A Sad Day For Israel

For the nutters outnumber the rational.

  If Netanyahu prevails, the nature of Israel's diplomatic alliance with the United States will have to change — the U.S. cannot continue to extend its U.N. veto to a country whose government has formally disavowed negotiations.

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In the long run, a deep American alliance with the kind of garrison state Netanyahu envisions will become untenable. The only remaining diplomatic strategy will be to deepen Israel’s ties with right-wing America, whose support for Israel is not contingent upon it fulfilling its liberal, democratic ideals. The Republicans who hailed Netanyahu as a Churchillian prophet are cheering a figure who no longer disguises his intention to bury forever the original Zionist dream.

Speaking of nutters, the WashPo continues to shine as a member of the no-longer-liberal media. Here's torture enthusiast Marc Thiessen:

So let’s get this straight: Iranian-backed rebels have overthrown the pro-American government in Yemen that was helping us fight al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has deployed its terrorist Quds Force into Iraq, and its infamous commander, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, is on the ground leading the offensive against the Islamic State. Iran is on the verge of getting the world to lift economic sanctions in exchange for a nuclear agreement so bad that it has actually united Arabs and Israelis in opposition. 

I'm not going to go through and Fisk his article. Suffice to say, once again, that American foreign policy should be conducted to benefit the US and not the Israelis and Saudis.

Leading to Charles Pierce:

(A)s much as Bill Kristol and Tom Cotton may want to believe it, and stipulating that the United States will stay the current course in negotiations, Tuesday's elections in Israel were not a referendum on whether or not this country should strike a deal with Iran on the subject of the latter's nuclear weapons program. The effort to sabotage those negotiations is likely to continue, and grow ever louder, but it should be ignored as thoroughly as it has been to this point. It is possible that a few more American legislators may show the white feather on the subject, but there should not be enough of them to wreck the possibility of a breakthrough. And Tuesday's results are damned sure not an endorsement of another catastrophic war in the Middle East.

And apparently the members of Old Europe share the enthusiasm of us DFH's over Bibi's win.

The EU congratulated Netanyahu on his victory, but said it was committed to relaunching the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians that he rejected in the last days of the campaign.

British Prime Minister David Cameron took a similar stand, tweeting his congratulations but letting his spokesman emphasise that "he wants to see peace, wants to see a two-state solution".