There is a point where the shark being jumped must get tired of seeing Bibi do it, over and over. But then again, Bibi will continue to do it as long as it seems to work.
Again, we go, neatly wrapped in religious holidays, including the one where Pharaoh's army dies in the Red Sea/Sea of Reeds by the hand of G*d. . It's been a rough reporting morning for people wishing diplomacy rather than war.
Bibi Netanyahu and his current administration are beginning a lobbying process according to the New York Times reported this morning to require changes in the Iran/P5+1 nuclear deal, in order to change the subject from the mechanisms of making sure that Iran is not making bombs on the side, to a treaty which would also be required to deal with what Bibi calls Iran's number one position as a sponsor of terrorism, and to require it to pledge to support the survival of Israel specifically.
At the same time as Bibi is doing this, the Iranian Foreign Minister reported here in the NYT this morning according to Al Jhazeera, is saying that if the deal is not done by June, or thereafter if the other side does not perform, Iran will be free to return to the activities the objection to which gave rise to this treaty process at all and a whole lotta sanctions. That is called a deadline, a drop dead date for the proposed treaty.
In a newspaper hat trick, the NYT also reported this morning here that the GOP position is solidifying in support of Israel in part because of substantial financial contributions from a small number of wealthy CEOs of which the most notorious is Sheldon Adelson, and noting the substantial financial support that Sen. Tom Cotton has received from Bill Kristol's Emergency Committee for Israel . There is also reporting that Republicans and some others are determined to pass Sen. Corker's bill to give Senators a sixty day windown to vote the deal up or down, and Sen. Feinstein saying that she does not think the Iran treaty endangers the survival of Israel.
The cherry colored stink bomb on the top of this mess is still a fourth NYT bit of reporting, concerning the seizure by ISIS of parts of a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus and therefore very near Israel, reported here. This event and the seizure of a border control location in northern Jordan places ISIS and their various horrible behaviors much nearer Israel than previously, a group which thusfar has resisted all control by anyone else, other than a round of military combat which has recovered all or some of Tikrit, in which, ahem, folks from Iran were fighting on the same side as the US allies. Gaargh!
Easter Mulling on this mess below the too neatly scrambled Orange Egg.
Warning: There is more than a little rant here. All this on Easter morning is ghastly.
There are a couple of problems here which give me serious pause.
The first is that it does appear that a small group of the financially well placed supporters of Israel as their number one priority are spreading funds about the presently majority party in the Senate to get their particular will as to Israel done there. Not by any means most American Jewish people at all, but enough financially to make their wishes very clear and most attractive to be followed. Seven Hundred Thousand Dollars or more for a first time Senate Candidate named Tom Cotton, after one House term and no elective experience prior to that at all, but a resume which is stunningly like Ted Cruz' save for one round of military service, is surprising in itself, and the resulting right wing stiff Senator is not a surprise - Golden children and Manchurian candidates can be like that.
What is a problem here is that this spreading of funds seems to some degree to be connected to the wish of the contributors to provide various benefits to the State of Israel, and Bibi's faction of it, as a as a first and fundamental priority, more important than whatever interests the United States may have in adjusting its long term position of mutual manic hostility with Iran by doing this one deal, as a first round of what may be several issues. Or that the US may have a fundamental interest in nuclear nonproliferation, including both Iran and North Korea and other places, with Iran mainly being chapter 3 or 4 in that matter.
Forget about the rest of the P5+1. That's Europe and they don't count, which is why Bibi could piss them off by showing up at terrorist attack sites and telling all their Jewish residents to immigrate to Israel where they will be safe for a change.
Bibi and the Republicans have both elected to learn nothing from his own elections where the Arab parties could not join a coalition because that placed those parties in the position of having to support the Likud or other right wing Israeli policy of oppressive actions against Palestinians, Bedouins, and others in Israel and the occupied territories, including some Mizrahi over time, which are against their principles. There are no principles other than unconditional and unqualified support of whatever Bibi asks for that are in play for Republicans.
