Peter Beinart makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up:
The Netanyahu government is filled with Americans. The prime minister himself attended high school in the Philadelphia suburbs. Ron Dermer, one of his closest advisors, was born in Miami Beach. His ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, hails from New Jersey. In addition, prominent Americans like Abrams regularly appear in the U.S. media to echo the Netanyahu line. But paradoxically, this familiarity breeds overconfidence and ignorance. When Netanyahu travels to Washington, he speaks before Jewish audiences that mostly dislike Barack Obama’s Israel policy, even though according to a recent American Jewish Committee survey, American Jews overall support it by a margin of close to two to one. When he’s not speaking to right-wing Jews, he’s speaking to right-wing Christians. And when he’s not speaking to right-wing Christians, he’s speaking to former Bush administration officials who expect to soon be back in their old jobs.
As an Obama official once told me about the Netanyahu team, with amazement, “these guys are actually waiting for President Palin.”
Of course they are. Then they get their war on against Iran and permanently occupy the West Bank. Remember Palin had one flag in her office beside the US one: Israel's. Remember also her position on the West Bank:
PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.
WALTERS: Even if it’s [in] Palestinian areas?
PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expand.
Cheney, Palin and Netanyahu want their war back - with torture, pre-emptive attacks and every terrorist attack used to justify more aggression. And if you put the Christianist right back in the White House, this time purged even of the tincture of responsibility Bush inherited from his family, we have a world war on our hands.