Speaking on CNN’s podcast The Axe Files with David Axelrod on Thursday, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas R. Nides literally referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his minister as children, telling the former Obama advisor: “We’re telling the prime minister – as I tell my kids – ‘pump the brakes, slow down, try to build a consensus, bring the parties together.’”
The ambassador’s remarks were the most patronizing and humiliating to date from the Biden administration, constituting an outright interference in Israel’s internal affairs, and the US unabashed siding with opposition parties against Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial reform.
Nides repeated his lie that the US was not going to “dictate” specific parts of the proposed reform, such as how Supreme Court judges should be appointed – while attacking the legislative effort to set those appointments according to the expressed will of Israeli voters.
Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) on Sunday morning told Nides via Reshet Bet Radio: “You should pump your own breaks, and mind your own business.” He said the last part in English, so the ambassador would understand.
Netanyahu, for his part, said at Sunday morning’s cabinet meeting, “I reassure our friends, we will remain a vibrant democracy.”
The Axelrod podcast previewed the interview with this totally unbiassed paragraph: “Following a year of relative calm, Nides now finds himself weathering a tumultuous few months under a new Israeli government—the most right-wing in the country’s history. He joined David to talk about the US’s “unbreakable bond” with Israel, the state of Israeli democracy, the chain of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and the prospects for a two-state solution.”
Here’s an idea:
