Amazing how allegedly intelligent, well read people - after all, they read the NYT - are only focusing on Netanyahu, and not on the overwhelming problem they face to the north, Lebanon.
Lebanon has never made peace with Israel, but if not for Hezbollah, the border would remain quiet. Hezbollah holds Lebanon hostage, and the U.N. is frankly afraid to start up with them.
Why isn't anyone who is less than lovey dovey of Israel admitting that amassing over 150,000 missiles, some of which can reach anywhere in Israel (that means, Israeli Arabs included), and still receiving more weaponry, plus plans to invade from attack tunnels, is outrageous, and has zero to do with the Palestinians. Hezbollah uses "Palestine" as the excuse; they do nothing for Palestinians, and many would die along with Israelis if they really attack Israel. Hezbollah, like their Iranian supporters, are so hateful of Jews, especially the Jewish state, they are willing to put tens of thousands of their own compatriots at risk to defend their "religious" ambitions.
And, can anyone explain why they twice blew up Jewish targets in Argentina, years ago? Because of the Palestinian problem? Wake up, commenters. Try explain.
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The Times has focused, in today's article as well as in the article yesterday, on Netanyahu's "fear-mongering." Why has The Times not also run an analysis of what it is that Israel actually has to fear from Hezballoh, what kind of organization Hezballoh is, etc.? It appears to me that The Times is making an implicit and unwarranted "journalistic" judgment that there's nothing that its readers need to understand here other than how distasteful Netanyahu is. "All the news that's fit to print" should surely include some deep analysis and narrative about the facts on the ground, and not just Netanyahu's response to those facts.
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Nonsense. Israelis aren't the only ones to whom "Wag the Dog" comes to mind. This writer would have us believe that "Netanyahu is known to be cautious and averse to military adventures." Cautious he may well be, but he is certainly NOT averse to military adventures. Anshel Pfeffer's commentary on this subject in Foreign Policy ("Netanyahu's Toy Soldiers") is much better than this spin.
Netanyahu could be accused of fear-mongering if he merely claimed that Hezbollah had dug tunnels under the Lebanese border without providing evidence for that claim. But he did provide such evidence (including evidence produced today of a second tunnel). Just because Netanyahu could use a distraction from the bribery and other charges that he may be indicted on, doesn't mean that the threat from Hezbollah is not real. To believe otherwise, is to be affected by tunnel vision (and not the good kind that the Israel is using on its northern border).
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Journalist Badih Chayban in a 23 October 2002 article in The (Lebanon) Daily Star wrote that Nasrallah said, "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."
Hezbollah is a committed enemy of Israel. If a neighboring enemy digs tunnels into one's territory, that is necessarily a threat.
5
Even Mr. Netanyahu is not capable of organizing all this so quickly as to correspond with police recommendations.
The army has stated that this was all planned well in advance.
Is this being used also for public relations?
Who cares. Most people care a lot more about the dangers of Hizbollah.
Is Mr. Netanyahu corrupt? Who knows.
The police recommend and the courts often throw out.
When the Attorney General gets his act together and decides to indict or not and Mr. Netanyahu is tried or not and found guilty or not, then we will know.
In the mean time, for most people on the street, defense-wise, he avoided all out war in Gaza and is dealing with the northern border.
That will do at the moment.
4
And a subjugated peoples' fate is dependent on a long list and tradition of corrupt leaders on both sides? No wonder there is no chance for a peaceful resolution. The difference is one corrupt leadership side has unquestioned backing from a superpower's corrupt leadership. Sad.
Isn't this where UN Peacekeepers come in, kick out the invading subjugators and violators of their two-state resolution and ensure the peace?
3
He is not suspected of fear-mongering.
He is just doing what he is really good at, fear-mongering.
And, to the disappointment of most NY Times commenters and much of the Israeli left, not only does it work really well but if an election were to be held tomorrow, he would be re-elected.
