Netanyahu's unguarded comments

Snickers Man · 19-07-2017 6:08pm #1

Israel's pugnacious Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been shooting his mouth off again, and once again a belligerent premier's comments have been picked up by a microphone they (supposedly) didn't know was switched on.

At a meeting with Eastern European leaders he was heard to say, among other things:

“I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,”
“..the truth is the truth – both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy toward Israel.”
“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, which produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,”

Emphasis is mine. Here he is basically saying that Israel is so powerful/influential that it can determine the wealth and security of other countries, including those nowhere near it geographically. Is he just a bit up himself?

Or is he just being candid about the extent of the power at his disposal?

Funny thing is, if you were to allege that Jews had such invisible "behind-the-scenes" power and the ability to manipulate the economies and financial health of other countries and could make or break foreign regimes, people might think you had been reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the forgery dating back to Czarist times which made similar claims for the insidious influence that Jews had in the world.

If Netanyahu was British they'd throw him out of the Labour Party for being "Anti Semitic"!

You can read the full report here

recedite · 19-07-2017 7:08pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

Here he is basically saying that Israel is so powerful/influential that it can determine the wealth and security of other countries, including those nowhere near it geographically.

He is not saying that at all. But The Guardian would have you believe that.
The article says

The bombastic remarks, which bizarrely predicated Europe’s future on its attitude towards Israel – not one of the most burning issues on an EU agenda confronting the challenges of immigration, Brexit and economic growth

But that is not what Netanyahu actually said.

What the Israeli PM is saying here is that if the EU continues with the open door policy of largely islamic immigration from overpopulated regions of North Africa and the Middle East, combined with falling birth rates in the native population, then it will gradually "wither and die". Its an exaggeration, but his point is that the EU should seek greater exchange and links with like-minded technologically advanced cultures (like his). As opposed to importing backward culture, and therefore becoming more backward.

The context of this is a meeting of the Visegrad nations; which are those countries within the EU who have consistently opposed Merkel's open door migrant policy, and have so far prevented her from introducing the mandatory migrant relocation policy. This is the policy which would redistribute around the EU all those migrants which the Irish Navy (among others) has been ferrying from Libya to Italy. If these Visegrad countries continue to thwart Merkel's mandatory relocation proposal, then most of the migrants will gradually make their way to France and Germany. Which could cause political problems in Germany for Merkel.
The Visegrad attitude is basically; if you don't want these problems, then stop importing them.

So here's what Netanyahu is reported as saying...

I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said. “I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth – both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy toward Israel.”

So think about your own future, and your own security, and then stop supporting Gaza and Hamas, and start treating Israel as your natural ally. That's what he is really saying there.

I think that if I can suggest that what comes out of this meeting is your ability perhaps to communicate to your colleagues in other parts of Europe: Help Europe … don’t undermine the one western country that defends European values and European interests and prevents another mass migration to Europe,” added Netanyahu. “So stop attacking Israel. Start supporting Israel … start supporting European economies by doing what the Americans, the Chinese and the Indians are doing,” he said, referring to increasing technological cooperation.
“There is no logic here. The EU is undermining its security by undermining Israel. Europe is undermining its progress by undermining its connection with Israeli innovation,” he added.
“We are part of the European culture,” Netanyahu continued. “Europe ends in Israel. East of Israel, there is no more Europe.

The Guardian writer then throws in another curved ball..

Netanyahu’s remarks were made following criticism of his visit to Budapest, where he has been accused of soft-pedalling on accusations against the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban for allegedly stoking antisemitism, not least in a high-profile campaign targeting billionaire Jewish philanthropist George Soros.

This is also a misleading narrative. In actual fact, both Netanyahu and Orban dislike Soros and his policy of political lobbying in favour of the mass migration into the EU. There is no disagreement there. Just because Soros is a Hungarian does not mean Orban must support him. And just because Soros is a Jew, does not mean Netanyahu supports him. So its not clear where this "antisemitism" criticism of Orban is coming from. Perhaps its just from The Guardian itself?

