2, January 2015 Israel’s Donald Trump
In a highly
controversial move, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, picked his new chief of
public diplomacy, Ran Baratz whose outspoken comments reflects closely with our
own beloved Donald Trump. Baratz began his tenure by accusing President Obama
of being anti-Semitic and compared Secretary of State John Kerry’s “mental age”
to that of a preteen.
He further
alienated Palestinians by expressing his wish to see the building of a third
Jewish temple on a contested Old City compound and then went on to insult
Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, calling him “a marginal figure” unworthy of
assassination, and suggesting that he “could be sent in a paraglider” into
Syria, where the Islamic State would retreat if only Israel would take him
back. Incensed Israeli politicians called for Baratz’s nomination to be
rescinded, while commentators said the decision reflected extremely sloppy work
on the part of Netanyahu’s staff.
Mitchel Barak, a
political consultant in Jerusalem accused Netanyahu of sending a negative message
to the world - “I don’t care about public diplomacy, I have a right-wing
government, I have a right-wing policy, and I’m going to send people who are
offensive by appointing only hard-core ideologues,” the rest of the world be
damned! Baratz’s nomination joins a number
of right-wing appointments much to the dismay of Washington and other
Western capitals. Ms. Schneider, a prominent blogger, reflected that while some
of Mr. Baratz’s statements might be shocking to Americans, his views were
supported by Netanyahu and a majority of Israelis. To compound Netanyahu’s
problems, deputy foreign minister, Tzipi
Hotovely, told an interviewer that she dreamed of raising the Israeli flag atop
the Temple Mount, the Old City site known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
A clearly
embarrassed Netanyahu retracted his own earlier statement that it was
Palestinian cleric, not Hitler, who came up with the idea to annihilate
Europe’s Jews — a statement that was declared to be completely false by
Holocaust historians. Responding to the U.S. nuclear accord with Iran, Baratz
accused Obama of “throwing us under the wheels of the bus, even if he did this
with a winning smile, while he supplied us with plenty of Band-Aids.” According
to the Congressional Research Service, these Band-Aids have cost
U.S. taxpayer $121 billion since its founding in 1948 (adjusting for inflation,
$233.7 billion as of March 2013). A growing number of Americans are incensed at
Israel’s insults, biting the hand that feeds it billions of dollars a year. It
is time to call a halt to such aid to an Israeli government that has nothing
but disdain for our president and members of his staff.
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