Roseanne Barr to Address the Knesset

‘Israeli Politics is Being Dragged into the Grubby Realm of Reality TV, As Benjamin Netanyahu demands a televised showdown with his corruption accusers and Roseanne Barr prepares to address the Knesset, the poverty of public discourse has never been more apparent’, Jonathan Cook , January 13th, 2019, dissidentvoice.org

The mild-mannered prize-winning journalist J. Cook is based in Nazareth, and he seems a tad exercised over these recent moves of Bibi’s; small wonder.

He writes that last week Bibi’d commandeered the airwaves to explain to the nation the reasons for his recent decision to move the election forward to April, which was ‘widely seen’ as acting as a referendum on his government ahead of the corruption investigations that are closing in on him.  You’ve seen the headlines, I’m sure, and may have, like I…yawned at the improbability of an indictment/trial.

“The police have recommended that he be charged over three separate allegations of bribery. By calling the election, Netanyahu has forced the attorney-general, Avichai Mendelblit, onto unfamiliar – and constitutionally tricky – terrain.

Mendelblit, an appointee of Netanyahu’s, has indicated that he will make a decision on whether to issue an indictment before the ballot, so that voters have the facts to make an informed choice.

But Netanyahu has said he won’t drop out or resign, even if indicted, and there is no decisive precedent to suggest he must.

Instead, he would prefer to bully the attorney-general into delaying a decision until after voters have spoken. That was the purpose of his unexpected live national TV address.

His supporters have already set the stage, claiming that an indictment mid-campaign would influence the outcome and usurp the will of the people.”

Heads he wins, tails (Mandelblit indicts him) he also wins, as in:

“The investigators, led by a far-right police commander he personally approved, had supposedly joined a leftist plot to oust him. The proof was that they had denied him a chance to confront in person his accusers – former aides turned state witness – and challenge their testimony.

Claiming that he had been stripped of his legal rights, Netanyahu demanded a showdown be broadcast live – effectively trailblazing a new type of reality TV show for suspects in high-profile criminal cases.”

Cook writes that of course Bibi knows that confronting witnesses are only decided by the police, and only then if evidence needs to be tested.  He adds that the police already have the evidence they need, and look to a court of law for testing.

“Two of the three bribery cases he faces relate directly to allegations that he offered favours – in one case captured on tape – to Israeli media moguls in return for better coverage in their publications.

Netanyahu has long demonstrated an obsession with controlling his image, and has proved an arch-manipulator of passions to mobilise support for his hawkish agenda.

It was at the last general election, in 2015, that he turned the tables on his right-wing rivals at the last moment. He rallied voters by claiming that Israel’s Palestinian citizens – a fifth of the population – were turning out in “droves” at polling booths. Only a vote for Netanyahu, he suggested, would save the Jewish state.

Not only did he imply that voting by Palestinian citizens was illegitimate, he claimed that the Israeli left was “bussing” them to the polls, citing this falsehood as proof of the left’s treachery.”

At the same time, Cook notes, Palestinians under occupation have been disappeared from the campaign, and not one o the Jewish parties is highlighting Palestinian rights or has the occupation at the center of its platforms.  Ergo:

“The vast majority of Israeli politicians want to entrench the occupation, not end it.

Israeli commentators noted that Mr Netanyahu had another pressing reason – apart from legal threats – to bring forward the election. He feared that otherwise Trump might unveil his long-promised peace plan.

However bad that plan will be for Palestinians, Netanyahu does not want his unwillingness to make concessions exposed.

But Netanyahu is far from the gravest threat to Israel’s “democracy”. The most dangerous thing of all is the widespread refusal in Israel to recognise that the Palestinians are human beings too – and that they should be able to determine their own fate, just like Israelis.”

More on the leaked Trump Peace Plan in a minute, but back to Roseanne:

“Underscoring the way TV has increasingly become a tool in Israel not for clarifying issues but for inflaming emotions, the US TV comedian Roseanne Barr has been invited to address the Israeli parliament at the end of the month.

She will use the opportunity to denounce as Jew haters activists in the international boycott movement who stand in solidarity with Palestinians. Only in Israel’s current degraded public discourse would Barr, who has a history of making offensive comments variously about Jews, Muslims and black people, be taken seriously as an arbiter of racism.”

amen and om mani padme om.

‘Roseanne Barr, queen of Israel’, Jonathan Ofir, January 17, 2019, mondoweiss.net

“American fallen-from-grace celebrity Roseanne Barr is going to Israel. And not just on any trip. She has been invited by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to speak against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel – she is due to speak on the 30th of January. The invitation is reportedly an initiative not of a government right-winger, but of none other than a leftist, Zionist Union member – Knesset Deputy Speaker Yehiel (‘Hilik’) Bar.”

The rest is almost too much to bear, including her topsy-turvy switcheroos, but he does make his case for ‘queen of Israel’ at the end given her more er…recent hyperbolic comments.