Is he a crook, liar, hypocrite?
Guilty as charged.
Just one little additional fact: no one else has the power or pull to defeat him.
This is not good; it is just the way things are in Israel at this point.
5
I don't know enough about Netanyahu's legal trouble to mouth off in that regard but I do know that if I was an Israeli, in negotiations with adversaries, I'd want a hard-nosed character like Netanyahu on my side, not some wimp who would cave and give the store away.
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Israel deserves better, come to think of it so does the USA
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Nuttin' Yahoo and 45 are brother's in fear. They are nobody without control. Under him, Israeli gov't has made its people look like they all support him, but they don't. How could they. They look as bad and inhuman to me as 45 makes American's look to the world. He keeps getting re-elected by using fear. Hope he is out of there and in jail soon.......as a jew it is hard to support Israel when he is the leader.
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Another gangster. His moment is nearly past, but there would be some small satisfaction in seeing justice rendered upon him. Are all politicians everywhere corrupt? One is often tempted to think so, in this day and age.
3
Tzipi Livni isn't downplaying the threat, though Hezbollah may not be planning something for the end of this month. But, in all likelihood, Israel will find other tunnels. And note from yesterday's article that Iran is likely flying weaponry straight to Lebanon, skipping the ground route altogether.
The UN peacekeepers are mostly a sham, and have been for many years. The UN says it's not their job to supervise or intervene with the placement of missiles, under/in private homes, near the border. Their only job is to say when fighting actually begins, at which point they hightail out of there.
Are they a tiny detriment? Just that.
But, Israel bashers will downplay or outright deny Hezbollah and Iranian plans to destroy Israel, even if Iran says so, dozens of times, something which the NYT does NOT publicize. Why? Majority of readers don't care/don't want to read this with their coffee.
4
On the contrary, the NYT has long bought far too easily into the idea that Iran is a trouble-maker, rather than America’s natural ally in the Near East.
@Perspective
Not perspective; propaganda. NYT bought into the agreement, though it knows Iran never agreed to stop its missile program, nor can it deny that Iran is a major player in Syria, and of course with Hezbollah. NYT dislikes Trump pulling out of the agreement.
Iranian people, mostly, are our natural allies, BUT NOT their theocratic despots.
3
In twelve months Trump and Netanyahu will be gone. Trump will be in exile in Russia and Netanyahu will be in jail. It will be a whole new world.
2
I think “suspected fear mongering” gives him too much wiggle room. Fear mongering is all he does!
2
Um, not Suspected of fearmongering. That is what he does.
1
Netanyahu is taking a tip out of Trump's playbook of using distractions to deflect attention from a problem "look over here" next problem Trump runs into again "look over here".
Here in the US we are becoming more and more wise to them, the question is how long before the Israeli's also see through Netanyahu's deflections?
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@Robert Keller
I'd argue it's Trump taking a page from Netenyahu's playbook. Bibi is far more intelligent, and has been doing it for far longer. That's what makes him so dangerous.
3
I do not like Bibi, but he has kept Israelis relatively safe, despite continuing threats from Iran, which provides arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. The latter has more missiles than the combined armies of NATO thanks to Iran. What do you think the tunnels were for - the answer should be obvious - to get significant numbers of Hezbolla troops into northern Israel to attack isolated northern communities. Indeed, Nasrallah has stated for years that the next war will be fought on Israeli soil. And the Israeli military said the plans to expose the tunnels had been in the works for many months. So you may also not like Bibi, but the notion that he
Ordered the tunnel actions now to deflect from the investigation is absurd. The investigation has been going on for years. The danger to Israel is now.
2
Sounds like Mr. Netanyahu is taking a page from his good American friend, fellow publicity hound and fact distorter.
9
So the leader of Israel & the leader (?) of the US are brain twins. Two 'stable geniuses' who use distractions & fear-mongering to make them look brilliant & more needed.
