Reprinted from Wallwritings
He asked for visits with other U.S. leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden. The White House was not inclined to meet his requests.
The U.S. and Israel media were quick to dub this a major "snub" related to recent Israeli verbal attacks on President Obama.
The "snub" did not prevent Ya'alon from conducting his business with Chuck Hagel while he was in Washington. He and Hagel finalized a weapons deal that they say benefited the U.S. and Israel.
At the time of the October meeting of the two defense leaders, the weapons story received no media attention. The "snub" from Obama was the story.
The weapons deal was not even reported until Friday of this past week, when the Jewish Forward site provided the details for a story it headlined "Huge Israeli Arms Buy Nobody's Talking About."
The story included an illustration of the U.S. F-35 Lightning II jet, shown above, left.
When Israel gets the F-35s it wants, as Arlo Guthrie might put it, what care we about snubs, real or imagined? After all, Israel is the nation that has invaded Gaza and killed Palestinians in the thousands, while destroying their homes and infrastructure in three separate assaults since 2007...
The world has finally begun to rise up in horror after this latest July-August invasion. A growing number of nations now threaten all sorts of diplomatic attacks against Tel Aviv. How does Israel's respond?
The Israeli Knesset takes another step toward world isolation by introducing legislative action which would merge Israeli national citizenship with being a Jew, thereby disenfranchising more than 20% of its current citizens.
"Show us the weapons" is the Israeli mantra. In its response, the U.S. Congress, which thrives on the funding largess of the weapons industry, rushes to please both Israel and the weapons cartel.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a major player in this political-military cartel, was a harsh opponent of Chuck Hagel's 2012 appointment. Hagel had failed the Israel Lobby loyalty test which automatically rallied politicians against him. He was confirmed by a narrow margin in the Senate.
This time around, Senator McCain, the upcoming chair of the Senate Armed Services committee, has rushed to embrace President Obama's next Defense Secretary-appointee Ashton Carter (no relation to Jimmy).
What a difference two years and the endorsement of the Lobby makes. This was part of Sen. McCain's endorsement of Carter:
"I look forward to Dr. Carter's confirmation hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee next year, which will provide a valuable opportunity to fully ventilate all of issues around this administration's feckless foreign policy, and its grave consequences for the safety and security of our nation."
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