Did Republicans in Congress help Benjamin Netanyahu get re-elected?

By Scotty Reid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surged to win reelection after proclaiming that that there will never be a Palestinian state. This is considered backing out of prior agreements to work towards a two-state peace solution, which has been supported by the United States for almost a decade. Netanyahu rode to victory with heavy turn out from Israeli settlers who are occupying illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

Netanyahu may have gotten an election assist from Republicans in the US Congress who invited him to speak to a joint session of Congress just ahead of Israeli elections. Netanyahu may have also received a boost in Israeli support by way of the letter sent to Iran by Republican US Senators seeking to undermine ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran, the United States, China, Russia, the UK and France. Taken together both of these political acts could have been part of a GOP plan to help the right wing Likud party win election to more seats and the re-election of right wing Likud party member Benjamin Netanyahu as the country’s prime minister. Shows of right wing hard-line political support for the hard line right wing Israeli Prime Minister timed just right would logically bode well for Netanyahu. “Influencing foreign elections”, which is the reason the Obama administration cited in explaining why President Obama would not meet with Netanyahu who was unceremoniously invited to Washington by Republicans just weeks ahead of Israel’s national elections. This is the same party that is discussing going after the Obama administration with accusations of election tampering.

Analyst expect the relationship between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu regime to continue to deteriorate even more which has been very antagonistic to say the least. The biggest losers of the recent Israeli elections are of course the Palestinian people themselves who will see the continued occupation of their lands by a vicious and brutal right wing Israeli apartheid government. Of course, a right wing Congress will be chomping at the bit to cast a vote to fund future military aggression against the Palestinians like the last Congress and no matter who is president in 2017, they will likely not hesitate to sign bills to fund the Israeli military into law.

The future forecast for the Palestinians looks very cloudy for the moment.