Maybe they will both be gone next year.
16
Earlier this year, Netanyahu also said Poland was complicit in the Holocaust -- a defamation of the country and something that is entirely untrue. The NYT should research this. Look at the NYT archives where the Polish government is quoted warning the world -- the first do so -- how is that complicity?
https://www.nytimes.com/1942/11/26/archives/slain-polish-jews-put-at-a-million-onethird-of-number-in-whole.html He and his wife are alleged criminals. They have been in power so long Israel is technically defined as a fascist state and its recent laws have been labeled racist as the NYT has reported. Poland is the safest place in Europe for Jewish, in fact the recent Op-Ed in the NYT listed Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin and many other cities as places for serious anti-S crimes, but not Poland where the country has invested in Jewish museums, cemetaries, education... when will the NYT step up and write something positive about all of these developments vs just taking the word of Netanyahu and his right wing gov't in defaming and slandering Poland?
11
@PRS
Poland and Ukraine are the most anti-Semitic places in Europe and have long been so.
The US State Dept actually warns Jewish travellers to Ukraine to not let the locals know they are Jewish.
Poland was no friend to Jews during the war and certainly not before it.
Of more than 3.5 million Polish Jews, only 10% survived, less than any other land except Lithuania, next door to Poland.
While it is true that Poles did help save Jews, most not only did not but many aided the Nazis to find and kill them. This continued even after the war when Poles killed and persecuted the few who survived.
Poland is not and never has been a friend of Jews. My personal experience is that anti-Jewish sentiments are very common.
5
@simon sez
Poland and Ukraine are totally different countries.
In the Ukrainian areas there were pogroms (a Russian word) and Kielce in Poland where 42 people died in a mob scene over a reported kidnapping. USA has had many more such incidents over 70 years in LA alone.
Your third paragraph is not true per the history books. While there are professors trying to prove what you say, even their numbers would indicate that less than 1 in 1,000 Poles did anything to harm Jews. That means 99.9% of Poles were side by side victims of the German Third Reich systematic policy to exterminate Poland culture and its people. The concentration camps which were built by Germany on German occupied land in what is today Poland originally murdered Polish prisoners, and as many Pole-Catholics were killed as Jewish.
You also ignore 600 years of Polish history after King Kazimierz named Jewish "people protected by the King" in the 14th century per this NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/world/europe/12krakow.html
during which time Poland became home to 10% of the world's Jews and center of Jewish culture -- there were no wars or battles between them, while Poland battled Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Austria during this time.
Jews were politicians, entrepreneurs, could serve in the army with their beards -- there was not a more pro-Jewish place than Poland for 600 years.
And in <6 years 90% of Jews were destroyed when Germany occupied Poland. Do that math.
1
Never confuse opposing anything Netanyahu does with opposing Israel the state. Netanyahu and the felon-in-waiting currently occupying the White House have one thing in common: a hyper-honed sense of self interest. I once said that peace wasn't possible until that old man Arafat was gone from the scene. Ditto regarding Netanyahu.
11
@Barry. Both Israel & Saudi Arabia are ripe for regime change. Both of them have caused more trouble in the Middle East than all the jihadists combined. Neither one of them serve American interests. Or have they done so for years.
@Miguel Cernichiari
The whole world benefits from Israel’s advances in science, medicine & technology, but we Americans also benefit from our access to intelligence from MOSSAD which is considered one of the world’s best intelligence agencies & from being able to pre-position military supplies in Israel in case we want to intervene in the Middle East & from Israeli expertise in developing weapons systems. We gave F-15's to Israel & Israel improved them, 700 modifications. Thanks to Israel, we now have better warplanes. Also, Israel is a laboratory & the Israelis are guinea pigs in learning how a democratic society can deal with terrorism. Israel is on the front line battling terrorism. The terrorists say “First the Saturday people (Jews) then the Sunday people (Christians.) Israel is the barrier island protecting the West.
3