Sore losers: Israel Hayom, the free daily paper owned and published by American gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, didn’t try to hide its disappointment over the results of the U.S. elections.

This morning, a large headline in the news section declared that “America chose socialism.” The sub-headline reads: “Obama’s second term in the White House could lead to a greater economic crisis than that of 2008.”

Early this week, articles in Israel Hayom were still reporting on optimism from within the Romney camp. On Tuesday, an article in the news section quoted Mr. and Mrs. Adelson’s op-eds, which urged voters to support the GOP ticket.

A couple of weeks ago, Israel Hayom ran a chapter from Dinesh D’Souza’s “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”; the lede to the story declared that Obama’s “spiritual fathers” are an anti-Israeli and a terrorist. The book was also mentioned in the profile of Obama the paper ran on elections day, while the profile of Mitt Romney was entirely positive.

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Sheldon Adelson was one of the largest contributors to Romney’s campaign, as well as to five other Rebublican candidates. Among them was Florida Rep. Allen West, whose Super PAC got $1.5 million from the gambling billionaire. All of Mr. Adelson’s candidates except for incumbent Senator Dean Heller (NV) lost (West is probably heading to a re-count). Altogether, Adelson spent $100 million on the 2012 elections.

Israel Hayom was launched by Sheldon Adelson in 2007. The paper is distributed for free, at considerable loss. In the last couple of years, it has become the most widely read paper in Israel. Israel Hayom takes an active pro-Netanayhu line. Last year, it was revealed that a senior political pundit for the paper, Dror Eydar, is on the Prime Minister’s Office payroll.

Related:
Obama’s victory and Israel: Five takeaways
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President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office in 2009. Yes, you will have to meet again. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

1. Israel was mentioned 34 times in the final presidential debate, and in the end, it didn’t matter. The Republican strategy in the last four years – going after the White House for “throwing Israel under the bus” – did not hurt Jewish support for the president. According to exit polls, Obama got 70 percent of Jewish votes, a slight decrease from 2008, overall matching the votes he lost with the general public.

There are two possible explanations for the failure: either Jews don’t think about Israel when they cast their ballots, or they didn’t buy the GOP’s story. My guess is more the former than the latter.

2. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Republicans to rethink their alliance with the Israeli hard right. These relations are so deep and strong that they will survive such a hiccup. The GOP and the Likud – the Republikud party – share common values and an ideology which despises human rights, turns its back to the international community and approaches politics with a monolithic and often Islamophobic worldview. The blow this camp and its ideology has suffered is in and of itself a good thing, but there are many battles ahead. So far, the Democrats have allowed the GOP to shape this conversation and have even contributed to the “who is more pro-Israel” contest. Maybe it’s time they stop.

3. In his first term, Obama’s Mideast policy was a complete disaster. The president began by promising not to turn his back to the Palestinians, than tried to confront Israel on the issue of settlements with an empty gun. The last couple of years were embarrassing: not only did the United States fail to reach its own policy goals, the administration ended up vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on the settlements, which used the language found in the State Department’s press releases on the issue.

Will the second term be different? It’s hard to tell. Chances are that it won’t. I think the White House has realized that the Israeli-Palestinian issue costs a lot of political capital, but brings very little results. Furthermore, the administration continues to believe in the Oslo framework, as if two decades haven’t passed. The Palestinian Authority hardly represents anyone these days, the government in Jerusalem is anxious to renew negotiations for the sake of negotiations, and the whole thing is clearly leading nowhere. The only way the White House can move things forward is by confronting the Israeli desire to maintain the current status quo. The undeniable dislike of Benjamin Netanyahu by many in American government will not bring about this change on its own.

A good sign of the president’s intentions could be the people he chooses to appoint to deal with Israel and the Middle East. The first envoy, George Mitchell, didn’t enjoy full support from the administration. He was then replaced with Dennis Ross, who played the role of “Israel’s lawyer” in previous rounds of negotiations, and seems to have been appointed to win back the hearts of Jewish donors and supporters, rather then to end the occupation. Since he left, no high profile figure has dealt with the Palestinian issue. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority is planning to go ahead with its UN statehood bid in coming days. It’s a symbolic act, but like the previous round, it will force the administration to take a stand, thus revealing some of its intentions for this term.

4. One sure loser of these elections is Sheldon Adelson. It’s not just the millions he spent on Newt Gingrich and then Romney. Adelson has become a public figure, and a very controversial one, even in Israel. He got nothing for his investment, only bad press.

