Netanyahu's land of the settlers

Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s supporters, admirers and enthusiasts on the right understand that he is in a frenzy to impress them. At a time when his political and legal future is uncertain, he is doing everything to give them the impression that he is the king of the world, hopping from the White House to the Kremlin like one of the family.   

It started last week at the Jan. 23 “Holocaust festival” in Jerusalem — the fifth Holocaust Forum — continued with the presentation of the “deal of the century” at the White House, accompanied by a hasty Netanyahu promise to immediately annex West Bank territories, and ended with an especially embarrassing visit of the Israeli prime minister to Moscow. The official excuse was to advise Russian President Vladimir Putin about the US peace plan, but all Netanyahu wished to do was bring the young Israeli Naama Issachar home, on his plane, upon her release from a Russian prison. Issachar was convicted on a light drug charge and sentenced disproportionately to 7½ years in prison. But between the injustice of her case and her becoming an Israeli hero — whom the prime minister himself frees from prison and brings home as a hero, as if she was sent to defend her people and her country — the distance is huge.