Who’s in Charge Here ?
By “here” I refer to my home town Washington DC. The answer, obviously, is that Binyamin Netanyahu is in charge there. At least he has much more influence over US Federal Government spending than the guy wincing in the photo. Both Biden and Netanyahu know that Netanyahu has much more support in the US Congress than Biden and both understand that Congress can control spending, sometimes by over riding vetos.
Biden has the impossible task of attempting to conduct US foreign policy (with the advice and consent of the Senate) when that involves dealing with someone who has more influence over US policy than he does. Importantly, they both understand this perfectly.
Netanyahu is powerful, because he has the support of a narrow majority in the Knesset, a solid majority in the US Senate and an overwhelming majority in the US House of Representatives.
Who will save us from the humiliation of watching our president being kicked around by the prime minister of a small distant country ?
Obviously the citizens of that small distant country except for the 15% of them who approve of Netanyahu. Bibi can get what he wants from the US Congress but no coalition which supports him can win a majority in the Knesset.
He is a sinking ship about to find out which of his MK supporters are about to leave because they are rats. I think it is safe to say that any member of the Knesset who would even consider supporting Netanyahu must be a rat and that they will all leave soon.
Of course Netanyahu will be replaced by another Israeli Prime Minister who will have more influence over congress than the US President. However that guy (Ganz) or gal (Livi but not likely) will not have quite as profound an understanding of US parliamentary politics as Netanyahu (who’s expertise on that subject completely dwarfs Robert Waldmann’s feeble attempts to understand what the hell is going on) and will probably not have Netanyahu’s single minded dedication to the quest for power obtained by any means necessary, because not many people have such pure,devote, and complete dedication to anything.
Robert:
You and a host (pick a large number) of others are wondering what the hell are we doing in the Middle East. Congress understands where the power lies unless the rest of our nation finally say “no-more.” The community involved has a lot of power in the US. And they apply it as needed to get Israel the assistance they need. It plays into Congress.
You already know this and I am preaching . . .
“Who’s in charge here?”
Y’know, it’s currently like the US has two presidents, although one is alledgedly ‘former’.
Of course, he insists that he really still IS President. This, in itself, is really quite astonishing.
Anyway, he’s insisting that this to be corrected by the end of this year.
If the former guy gets re-elected, this certainly won’t change in the slightest.
Dems tread very carefully around this issue, not just Joe Biden.
“U.S. President Harry Truman was the first world leader to officially recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish state on May 14, 1948, only eleven minutes after its creation.”
Biden Must Campaign Against a Man Who Already Thinks He’s President
NY Times -m 4 hours ago
President Biden, the man actually in the White House, faces a conundrum: How do you run against a man who never conceded his election loss, and is already acting like he has the job? …