Instead, and now that Bibi has seen what is proposed to be in the one deal, Bibi has now begun a lobbying campaign, a foreign country lobbying most publicly to affect US policy and US legislation in its favor, to do the wishes of Bibi and over and against whatever other interest the US may have in the situation, and over and against the direct efforts of the current Administration of the US to broaden the treaty to accomplish goals which were Bibi's political tentpole in the recent election and which are so broad that there is no chance whatever of their being accepted as part of the treaty. And to make PBO look emasculated as the cherry on the top, something the Rs dream of and cannot themselves accomplish in this time. That the US may have diplomatic goals as to Iran and nuclear nonproliferation or on other subjects than Israel and nukes is something which is being entirely disregarded.
One of the things Bibi and the GOP do not consider is that there is in that part of the world a Sunni- Shi'a division fourteen hundred years old, as to which Iran is in the Shi'ite minority faction, and this division is the bloody kind, as the years of fighting and politicking in Iraq tutored everone here. Iran is also a country ethnically different from Arabs entirely, the "Persians", with its own language, culture and heritage, and with Sunni groups on most sides of it. It was on the surviving end of a war involving crimes against humanity against Iranians from Saddam Hussein within the last generation and after the Embassy mess. It has legitimate state interests, and as a nation state, its own right to pursue those interests in the same sorts of ways that other nation states do. And that mess still produces dead on a regular basis in Iraq which are attributed to that Sunni Shi'a split, one the current Iranian government did not create.
It is also a part of a religious culture which seems to be having something religious cultures have every few hundred years, a great struggle for the heart and soul of that faith, of the sort of thing often called Reformation or Counter Reformation or the Great Awakening when done here, or consideration of fundamentalism as a religous notion over against more flexible modes. Christians do it every so often and the US is in the jaws of one of those where Fundies here want to control the rest of us and how the rest of us live, or not. Jews don't have a number of main branches of their faith by accident, Reform and reconstructionist and various Conservative, and Modern Orthodox and various Hasidic branches and schools and so on, which produces a not insubstantial amount of internal disorder from time to time where numbers are sufficient to do that. Well, so do Muslims, and we tend to forget if we ever knew that one of the reasons the great Granada fell was that a fundamentalist revival which sent scholars fleeing to relative safety in orther Islamic communities, about the time Ferdinand and Isabella were contemplating border changes. And we shall not discuss what Buddhists in Myanmar are doing right now either.
But the point is that what Bibi has now proposed is that this deal may not be done without sticking in steps to stop Iranian political activity unrelated to nukes to which Bibi objects, AND unless it includes a one sided statement that Iran will recognize, presumably as a Jewish State but that is not clear, the legitimacy of the State of Israel. And he is now according to the Old Lady of Times Square getting set to lobby the GOP to make the US insist on his one sided recognition and other things unrelated to nuclear anything as a condition of getting a deal on the nukes, which deal he already knows has a drop dead date in June.
Is there any conversation here about Israel abandoning its threats to attack Iran militarily or have us do it for them? - of course not. Is there any discussion about how the twenty percent of Israel who are Muslims are treated by BIbi's government and what is to happen to Palestinians?Or Druze, or Bedouins? - of course not. How about Dimona? - Dont be silly. Of course not. Bibi's government having nukes is categorically different from any state it does not like having them, and there is nothing wrong with Bibi having and waving nukes at any country, currently limited to those in the ME, whom his government chooses to threaten with them. It's probably a weapon they would only get to use once, but that once is the invitation to WWIII for everyone else.
And he is doing this at the same time that ISIS draws nearer and nearer to his borders. This is both good and bad for him, good as some of his Lebanese "I hate them" groups are Shi'a, and will be working to defend their own people against ISIS as well as Bibi and may not have time for Bibi unless he attacks them directly and now. Bad in that ISIS is now a genuine if ugly international movement whose direct target he may not choose to be at this time, and containment and control of which are not currently available. But one where he will be taking out of the picture a serious contributor to their defeat with this treaty futzing with Iran. Iran is not in direct danger from ISIS, although its coreligionists in Iraq and other people are.
Those of you who read my stuff know I have usual rules of engagement. Address the subject, and identify and attach links to your sources. No violation of Godwin, or other KOS rules of engagement. No personal attacks or slurs on participants in this thread. No, ahem, given the title, changing the subject.