In the words of Shakespeare: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Such is Benjamin Netanyahu. Presently, the world press is tearing this man down, but he is arguably the greatest world leader of the past fifty years.
Does he have his faults? Yes! Who doesn’t?
But Netanyahu has had to navigate his country’s security through the decades when even his “friends” (Clinton, Bushes 1 & 2, Obama) wanted to enforce policies on Israel that were self-destructive. And his country had little margin of error if things went wrong.
Soon after he announced a new world order, George Bush, Sr. started pressuring Israel to accept the Oslo process at Madrid in 1991. The Arabist James Zogby has praised Bush Sr. for doing so.
“Bush established consequences for bad behavior, and he got results,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “It can happen again.”
Bush Sr. was praised for being even-handed between the Arabs and the Israelis, but he was in bed with Arab oil money and interests. Netanyahu’s so-called “corruption” pales by comparison.
Clinton thought he had brought peace in 1993 with the Oslo Accords. That was a failure.
Bush Jr. was also part of this Bush-Saudi oil interest. His administration would later encourage Israel to allow the 2006 elections in Gaza (with the approval of Jimmy Carter) that would get Hamas elected.