At the conclusion of a four-day road trip in Iowa that included 17 town halls, 6 neighborhood house parties, and 5 college campuses, Democratic presidential contender Beto O’Rourke, who last November lost the senate race to Republican Ted Cruz, but came close, decided to go after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, possibly because Iowa farmers who wake up every morning to milk their cows are asking themselves if Bibi could beat Gantz, and what are the ramifications of the Israeli elections regarding their grain subsidies.
Speaking to his Midwestern audience about the US-Israeli relationship, the handsome and feisty former Congressman from Texas O’Rourke suggested that the relationship, in order to be successful, “must transcend partisanship in the United States, and it must be able to transcend a prime minister who is racist, as he warns about Arabs coming to the polls, who wants to defy any prospect for peace as he threatens to annex the West Bank, and who has sided with a far-right, racist party in order to maintain his hold on power.”
So, somebody in the O’Rourke campaign reads Ha’aretz…
In typical white man fashion, O’Rourke declared he did not believe Netanyahu “represents the true will of the Israeli people,” never mind all that majority of the votes silliness.
“We must be able to transcend his current leadership to make sure that [US-Israeli] alliance is strong, that we continue to push for and settle for nothing less than a two-state solution, because that is the best opportunity for peace for the people of Israel and the people of Palestine,” O’Rourke said. “It is the best opportunity for the full human rights of everyone who is living in that region.”
Just you wait, good people of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt – help is on the way, as soon as Israel signs a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority, you will no longer be gassed, maimed, imprisoned, raped and otherwise inconvenienced. Beto O’Rourke who was mayor of El Paso for two years and served three, count them, three terms in Congress – he knows.
So, it’s official, the bon ton of the Democratic party, or at least a good chunk of it, is about attacks on Israel, support for Israel’s most vicious enemies, and, here and there, splashes of classic anti-Semitism.
Frankly, whether or not President Donald Trump is able to cash in on this ugly turn in the mainstream of the Democratic party, it is probably high time Israel “transcend” its partisanship with the United States, give up those $3.8 billion in military aid that go to American companies anyway, and free itself from Democrats and Republicans alike. For heaven’s sake, that aid is barely one percent of Israel’s GNP, and comes at the expense of trillions in potential sales to China, India, and even Russia.
Mr. O’Rourke, you talked us into it. At this point, the US has become too much of a burden. Go find yourself another punching bag. Bibi and the rest of us are busy.