Political analyst and journalist Caroline Glick has harshly criticized Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s inability to stand up to the new US administration. She recently shared her insights into Bennett’s policy gained from his speech earlier this week to the UN General Assembly.
Glick states at the outset that the prime minister’s speech not only did not change anything about her criticism of him, but on the contrary, only served to strengthen it. “The great threat to Israel these days from Iran is reflected in the unwillingness of the US administration to do anything active to prevent Iran from crossing the last line towards independent nuclear capability. Instead of dealing with it in a real way, that is, militarily, the US administration is doing everything to resume the nuclear talks with the Iranians, which will lead to American and UN legitimacy for an Iranian nuclear arsenal.”
In this reality, Glick emphasizes, “Naftali did not say anything about it. He did not condemn, not even a little bit, the dangerous nuclear agreement. On the contrary, his defense minister said that Israel was fine with the American talks leading up to the nuclear agreement.”
Glick states that she is not holding Bennett to a higher standard than his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu. “I demand that he represent the interests of Israel. He did not represent Zionism and Israel. He did not defend us against our most bitter enemies, Iran and the Palestinians. He did not preach morality to anyone when we are fighting for our right to exist.”
As an example of whether or not Israel’s interests are a priority, Arutz Sheva reports today that the United Arab List (Ra’am) has issued a list of demands to the government for its support in passing the state budget. Israel’s narrow coalition government must pass a spending plan by November or face immediate dissolution and snap elections. With a bare majority in the Knesset, the government must win the support of the UAL for the budget to ensure the bill’s passage.
But in recent weeks, UAL members have threatened to block the budget’s passage in the Knesset plenum if an agreement is not reached regarding spending for the Arab sector.
Without more transparency from Bennett’s government, it does seem that Israelis are being pushed aside to appease the Arabs and Iranians and in doing so, America. Why and at what cost to Israel? Whether or not it’s ultimately true….those are the optics and we remain concerned.