Opinion | From a pariah leader to a pariah state
By Philip Yeung, university teacher
PKY480@gmail.com
As the Palestinian crisis spirals out of control, all parties are committing a big tactical blunder. In going full-throttle to stop the slaughter in Gaza, pro-Palestinian students are slapped with an anti-Semitic label. Israel's defenders, on the other hand, open themselves to charges of suppressing freedom of expression. Biden, teetering on a tight rope, finds himself in a "damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you don't" dilemma. It seems for all combatants in the conflict, the way out is through Netanyahu. As the architect of the Gaza massacre, only his departure will redefine the situation.
A deranged US congressman suggests a quick nuclear solution to the Gaza quagmire, a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not realizing that Netanyahu himself is a walking nuclear device, detonated to wipe out 35,000 innocent lives.
Biden is in a bind. If he sides with Israel, he is guilty of complicity in genocide. If he leans towards the Palestinians, he is a traitor to America's closest ally. Either way, Biden will pay. His only escape is through disowning and distancing himself from Netanyahu, now an international pariah. Behind the scenes, Biden must help boot the butcher out, or he will face his day of reckoning at the ballot box. There are no other alternatives on the horizon.
Pro-Palestinian protestors, likewise, need to zero in on Netanyahu, not on the state of Israel. Their goal is achievable if they gang up with Bibi's domestic opposition to send him into the wilderness. From now on, they should brand themselves as anti-Netanyahu, not anti-Israel. The prime minister is roundly ridiculed as "the crime minister" in his own country. By naming and shaming the culprit, anti-Semitism will be taken out of the equation.
In the current standoff, there is too much mud-slinging. As the protests spread around the world from America, the ugly scenes are antithetical to Israel's national interests. No Israeli fan looks good next to Netanyahu. Time to give "the crime minister" the political kiss of death.
The situation is dire on US campuses, with snipers on rooftops training their machine guns on peaceful demonstrators. Sooner or later, a stray bullet will produce the first martyr. The trigger-happy police are provoking a huge backlash and sending shockwaves worldwide, even as anti-war demonstrators are unfairly vilified as Jew-haters.
As the crisis escalates, Israel is losing its luster. Now a heartless bully with bombs, it is squandering its reservoir of global good will. Obstinate like an ox, callous and cruel, Netanyahu and his take-no-prisoner attitude is the undoing of his country and its paymaster, the United States. Under him, Israel is fast becoming a pariah state. The world wants to see an America that can love Israel without embracing its amoral leader. No amount of Jewish money can whitewash his crimes against humanity. No amount of propaganda will repair the reputational damage. Yes, Israel needs a strong man, but not a monster. The civilized world doesn't deserve a butcher whose hands are dripping with the blood of 35,000 innocent civilians, 70% of whom are women and children. Dislodging Netanyahu is not a defeat for Israel, it is the correction of a tactical calamity that has come late for the Jewish state. He has turned a proud nation of super-achievers into a pariah state cursed by every civilized lip. He shows the enormous harm that can be visited on humanity by one evil man with the levers of power. Get rid of him and we get rid of the curse. The return to sanity and respectability requires the early removal of Netanyahu. Biden's political survival depends on it, peace in the Middle East and US campuses depends on it. One and a half million Gazans living on the knife's edge depend on it. Decency demands it. It is time for Israelis and non-Israelis to come together and say: good riddance!
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
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