Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a 4th of July celebration at the home of American ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, on Wednesday and put the notion of “freedom” at the center of his speech. At the same time, he put the positive alongsdie the menace of enemies and threat: “Freedom is our common value which makes our bonds unbreakable and the worst dangerous regimes of the world pursuing dangerous weapons must be stopped for the sake of our common bond: freedom. Otherwise, they will triumph over free societies, and so over our so-called ‘unbreakable’ bonds.”
So, if Iran was unmentioned (and, of course, its diplomats had been “disinvited” from US celebrations because of the election crisis), Tehran was there in spirit. Indeed, you might say that it — and its alleged nuclear weapons programme — is Netanyahu’s glue for the US-Israeli “unbreakable” bonds.
It’s when you read the speech more closely that problems emerge. Netanyahu’s priority of economic development rather than political agreements, Israel’s pre-conditions for peace (including no pre-conditions on Israel), and its political and social securitization are out of step with dynamics in the Middle East. Read the rest of this entry »