Not the best day at the office yesterday for Benjamin Netanyahu. For a man with one finger on the button of Israel’s presumed nuclear deterrent and the other wagging warningly at Iran, there are better ways to inspire confidence than getting your buttons mixed up in public.
That’s what happened to the prime minister, though, prompting this awkward explanation in the Knesset of why he had cast the only electronic vote against a parliamentary bill proposed by his own government.
On a day when his main ally, President Obama, was lecturing him again about West Bank settlements, local media said Netanyahu, just two months into the job, “may have been tired”.
Buttons that could be used to launch rockets from Gaza, southern Lebanon and Iran are a central security concern to Israel’s government and its allies.
The Israeli public lives with constant reminders of the buttons all around- not least with a full-scale nationwide civil emergency drill underway this week.
And inevitably the concern has seeped into Israeli culture. A few years back Israel’s Eurovision Song Contest entry was this lively number ‘Push the Button’ from Sderot-based rockers Tipex. Sderot is the southern Israeli town that has borne the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. Take it away Tipex.
You can read more about Israel’s presumed nuclear arsenal here. And here. Just make sure you press the right button…
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4 comments so far
False taachings by various Christian religions made the Bush/Cheney adminstration afraid of their own shadow.
Their portly preacher supporters felt if they would not favor Israel in everything, somehow the Messiah was not going to return to Jerusalem to gather the elect.
The fact is the scriptures never depict that Christ will set foot on earth, ever again. Look it up.
Finally, a President who will not take Netanyahu’s arrogance causing Israel’s enemies to blame the US and its allies for everything.
- Posted by Bob GarrisonI hope the President has the courage to follow through. He needs to make foreign policy based on what’s best for the U.S., not on what’s best for israel.
- Posted by Dena“Natural Expansion” or Natual Growth of Israeli compounds and “settlements”–with natural expansion of the Israeli “Defense” forces on a Palestinian future sovereign homeland? It doesn’t pass the giggle test. How many generations of growth and expansion until World War III? Get real: no Eratz Israel.
- Posted by SaavedraBenanjeri Netanyahu, self-styled leader of the ODIME
- Posted by bluecanary(Only Democracy in the Middle East), is planning another democratic assault on Gaza’s women and children shortly. Will the US stop him – that’s the big question, today, post Obama in Cairo.