4. Israelis will hold their elections on January 22. Until now, all polls indicated a Netanyahu victory. Some people, also those within the political system, believe that the U.S. elections can affect Israeli voters, and probably swing a few seats away from the prime mister. I seriously doubt this. Netanyahu would have gained some momentum if Romney had won, and the media would have congratulated him for “picking the right horse.” But Netanyahu had survived the first four years of an Obama presidency, and he can live with another term. Netanyahu might actually sell – at least to the right – the line that only he can guard Israeli interests now that we don’t have a genuine supporter in the White House.

The outcome of the U.S. elections is said to encourage former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to join the local race, but Olmert is yet to reach a final decision, and he has no chance of beating Netanayhu in any case. The GOP suffered some losses tonight, but it will keep the seat in Jerusalem.

UPDATE: Yossi Verter in Haaretz this morning: “If Obama chooses to interfere with Israeli elections, nobody could blame him.” Regarding Adelson, “he made the wrong bet too. You could expect better from someone who made his fortune in gambling.” Ouch.

UPDATE II: Interior Minister Eli Yishai: “It’s not a good morning for Netanyahu.”

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Related:
Obama wins election, takes Jewish vote with him 
U.S. elections: The majority voting on the rights of the minority
Just today, forget about the Middle East and vote Obama
‘Pro-Israel’ figures who rebuked Obama now endorse him for president

Here’s a nagging feeling I’ve been having all day long: I appreciate many, many people feel badly disappointed by Obama, and especially by his conduct in the Middle East. (If I had any hopes of him when he was elected I’d be in the same place.) His assassination policies are nothing short of horrific, he’s been completely browbeaten by Netanyahu, and he left the Bahraini revolutionaries to rot – and that’s just part of it. I also reckon many of the people disappointed by such policies also feel uncomfortable with the United States’ imperialist role and conduct as a whole. But here’s the rub: If you let Obama’s foreign policy and its practical indistinguishability from Romney’s to push you over to the Green Party or to discourage you from voting altogether, you’re playing the imperialist game. I think I speak for more than just myself here when I say that while we appreciate your concern for our little corner of the world, we feel kinda mortified when you prioritise us over something infinitely more important and closer to home: Women’s rights.

A couple of weeks ago, Noam made a convincing enough case on the lack of substantial difference between the two candidates on the Middle East front:

Shortly after president Obama was elected, he promised not to turn his back on the Palestinian people. It was a brave statement, considering that in some places, even mentioning the word Palestinians is a non-starter. Yet those turned out to be empty words, when it was revealed that the administration couldn’t stand the political price that the Israeli prime minister made it pay at home. After some back and forth between Jerusalem and Washington, the president appointed Dennis Ross – the man most associated with the diplomatic failure of the last couple of decades – to head  Middle East policy, or more accurately, to win favors with the Lobby and the heads of the Jewish communities. The president then blocked a largely symbolic Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, and ended up vetoing a Security Council resolution on the settlements that was a copy of previous State Department declarations.

….I do not expect the United States to pick sides in Israeli politics and I don’t want it to be anti-Israel. I expect it to be anti-occupation. In this particular sense, the Obama administration was much worse than Bush’s, who forced the road map upon both sides, and made Israel abandon its plan to build in the E1 region northeast of Jerusalem. Naturally, Bush was operating in a different environment, but as even former head of Mossad Ephrayim Halevi notes, for some reason Republican administrations are always more effective at keeping Israeli expansionist tendencies at bay. Maybe we should keep this in mind. In terms of policy – and not just rhetoric – I am not that sure anymore that a Romney administration would be that different from Obama’s.

But unlike in Israel-Palestine, where Obama failed miserably to assert even an iota of influence over the state whose military budget he practically owns and where Romney would not behave any differently, on women’s rights Americans are faced with a clear and present danger. Romney wants to overturn Roe v. Wade – this is a certainty, not some hypothetical new war in the Middle East the States are not likely to be able to afford anyway. Can you imagine the scope and depth of influence that would have on the lives of Americans, first and incalculably foremost American women but also their children, their partners and medical professionals of all genders? Can you imagine the return of the backdoor illegal abortion clinic, the dodgy pill, the proverbial coat-hanger, the slow and horrible deaths on makeshift operating tables? Can you imagine the Supreme Court being instilled with the soul of anti-abortionist murderer Scott Roeder? Because this is what a Romney administration would do, and those who vote for Stein today will be left with same feeling Naderites carry since the 2000 elections, only with an extra guilt factor – it was hard to foresee the full scope of malevolent and criminal stupidity indulged in by the Bush Jr. administration, but Romney’s plans for a shock-and-awe war on women are already there for all to see.

