which fictionalized a large scale break out from one of the internment camps the British set up to contain the Jewish survivors of the Shoah. What really struck me was the incredible cruelty of the British in setting up internment camps for the survivors of the death camps….I knew they had but the real implications and cruelty of this act never really hit home till I read that story.