‘Trump peace plan: Divide Jerusalem, Palestinian state on 85-90% of W.Bank;  The report, based on a source who took part in a briefing in Washington on the plan, said it calls for the annexation of the large settlements and the evacuation of some settlement outposts’, Herb Keinon, January 16, 2019, jpost.com

“US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century,” expected to be rolled out after the elections on April 9, will include a Palestinian state on 85-90% of the West Bank and the division of Jerusalem, according to a Channel 13 News report.
The report, based on a source who took part in a briefing in Washington on the plan by a senior American official, said it calls for the annexation of the large settlements and the evacuation of settlement outposts deemed illegal under Israeli law.”

Again, you can read the rest here, fwiw.

The ‘deal of the century’ in bold if it doesn’t come through was a link to: ‘U.S. ambassador to Israel: Trump’s peace plan to be presented in months; The comments came during National Security Advisor John Bolton’s visit to Israel this week’, jan 6, jpost.com  one excerpt:

“On one hand, Trump’s peace team says it cannot be responsible for embarrassing the country, the president or the administration by publishing a plan that falls flat on its face out of the gate. Yet it also refuses to give up, insisting that circumstances will serendipitously change just enough for the world to take the plan seriously.

Trump’s team – led by Jared Kushner, his son-in-law; Jason Greenblatt, his special assistant and envoy to the process; and David Friedman, his ambassador to Israel – have floated trial balloons on some of their proposals. Some have flown and some have not. But no one knows precisely what their initiative entails – many in Washington doubt a full draft actually exists – and so it is fair to say that its contents might still surprise the region and reframe discussion around the peace process in more productive terms.”

The authors quote Nikki Haley as agreeing, as she is one of the few who has glimpsed the details of the plan…

A not-so-great-bonus extra: ‘Israel’s plan to ‘worsen conditions’ for Palestinian prisoners is an opportunity for unity’, January 4, 2019, middleeastmonitor.com

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Anja Geitz's picture

Doesn't exactly come as a surprise after he decided to inflict himself into our politics by speechifying in the US House of Representatives on behalf of Israel. But it still is repellant.

Thank god I'm not the poor whore he sits his fat ass on when he's in the mood.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

to speak before joint sessions of congress...twice? or is my memory playing tricks on me again? i'd thought there was some superb virtue-signalling afoot even by critters with fealty to the zionist project.

again, i'm pretty sure that herr trump must have signed the $3.8 billion of military aid into law in august 2018, which whitney webb had broken down to:

"Though this startling figure — which translates into $23,000 for every Jewish family living in Israel — was supposed to be the limit for U.S. military aid to Israel, the figure is actually set to be higher this year, given Congress’ recent passage of a massive $716 billion defense bill that provides an additional $550 million in U.S. aid for Israeli missile defense systems. The defense bill also authorizes an additional $1 billion for U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel."

anyway, can't be too careful or too cheap providing for the defense of israel. how many nukes do they have?

oh, the silly woman notes: “Largest aid package ever” to be given to Israel despite jarring human-rights abuses".

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

But the partisan kabuki show he was asked to be a part of, along with the unprecedented manner in which he spoke, still constitutes why he's a colossal asshole who inflicted his own self aggrandizing agenda into our chamber (pot). Let him defile his own.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

zoebear. what chew got against poor bibi lapdancers, assholes, and congressional stage plays, anyway? ain't they be normalized by now???

i never watched his 'presentations', but iirc, it was at the UN he was soooo fantastically scientific!

some folks just couldn't leave well enough alone, though. sigh.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

Gotta love them folks with photoshop skills and a sense of satire. That one is a keeper. Lol.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

out there. one of the crow spies from mad magazine is funnier 'n hell.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

and Bibi in the House of Representatives. Invited by Mitch and Paul or was it still John Boehner. Welcomed by Chuck Schumer. A stunning humiliation for the then President of the USA who didn't approve of Bibi addressing the joint houses.

It was a deterioration or perhaps an intentional dismantling, your pick, of established norms. Either way, brick by brick, decency and traditional values are eroded.

Just as they are now doing with the Gov't shutdown.

Just as the democrats did when they went into a lengthy hibernation while the Merrick Garland nomination was left alone to die.

I don't think any of this is headed to a happy place in history.

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NYCVG

wendy davis's picture

@NYCVG

had likened bibi's speech to trump's extortion speech on the need to shut down the gummint. but the Ds were full of crocodile tears as far as i'm concerned.

but oh, my, i'd had to look up merrick garland. so...DT's neil gorsuch later? why did the Ds go into hibernation, if you might explain please?

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@wendy davis They didn't protest the indignities Garland had to endure.

First of all, Supreme Court Justice Nominees generally have short meetings with every Senator in the Senator's office. 10-15 minutes. Photos taken. A few republican Senators did meet with Merrick Garland but most refused.

