Trump and Netanyahu to Speak on Sunday by Stephen Lendman
They both met face-to-face before. Sunday’s phone conversation will be their first post- inauguration, Netanyahu eager to work with America’s new president.
Last March, at AIPAC’s annual conference, he said he’s “a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel.” He shamefully called the important Iran nuclear deal “catastrophic for America, for Israel and the whole Middle East.”
Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t now nor did it earlier have a military component. The Iranian “problem” Trump and others hype is its sovereign independence. Its government poses no threat to Israel, the region or other nations elsewhere.
Reportedly America’s new president and Netanyahu will discuss Palestine, Syria, Iran and perhaps other issues. Israel rejects Palestinian statehood. It wants regime change in Iran and Syria.
Netanyahu calls rescinding the Iran nuclear deal one of his top priorities - unlikely to be achieved with Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China strongly supporting it, no matter which way Trump goes.
On Friday, Israeli intelligence officials warned Netanyahu against pressuring him to abandon the deal - fearing a possible “chasm between Washington and other signatories, most importantly Moscow and Beijing.”
Saturday on his Facebook page, Netanyahu said he and Trump will discuss “ways to oppose the threat of the Iranian regime, which calls for the destruction of Israel” - a bald-faced lie.
Separately, hardline Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett called the next few weeks “a unique window of opportunity” for Netanyahu to tell Trump what he wants from Washington.
He wants annexation of so-called Area C, around 60% of West Bank territory Israel controls - a prescription for possible explosive violence if undertaken.
Hours after Trump’s electoral triumph, he said “the era of a Palestinian state is over,” claiming “the settler agenda is defining the future of Israel.”
It destroys any chance for Palestinian liberation. “If someone wants to launch an intifada, that’s their decision,” he ranted. “We cannot capitulate to violence or threat of violence.”
Bennett, Netanyahu and many others are part of Israel’s lunatic fringe. Defying international law, they claim East Jerusalem and the West Bank aren’t occupied, land-grabbing what belongs to Palestinians isn’t theft, and historic Palestine belongs to Israel.
If Trump accepts this ideological extremism, a potential incendiary environment will be created - especially if he defies international law by moving America’s embassy to Jerusalem - an international city under a UN protectorate.
After years of endless US imperial wars, the region is hugely unstable already. Will Trump step back from the brink or risk turning bad to worse by wrongheaded US policy toward Israel/Palestine?
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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