@DE_Gifford@samueljrob It’s great that it it’s back, but I still hate to give up prime downtown space for it. I know bedrock doesn’t own these, but something like the midway would be great on either the big square Greek town parking lot next to the old Wayne county bldg or the big lot on wash blvd.
@nwarikoo Maybe someone should ask him if Kosovo should be independent. Why doesn’t it just be part of Serbia? Why are kosavars being so exclusionary towards Serbians?
“Once you determine the responsibility for that war, you have determined the responsibility for the refugee problem. Nothing in the history of our generation is clearer or less controversial than the initiative of Arab governments for the conflict out of which the refugee tragedy emerged.” — Israel Amb. to UN, Abba Eban, Nov. 17, 1958.
Social media has accelerated the trend, but let’s be clear: the collapse of Israel’s standing in the United States didn’t just “happen” to Israel. It was the direct result of a series of catastrophic political decisions by Benjamin Netanyahu over the past decade.
1. Netanyahu chose to drag Israel directly into partisan American politics.
Opposing the JCPOA was not itself unique. The Gulf states also disagreed with the deal. But Netanyahu went far beyond policy disagreement. He organized a speech before Congress behind the back of the sitting American president in order to directly confront Barack Obama and align Israel with one side of America’s political divide. That moment, ten years ago, was the beginning of the end of bipartisan consensus around the US-Israel relationship. It planted the seeds for Israel becoming a partisan issue in American politics.
2. Netanyahu chose to empower extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in order to maintain power. He helped engineer alliances with them, brought them into the center of Israeli politics, and handed them real authority over national security and settlement policy. The images Americans now see almost daily on social media — violent settler attacks in the West Bank, Ben-Gvir celebrating with a noose cake, a Palestinian journalist emerging from prison emaciated and abused under systems overseen by Ben Gvir’s ministry and being interviewed on CNN. All of that has done enormous damage to Israel’s image.
Those outcomes were not inevitable. They were the direct consequence of Netanyahu’s political choices.
3. Netanyahu chose to prolong and prosecute the Gaza war in a way that maximized devastation.
After October 7, there was overwhelming sympathy for Israel in the United States. Americans broadly agreed Israel had the right to respond to Hamas’ atrocities.
But the war did not need to continue for so long, nor did it need to be prosecuted this way.
A year before it ended, most Israelis were prepared to support ending the war in exchange for the hostages. Netanyahu repeatedly extended it because ending the war threatened his coalition and his political survival. At the same time, he refused to seriously empower or work with alternative Palestinian leadership that could replace Hamas. So Israel fought a devastating war while ensuring Hamas would still remain part of Gaza’s future afterward.
The images coming out of Gaza more than anything else have transformed global and American opinion. Had the war ended earlier after Israel had achieved what military objectives it realistically could, Israel would not be facing anything close to this level of backlash today.
4. Netanyahu played a major role in pushing the United States toward war with Iran.
That war is deeply unpopular in the United States. It directly cuts against what Donald Trump promised much of his own political base, namely, avoiding getting bogged down in another Middle East war with no clear strategic rationale and no plan for how to win. It has dramatically driven up oil prices, and will have long term direct economic impacts that Americans will feel every day.
And now, just as the JCPOA fight a decade ago began the fracturing of Democrats on Israel, this Iran war is beginning to fracturing of conservatives. It will take time but you already see it.
So no — this is not fundamentally about social media. It is not simply a mysterious surge of antisemitism, a lack of hasbara, or genius social media of Iran and Qatar. And it is not primarily the result of advocacy groups or messaging campaigns.
At its core, what we are witnessing is the cumulative consequence of a series of disastrous decisions by Benjamin Netanyahu — decisions that have been bad for Israelis, bad for Palestinians, bad for the United States, and bad for the broader Middle East.