The iPINIONS Journal

Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.

© Copyright 2005-2024 (Images appear pursuant to 17 U.S.C. sec 107)
You are here: Home / Israel / Netanyahu Ignoring Biden Smacks of the Tail Wagging the Dog

Netanyahu Ignoring Biden Smacks of the Tail Wagging the Dog

Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 6:11 PM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Netanyahu treats Biden as if the US is its minion not its patron.Biden’s come-to-Jesus talk with Netanyahu 

On its misadventure to destroy Hamas, Israel spent six months killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and scores of relief workers. Yet, it was only after it killed seven Central Work Kitchen aid workers recently that President Biden had a come-to-Jesus talk with Netanyahu. 

Reportedly, Biden’s friendship with José Andrés, the founder of this relief organization, made him so outraged on this occasion. Yet even that has not steered Netanyahu off his genocidal warpath.

While starvation is taking its toll in the north of the territory, Israel continues to block containers arriving in the south. The Erez Crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip, which provides direct access to this largely cut-off territory, has not reopened. … This, despite commitments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden, after seven employees of the NGO World Central Kitchen were killed by the Israeli army on April 1.

(Le Monde, April 12, 2024)

Netanyahu defying Biden

Netanyahu’s defiance stems from two primary reasons: 

  1. He is hell-bent on doing to Gaza what Putin is doing to Ukraine.
  2. He is convinced that, no matter Biden’s outrage over his genocidal rampages, US support for Israel will remain unconditional.

cartoon of Netanyahu ignoring Biden on phone call with tail-wagging-dog image inset

And one can hardly blame Netanyahu for presuming he can ignore and even humiliate the president of the United States with impunity. After all, the more contempt Israel shows the US, the more support the US gives Israel. 

Consider this: On Thursday, while Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was complaining to his Israeli counterpart about Netanyahu ignoring Biden’s ultimatum, Biden himself was warning Iran that US support for Israel is “ironclad.” 

However, Biden’s public outrage and “private criticisms” will continue to ring hollow until he begins conditioning US support for Israel. As things stand, Netanyahu is making the US complicit in genocide.

Meanwhile, the fateful irony is that Netanyahu is waging this genocidal war in a scorched-earth attempt to save his political career. And nobody risks getting burned more than Biden by continuing to support Netanyahu unconditionally.