If the democrats were committed to our traditions and values and process, etc, as they constantly claim to be, they could have/would have staged protests directly in front of any recalcitrant Senator's door in the Capitol.

But, of course, they didn't. Merrick was in the building many days and nobody agreed to open the door to him.

At the same time as these meeting are taking place, the judiciary committee holds hearings. Again, the Democrats barely made a peep when Mitch McConnell denied Garland a hearing. Let alone a vote.

IMHO the Democrats are/were entirely complicit with McConnell in denying President Obama and Merrick Garland rights that were both constitutional and traditional.

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NYCVG

wendy davis's picture

@NYCVG

education of my failing memory. i see why snoopy had offered a parallel of pelosi, but i'd add to hers, obomba's 'look forward, not backward' policy, knowing he'd also be a war criminal during his term. his shite re: 'I repeat: the US does not torture' was totally obliterated by what he told the NYT later. and egads, i'd hate to look it up, but i wrote about it at the time (john rizzo, iirc, 'you're about to put us out of the torture bidness'.

and of course...amerika continued to torture, just out-sourced it in whistle-stop timing.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis Please reference lacrimation overflow to alligator tears, the only genuine, made in the U.S.A. crocodilian species to which we may lay claim. I am sick of crocodiles getting all the praise for hypocrisy (anatomically, premasticatory food lubrication). I request, no, demand that you cease your anti-American diatribe and start with the ONLY politically correct denomination of premasticatory lubrication, namely alligator tears.

Signed, your Frennd,

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

i'll try to be more PC in the future, sir gator of da swamp. no similisan eyedrops (mr. wd's eye doctor's nurse calls them 'hippie eyedrops' [if the shoe fits, wear it!] for you, eh?

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

must be on accounta those 3 or four set of eyelids you have, eh wot?

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snoopydawg's picture

@NYCVG

but it goes well with the crap congress has been pulling for some time. Nancy ran on rolling back the Bush abuses and then when she became speaker did not only take impeachment off the table, but she continued giving him cover for committing war crimes.

Long but excellent article by Ray McGovern.

Don't Be Afraid, Nancy; IMPEACH

Here she is lying her butt off about when she found out that Bush, Cheney and company were committing torture.

[video:https://youtu.be/lYwZa8jvNp4]

"Enhanced Interrogation" = Torture in most people's book.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

via telesur english: ‘Palestine Rejects US Peace Draft on Shared Jerusalem’, telesur english, jan. 17:

“On Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority (PA) responding to multiple reports of a United States-drafted Peace Plan, said that "any peace plan that does not include an independent Palestinian state — with all of East Jerusalem as its capital — on the 1967 borders, is destined to fail." The U.S. Israel-Palestinian plan will reportedly propose that Jerusalem be divided into territories, designating some annexed Palestine regions solely to Israel and sharing others.

A spokesman for the PA presidency in Ramallah, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, reiterated that any valid resolution can only be determined through the required international procedures involving the principle of two states, Wafa reported.” [snip]
“Trump’s action prompted Palestine to deem any United States-proposed peace process invalid, opting for one based on international law, and the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

Palestinian-Israeli relations have been tense for decades, with an escalation of tensions during the Great Return March protests.”

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wendy davis's picture

that as amerika withdrew from syria israel would 'take up the slack'? i've seen headlines at RT saying it's so. wondering how many bombs bibi's military has dropped on syria, i found this: ‘Israel Dropped 2,000 Bombs on Syria in 2018: Chief of Staff’, 13 January 2019, alwaght.com

““We struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit,” Eisenkot stated, the outgoing Israeli army's chief of staff has acknowledged, confessing to carrying out strikes on a “near-daily” basis.
The occupying regime rarely acknowledge striking specific targets in Syria but its outgoing chief of staff just openly confessed to running a large-scale bombing campaign in its neighbor’s territory. In 2018 alone, Tel Aviv dropped around 2,000 bombs on alleged Iran-linked targets, Gadi Eisenkot told the New York Times in his final interview as chief of staff before he retires next week.

While the Syrian government repeatedly accuses the regime of constantly violating its sovereignty and aiding the terrorists by their raids in the country’s airspace, Eisenkot claimed the Israeli actions are justified – and that, anyway, neither Damascus nor Tehran can do anything about it.

"We have complete intelligence superiority in this area. We enjoy complete aerial superiority. We have strong deterrence and we have the justification to act."

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Alligator Ed's picture

She's a good, if not great, comedienne who in true comedic fashion, dishes out a ration of shit to any and all parties. Until she speaks to the Knesset, what she says will not be known--despite what script-writers may have contrived for her.

In a sense, comedically, she is the same as DJT non-comedically. You never know what she's going to say. She might take a stance pro-two state settlement. You just can't tell with her.

Mosking

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

but if you read this semi-humorous take at mondoweiss, we have an inkling into her recent state of 'mind', so to speak. but yes, she'll be laughing all the way, which is why i'd used her photo from mondoweiss.

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