Snickers Man · 20-07-2017 2:02pm

Well that makes him sound like an altogether more decent gentleman. :rolleyes:

Railing against immigrants who will cause the cultures of the countries into which they come to "wither and die"? I bet there are many Palestinians who would know exactly what this first generation son of a Polish immigrant is talking about!!

Immigration is a fact of life. It always has been. It's how you accommodate the influxes that matters. And surely Jews, who have kept their religious/tribal identity for millennia despite being scattered throughout the earth, should know that.

And I think that trying to justify the barbaric treatment of the Palestinian people by the dubious claim that "we write better software than they do", is grotesque. But that's just what Netanyahu is saying, when he claimed, as the article reports: “The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, which produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it.”

Inquitus · 20-07-2017 3:46pm

I read this earlier and he has an overstated sense of Israel's importance, they are not a natural ally of Europe, and frankly I don't think we should treat them as such until they sort out their Human Rights abuses.

recedite · 20-07-2017 4:04pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

Immigration is a fact of life. It always has been.

I don't think Israelis are against immigration per se, their relatively modern Jewish State in the holy land is built upon in it.
They are looking at this in somewhat binary terms as "the clash of civilisations". The Visegrad countries will be fairly receptive to this, having been at the frontier of Europe and having defended western civilisation from hostile Islamic invasion for centuries, at great cost in terms of human life.
Most of us in the western parts of Europe fail to appreciate that sacrifice. And as far as they are concerned, we are now inviting in "the auld enemy", which they cannot understand at all, and which they will resist.

Snickers Man · 21-07-2017 4:17pm

recedite wrote: »

I don't think Israelis are against immigration per se, their relatively modern Jewish State in the holy land is built upon in it.
They are looking at this in somewhat binary terms as "the clash of civilisations". The Visegrad countries will be fairly receptive to this, having been at the frontier of Europe and having defended western civilisation from hostile Islamic invasion for centuries, at great cost in terms of human life.
Most of us in the western parts of Europe fail to appreciate that sacrifice. And as far as they are concerned, we are now inviting in "the auld enemy", which they cannot understand at all, and which they will resist.

You know people can read this, right?

Your sentiments are mirror images of what the Anti-Semites said about Jews in Central Europe throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. They are also very similar to what the Know Nothings in America in the mid 19th century were saying about Irish and German Catholics. (Obscurantist religious zealots, loyal to a foreign temporal leader, culturally inimical to our society, haters of freedom, rabbit-like breeders, etc etc)

If Netanyahu wants to keep company with the ideological close relatives of the very people who forced his ancestors out of Europe then so be it. But there is no compulsion on the rest of us to be taken in by it. So then he plays the "Don't you dare criticise our domestic policies, or even our occupation policies over areas we have no right to administer. We're entitled to do all that because we're so good at writing software, and playing the violin!! And if you dare cross us, it won't go well for you. You know what I'm saying?"

Truly an odious man.

recedite · 21-07-2017 4:57pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

...And if you dare cross us, it won't go well for you. You know what I'm saying?"
Truly an odious man.

Well, no as I pointed out already, he said no such thing. The Guardian twisted what he actually said and then fed it to you, and you swallowed it up as fake news.

A couple of years ago the Socialists ruled supreme in France, and Tony Blair's "New Labour" was all the rage. Brussels seemed like the geograpical heart of Europe, even though it was really out on the western edges, and we had a few new eastern European "accession countries" that kept quiet and did what they were told.

Now we have Berlin as the new centre stage of Europe, and all the countries to the east of it growing in confidence and reasserting their historical influence on Europe.
In France, Macron jumped from the sinking Socialist party ship in France and found new success by launching his own centre right party.
The UK fenced off Calais port and its migrant Jungle camps, and is now exiting the EU.

Netanyahu is a clever politician. He sees that the old lefties of the westernmost EU who previously ruled the roost, and who always guaranteed plenty of EU funding of the Palestinians, are now on the decline. At the same time, the Visegrad countries are rising in power and influence.

His recent liaisons have been with these new kids on the bloc.
The nature of EU payments to Gaza and the West Bank have already changed and I have a feeling it's going to get a lot more difficult for the Palestinians to draw down any EU funding in future.

Personally, I don't see why I should be paying my taxes to fund Islamic governments in the Middle East. If they need help, let the Saudis or the other billionaire Gulf States subsidise them.

