Reverse it.
The prime minister of Israel tells the president of the United States how the Senate confirmation hearings on Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson should be conducted — and what is wrong —drastically wrong — with the way the US Senate is conducting it.
Chutzpah, we would say. This is an internal American affair. Has nothing to do with Israel.
Don’t reverse it. Take it straight. The current president of the United States tells the PM of Israel how to run its judicial system.
“They cannot continue down this road,” Biden told Israel about its judicial reform controversy.
No offhand or vague comment, this.
Biden continues:
“Hopefully the prime minister will act in a way that he is going to try to work out some genuine compromise. But that remains to be seen.”
To be sure, any American president has a vested interest in Israel. That said, where is the etiquette or sense in lecturing Israel on an internal matter?
This controversy, ramified as it is, does not affect Israel’s foreign policy, and even on that an American opinion would at best be advisory. Biden’s way of putting things — “cannot continue down this road” — is hardly advisory.
Nor is this: “I [Biden] hope he [Netanyahu] walks away from it.”
Nor this — perhaps most damning of all: “They know America’s position. They know the American Jewish position.”
The American Jewish position? There is only one? Joe Biden presumes to speak in the name of American Jewry? A little less omniscience from Joe Biden, please.
Biden knows what’s best for Afghanistan and what’s best for the American presence in Afghanistan. He knows that a botched withdrawal, against the background of a previous 18 months of stability and women’s rights in the country, is best. Biden knows — but Putin took note.
Biden knows what’s best for Saudi Arabia. He knows that it’s good to call it a pariah country, but then cannot understand that it will not pump more oil when he goes a-beggin’ to Saudi’s Crown Prince.
Biden knows that he will be the one to make peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. He told us so — a couple of days before Saudi Arabia preempted him and accepted China’s aid in reestablishing diplomatic ties with Iran.
Biden knows how best to handle Iran. While he was running for president, he told us not only that he was going to renew the nuclear deal with Iran, he was going to improve it! He was going to shut down Iran’s nuclear program for good.
Iran has not renewed the deal, let alone improved it; Iran has played Biden like a fiddle. For two years Biden’s Secretary of State kept running back to the Iranians with ever more concessions, while Iran thumbed its nose and all the while boosted its nuclear capacity.
Bottom line: What happens in Israel’s court system is more important to Biden than countering Israel’s — and the entire Middle East’s — chief source of terrorism and instability. Not to mention, Iran’s new missile program will, if completed, threaten all of Europe.
So, against this background of Biden’s failure in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia and in Iran, the question arises: Is Israel the next victim of Biden’s presumptuousness?
Without delving into the details of the judicial reform controversy, it’s a bit rich for Biden to criticize it.
Reverse it. Say that US Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barret determined whether Ketanji Jackson would, or would not, become a justice on the US Supreme Court.
Biden couldn’t even conceive of such an absurdity. Yet, this is, in effect, how Supreme Court justices are chosen in Israel — self-selected. But don’t raise the point. Biden knows better. Biden lectures Israel on democracy.
Is it too far down the road before he tells Israel how to — or not to — respond to terrorists or to Iran or to other threats, such as from Hamas and Hezbollah?
Or is Biden’s cold and blunt critique of Israel already indicative of a major distancing? After all, when it came to Afghanistan, Biden’s mind was made up. He, and he alone, knew what the right thing to do was, and he, and he alone, knew how to do it.Facts didn’t matter. And after the fact, the facts — the disastrous facts — spoke for themselves.
Same with Saudi Arabia. Biden knew how to handle the Crown Prince. Except, he didn’t. Same with Iran. Biden knew how to negotiate a new nuclear deal. Except, he didn’t.Biden botched Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Is Israel next?
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