It is a sad fact that Jews in Israel have selected as their authoritative spokesperson an individual who actually believes the public relations drivel put out by his office. Netanyahu may do well expounding the official Israeli position to crowds of fierce advocates of the Israeli cause, but he comes across as a total ham when presenting the Israeli case before any objective group of listeners.
Here (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.557310) we have Bibi speaking this week in Jerusalem to an audience composed of representatives of the annual meeting of the General Assembly of Jewish Federations of North America. Now, Bibi knows that you can get away with saying anything to this kind of audience after the required standing ovation for the Prime Minister. Here is Bibi describing the talks with the Iranians and his audience is literally eating out of his hands: He reminded them that the purpose of the "crippling" international sanctions that "brought Iran to its knees" had been "to get Iran to dismantle - dismantle - its nuclear enrichment capabilities, which are used for atomic bombs, and its heavy water plutonium reactor, which is also used for atomic bombs." Netanyahu scoffed at the Iranian insistence that these capabilities are being developed for civilian purposes. "Do you suppose Iran is building those ICBM (missiles) in order to launch medical isotopes to Iranian patients orbiting the earth?" he said. Bibi is telling a joke (with sarcasm). We learn from him that the entire world is stupid and just dying to fall into an Iranian "honey trap." Bibi explains that the successful sanctions which drove the Iranians to their knees are being squandered.
"So do something about it"
Instead of letting the Iranians off the hook, Netanyahu, enjoying the standard standing ovation as he arose to speak, declared he would not rest until Iran’s nukes were “dismantled” and challenged the assembled GA participants to “speak up” – not only for Israel’s security but for their own. It won’t be long before Iran builds missiles with the capability to reach the United States, he noted, and they could carry nuclear weapons, should it achieve that capacity. And here with crescendo: “Do you want that?” he asked the crowd, which responded, with an emphatic “No!”“So do something about it,” he shot back.
Now this is getting serious. Bibi is not only fighting to save the Jewish people. He is fighting to dismantle missiles with the capacity to reach the US. He is energizing US citizens to go out and do something! You might have thought that this fits the job description of the US President, Obama and all his generals. But Obama, as we have seen, is simply not up to the job. Bibi, we see, has no choice. No one is out there defending the free world. But we are saved, because Bibi has declared that he will not rest until those nukes are dismantled.
War is not inevitable
Your correspondent feels the need to sensitize public opinion of all shades to the fact that we are dealing here with Netanyahu, an extremely dangerous character and not with just any run of the mill local chauvinist. Bibi does have nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons at his disposal. His latest shtick is to pose as Churchill fighting appeasement. He is living more and more in a trance in which he is convincing himself that he, and he alone, sees the present dangers. In truth, the US policy of trying to maintain its military monopoly in the region is in itself extremely dangerous and the source of mounting tension in the region. Some observers believe that the argument between the US and Israel is more for public consumption and less a matter of content. Whatever the case, both countries are playing with fire.
NOTE: Your writer is not interested, at this stage, in arguing the pros and cons of the Iranian crisis. All the arguments of a technical nature cannot hide the real issue. Israel and the US insist on having a monopoly of the use of WMDs. If and when the US and Israel are interested in de-escalation of the crisis all they have to do is to offer a path towards the elimination of WMDs in the region. This proposal sounds a bit far-fetched but a similar suggestion, the elimination of Syrian chemical weaponry, has recently prevented the outbreak of war in the Middle East. At any rate, the US is showing some sort of serious thinking about solving the Iranian crisis. For this the US is being castigated and ridiculed by the leadership of the state of Israel. It is almost impossible to believe that this is actually happening. But the truth is clear: Israel is leading the charge for full-scale war in the region.