Snickers Man · 21-07-2017 5:07pm

recedite wrote: »

Well, no as I pointed out already, he said no such thing.

He said:
“The European Union is the only association of countries in the world that conditions the relations with Israel, which produces technology in every area, on political conditions. The only ones! Nobody does it,”

Which I rendered in my own flippant, but hardly inaccurate, paraphrase
"Don't you dare criticise our domestic policies, or even our occupation policies over areas we have no right to administer. We're entitled to do all that because we're so good at writing software, and playing the violin!! "

And he also said:
"the truth is the truth – both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy toward Israel.”

Why should they "mandate" a different policy toward Israel? Seems to me like he's making us an offer he thinks we couldn't possibly refuse.

People can read the original article and make up their own minds. It's pretty clear to me what he's saying.

wes · 21-07-2017 5:47pm

This the same guy who gloated about killing Oslo accords. So he has form in this regard.

It stunning to see him side with Anti-Semites in Hungary as well, who are making insane claims about Geogre Soro's.

There is no depth that he won't sink to, a truly awful man.

Chips Lovell · 25-07-2017 9:34am

Next person who equates Israel with "the Jews" gets a card.

Snickers Man · 25-07-2017 1:51pm

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Next person who equates Israel with "the Jews" gets a card.

OK, I'll tread carefully here. And I realise that such disputes with Mods should in theory be debated off line but I am mystified as to who has "equated" Israel with "The Jews" on this thread. I am at a loss to see any instance when anyone, regardless of their expressed opinion, has made any such equivalence.

In such a circumstance I think it might be best if the Mod explained his/her concerns in open forum so we all know where we stand. Regardless of our expressed opinons.

With all due respect.

Chips Lovell · 25-07-2017 1:54pm

The post concerned was removed.

Snickers Man · 25-07-2017 2:21pm

I hadn't seen it.

Thanks for clearing that up.

hatrickpatrick · 26-07-2017 5:45pm

Netanyahu, ADL, AIPAC etc's desperate attempt to equate anti-Israel sentiment with anti-Semitism utterly falls apart once one realises that there are plenty of Jews who are repulsed by Israel's colonisation efforts.

Hell, the newspaper Ha'aretz is based in Israel and owned primarily by a Jewish family - it just happens to take a left-wing attitude towards Israeli policy and is a harsher critic of their imperialism than even many Western media, because not only does it see this as a crime against humanity but also damaging to the Israeli state itself.

I'd go even further myself. Unless Netanyahu intends upon instigating a genocide at some point, his policies are a direct threat to the concept of the Jewish state. Three into two doesn't go - either the Palestinians living inside an ever-expanding Israel must be giving voting rights, or they must be ethnically cleansed. Even Israel and the US won't be able to withstand the international outrage if the Israeli state ultimately claims sovereignty over the entire historical Palestine and yet refuses to give the Palestinians equal citizenship and voting rights - and because they vastly outnumber Israelis in population in the areas where the settlement expansion is occurring, this will ultimately mean a Knesset with enough Palestinian representatives to totally undermine the whole concept of Israel as it was envisioned. This potential demographic upheaval is precisely why Israel refuses to budge on the issue of Right of Return - and yet, by continuing to expand into areas with majority Palestinian populations, they are running the risk of fundamentally altering their state's demographics regardless.

He's playing an extraordinarily dangerous game which even his predecessors such as Ariel Sharon ultimately realised was totally self-destructive.

recedite · 27-07-2017 2:14pm

Its certainly a numbers game, but between jewish immigration and the harassment and emigration of arabs, its a game they hope to win.

BalcombeSt4 · 31-07-2017 10:23pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

Emphasis is mine. Here he is basically saying that Israel is so powerful/influential that it can determine the wealth and security of other countries, including those nowhere near it geographically. Is he just a bit up himself?

Or is he just being candid about the extent of the power at his disposal?

They didn't seem all that powerful when Hezbollah gave them a bit of a bloody nose.

It's easy to look scary bombing little Gaza from the sky, one of the most densely populated places in history with no air defense.

Netanyahu's unguarded comments

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