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The Trump-Netanyahu alliance
[Jpost] When they met on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin were both walking wounded.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington the center of a criminal investigation the chief characteristic of which is that selected details of the probe are regularly leaked to the media by anonymous sources who cannot be challenged or held to account.
After several months of "investigation" we were confronted with a shocking discovery: apparently, Bibi gets monthly allowance from one of his mom's relatives - which he kept secret from Saraleh and used to buy cigars.
...As for Trump, he met with Netanyahu two days after his loyal national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, was forced to resign.

Flynn’s resignation was the culmination of a continuous campaign of defamation waged against him that began even before Trump was elected.

...The campaign against Flynn was based on highly classified information regarding conversations Flynn held with Russia’s ambassador to the US during the transition process in December. Under US law, intelligence agencies are prohibited from divulging the identity of US citizens whose conversations with foreign intelligence targets are intercepted.

The law is in place for good reason. As Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg on Tuesday, "Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do."

In the event, an FBI investigation of the conversations after they were leaked concluded that Flynn did nothing illegal in his dealings with the Russian ambassador. But criminalizing Flynn was never the object of the leaks ‐ making him politically toxic was the aim. And it was accomplished on Monday when he resigned.

It appears likely that Trump became convinced that by sacrificing Flynn, he would end the insurrection US intelligence operatives are waging against his presidency. But as The New York Times made clear on Wednesday, the opposite is true.

...To a certain degree, Trump’s first month in office bears a striking similarly to Netanyahu’s first term in office 20 years ago. When Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996, he was an inexperienced politician. Before winning the election, Netanyahu had never held a cabinet level appointment.

Netanyahu, who opposed the phony peace process with the PLO, was viewed as the root of all evil by Israel’s security and legal establishment whose members had adopted the two-state formula as their catechism. After he was elected they joined forces to subvert his authority.

...Instead of standing up to the rebellious bureaucracies, Netanyahu caved in. Consequently, he lost his base, and in 1999 he lost his office.

In a way, Netanyahu had no choice. He had no allies with the power to help him. The Clinton administration was implacably opposed to him and worked openly with the Israeli deep state to unseat him. The media hated him even more than they hate him today.

Trump’s decision to allow Flynn to resign was a dangerous sign that he is beginning to follow the same pattern of behavior that led to the failure of Netanyahu’s first term.

But his press conference with Netanyahu on Wednesday signaled that Trump may yet turn things around and gain control over the rebellious bureaucracy by leaning on an ally that wants him to succeed and needs him to succeed in order to survive himself.

From the statements they made at the joint press conference, it is clear that Trump and Netanyahu have decided to build an alliance. Its purpose is twofold. First, by working together, they can defeat the common foes of their countries. And second, the success of their joint efforts will bring about the defeat of their bureaucratic enemies.

The most significant development to come out of the Trump-Netanyahu press conference was their refusal to endorse the two-state policy doctrine. This was a necessary move.

...The basic idea behind the two-state paradigm is that the establishment of a PLO state is a precondition for winning the war against Islamic terrorism.
Any different view is Islamophobia to western self-appointed "elites"
...Amazingly then, to a significant degree, the survival of both leaders is tied up with their success in keeping their promises to their voters and defeating their foes ‐ domestic and foreign.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-02-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=481551