In Netanyahu, Israel Has Its Own Churchill

IBD Editorials ^ | August 11, 2010 | GEORGE F.WILL

[Kaslin]

JERUSALEM — Two photographs adorn the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Together they illuminate a portentous fact: No two leaders of democracies are less alike — in life experiences, temperaments and political philosophies — than Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and post-nationalist.

One photograph is of Theodor Herzl, born 150 years ago. Dismayed by the eruption of anti-Semitism in France during the Dreyfus Affair at the end of the 19th century, Herzl became Zionism's founding father. Long before the Holocaust, he concluded that Jews could find safety only in a national homeland.

The other photograph is of Winston Churchill, who considered himself "one of the authors" of Britain's embrace of Zionism. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Beginning in 1923, Britain would govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

Netanyahu, his focus firmly on Iran, honors Churchill because he did not flinch from facts about gathering storms. Obama returned to the British Embassy in Washington the bust of Churchill that was in the Oval Office when he got there.

Obama's 2009 speech in Cairo, courting the Arab world, may have had measurable benefits, although the metric proving this remains mysterious. The speech — made during a trip when Obama visited Cairo and Riyadh but not here — certainly subtracted from his standing in Israel.

In it, he acknowledged Israel as, in part, a response to Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. Then, with what many Israelis considered a deeply offensive exercise of moral equivalence, he said: "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."

[no dems]

I LOVE BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AND I LOVE ISRAEL!!!

[Krankor]

I don't think he's Churchill

I think he's Alfred Hitchcock

[2ndDivisionVet]

In Netanyahu, Israel Obama, AmeriKKKa Has Its Own Churchill Benedict Arnold Meets Idi Amin.

[Pat4ever]

Now THAT’S a leader!

[LachlanMinnesota]

Check me if I’m wrong, but Barack Obama was never a professor. The article is wrong.

[Captain Kirk]

No, that’s someone who wants to eternally live off U.S. welfare.

[Tennessee Nana]

I saw an episode of a Christian TV show last night filmed in Israel on reconciliation

Mark Regev who works for Bibi was interviewed and he said that the Palestinians have all along refused to come to a meeting face to face...

[popdonnelly]

And America has its own Chamberlain.

[Impy]

I wish he didn’t invite Labor into his Government.

[CORedneck]

Netanyahu would be a hell of a better president than that occupant of the W.H. !

[Paleo Conservative]

In Obama, America has it’s own Quisling.

[Cindy]

In Netanyahu, Israel Has Its Own Netanyahu.

[SunkenCiv]

I couldn't find the topics (at least two) regarding Bibi's statement that Israel would not play Czechoslovakia -- unless the first of those linked below is one of them.

• Lessons from the Sudetenland : A Contribution by Benjamin Netanyahu [9/16/2009]
• Sharon to US: Don't turn Israel into Czechoslovakia [10/04/2001]

[Pollster1]

And America has its own Chamberlain.

I wish Obama was as strong and patriotic a leader as Neville Chamberlain. I wish the "post nationalist" Obama really was as described and had put his black nationalist past behind him. I am unable to imagine any national leader who is in any way worse than the one that 52% of our voters chose, and the fact that those voters are still around for the next several decades to be duped by the media's next propaganda campaign worries me far more than the exceptionally grave damage that Obama is certain to inflict in at least the short term.

[rmlew]

No, that’s someone who wants to eternally live off U.S. welfare.
Try again. The Likud party used to oppose all foreign aid, calling it blood money. Bibi has previously made it clear that he doesn't like it because it ties Israel's hands and props up the unions. The problem is that the Likud has only 27 seats in the 120 seat Knesset.

[rmlew]

I wish he didn’t invite Labor into his Government.
National Unity coalition like Levi Eshkol's in 1967, which included Likud's forrunners and socialists. Thsi is a clear sign of war.

[SunkenCiv]

• Lessons from the Sudetenland by Benjamin Netanyahu [Jan 6, 2004]
• Lessons from the Sudetenland by Benjamin Netanyahu [Jul 19, 2007]
• Lessons from the Sudetenland [Nov 27, 2007]
• Lessons from the Sudetenland - by Benjamin Netanyahu [Feb 20, 2009]
• Lessons from the Sudetenland : A Contribution by Benjamin Netanyahu [Sep 16, 2009]
• Netanyahu: I'm Reading the Bible [Apr 14, 2010]
• Netanyahu turns to Bible in tussle over Jerusalem [May 12, 2010]

[Captain Beyond]

Thanks for the links SunkenCiv. Good Stuff. I hope for America's sake that Netanyahu stands firm and knows that our current administration does not in any way represent most America. I for one proudly stand by Israel and our Jewish brothers and sisters. They face terrorism each and everyday from all sides for such a tiny state land wise yet they remain strong in impossible odds no matter what is thrown at them.

[MattinNJ]

His older brother Jonathan was a major bada$$ commando. IIRC, he was killed at Entebbe.