If Mitt Romney wins the election, undoubtedly a vanishing possibility but still a possibility, he will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu Government in Israel, currently lead by Prime Minister Netanyahu. In case you are living under a rock during the last three years since this latest Likud government has been in power, the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu is not interested in peace. It is not interested in fairness. It has illegally pursued further expansion of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. And it seeks, openly and in a manner than can only be described as “frothing at the mouth,” preemptive war with Iran. Sound familiar?
Indeed, a Netanyahu-Romney pact for war is a foregone conclusion. And isn’t it always the other way around? When an American President is recognized as having a partnership or alliance with another foreign head of state or government, isn’t it always recognized that the American leader is the senior and superior leader in the alliance? Remember Clinton-Blair, Bush-Blair and Reagan-Thatcher? In our horrible hypothetical future, for the first time I can ever recall, the American President, god forbid Mitt Romney, would be the junior partner being told by the senior partner, Netanyahu, what to do and when to do it. Romney is on record as seeing no way he could ever say no to an Israeli prime minister on anything. So there you have it.
And thanks to the 47% video, we know from Romney’s own lips that he prefers war with Iran, that he is a supporter of the one state solution. He has told us he is biased against the Palestinians, and that he would end the tradition of the U.S. being an honest broker for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Said Romney: “I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish… All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it…”
“On the other hand, I got a call from a former secretary of state. I won’t mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there’s a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections. I said, ‘Really?’ And, you know, his answer was, ‘Yes, I think there’s some prospect.’ And I didn’t delve into it.”
He added: “The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world.”
Eric Lewis of the New York Times has some interesting analogies regarding Mr. Romney’s willingness to turn over American Middle Eastern policy to Mr. Netanyahu:
If India decided that, once and for all, it refused to live under the threat of an unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan and intended to invade, we would never tell them it was up to them. If Taiwan had feared an attack from China across the Formosa Strait during the early 1970s, would Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger have told them it was their call rather than ours whether to launch a surprise attack? Even to put the question shows the absurdity of a superpower’s acquiescing to allies on critical questions of war and peace in a nuclear age.
To be sure, Israel is a special ally, but that does not entitle it to make the decision on matters where United States interest and power are inextricably and centrally engaged. It is inconceivable that the United States would permit another ally dependent on American funds and American defense systems to take such a decision unilaterally. It is also inconceivable that we would permit another foreign government to intervene directly and forcefully in our political process to garner popular support for its policies over the objections of the administration.
Mitt Romney has spent the entire campaign falsely accusing President Obama of apologizing for America abroad and refusing to show leadership on the global stage, but in reality, it will be Mitt Romney who will fail to show leadership. On peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he will “kick the ball down the field.” Why? Because that is what Netanyahu and his government wants.
Mitt Romney will follow. No, that’s not right. He will be lead by a leash, by Mr. Netanyahu.