If this wasn’t enough, Romney also wants to defund Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care act; in terms of taking care of its own citizens, the U.S. is already less than an excuse for a modern-day industrialised state, but this would push your heads down decisively into third-world status. By not voting or by voting for the Green Party you’re actually lending a shoulder to the election of a president far to the right of Richard Nixon, who ensured federal funding for PP in the first place, and, yes, quite obviously, you’re slamming the door of the healthcare system into the face of hundreds of millions of compatriots bled white by America’s parasitic health insurance sector.

The American two-party system is deeply and fundamentally flawed. The parties are stagnated, obese and mind-bogglingly unrepresentative; there needs to be not just a third party, but a fourth and a fifth and a sixth, and rubbing this idea into the face of the mainstream candidates is important. But the decentralisation of electoral politics is a generation-long project that needs work throughout the year, not just during election cycles; ticking the Green Party (or any other party) box on the ballot is merely one of the actions you can take and statements you make in its favour. The price for making this particular statement this time could come out far too dear; insisting on making it at the price of the rights, health and very lives of millions of women is not only misguided, it’s plain narcissistic. True, the candidates have taken women’s rights hostage. But no one in their right mind would allow hostages to get shot by way of feeling they made a point to the hostage takers.

Noam ended his argument of non-endorsement with a plain admission: “Luckily, I don’t get to vote.” You’re not so lucky – you have a responsibility. Not towards us in the Middle East and across the world: Towards your near and dear ones, especially, especially, especially towards the women among them. This responsibility is infinitely greater than any and all ideas of America’s role in the world. Just for today, forget about the Middle East and all your other overseas dominions, heave a deep sigh, down a pill or two and go vote for Obama. The rest of us will deal with your foreign policy later.

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President Barack Obama watches as PM Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas shake hands. While the administration is clearly frustrated with Netanyahu, it has also lost interest in the Palestinian cause. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Four years ago, I traveled to the United States to cover the Democratic and Republican conventions. It was an inspiring experience, largely due to the unique feelings that accompanied the candidacy of (now) president Obama. Judging from afar, it seems that much of this excitement is gone, and the current elections are a frustrating and rather cynical experience. Still, if I were an American living in the U.S., I probably would have voted for President Obama for many reasons – from LGBT rights to Supreme Court nominations. Living in a country that provides affordable and rather effective public health care, the only problem I see with Obamacare is the rather limited goals of the program.

But I am not American, and I would like to judge these elections from my perspective as an Israeli, and mainly through the issues that dominate my political engagement.

My country, Israel, was mentioned 34 times in the U.S. presidential debate on foreign policy. Only Iran got more mentions, and most of them also had to do with Israel. China, seen by many as the greatest challenge to the United States, came in a close third. Strangely enough, the Palestinians – whose issue is so closely linked to Israel’s – were only mentioned once, and even this one time was by Romney – a man who thinks there is no way to end the conflict and no need to terminate the occupation, so why bother.

This week, wearing his new, moderate persona, Romney had this to say:

You look at the record of the last four years and say, is Iran closer to a bomb? Yes. Is the Middle East in tumult? Yes. Is — is al-Qaida on the run, on its heels? No. Is — are Israel and the Palestinians closer to — to reaching a peace agreement? No, they haven’t had talks in two years. We have not seen the progress we need to have…

Leaving aside the absurd notion that it is the role of the United States to end the “turmoil” in the Middle East, New Romney has a point. It is no surprise that President Obama failed to address the Palestinian issue, or as Americans like to call it, “the peace process.” The administration had very little to be proud of.

Shortly after president Obama was elected, he promised not to turn his back on the Palestinian people. It was a brave statement, considering that in some places, even mentioning the word Palestinians is a non-starter. Yet those turned out to be empty words, when it was revealed that the administration couldn’t stand the political price that the Israeli prime minister made it pay at home. After some back and forth between Jerusalem and Washington, the president appointed Dennis Ross – the man most associated with the diplomatic failure of the last couple of decades – to head  Middle East policy, or more accurately, to win favors with the Lobby and the heads of the Jewish communities. The president then blocked a largely symbolic Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, and ended up vetoing a Security Council resolution on the settlements that was a copy of previous State Department declarations.

Today, the United States is the enabler of the occupation: it provides the military infrastructure, the financial aid and the diplomatic cover for it. If it hadn’t done so, the continuing denial of basic human rights from millions would have ended long ago. Some might argue that the president had no choice, and that this is the result of unique circumstances and power relations in Washington. If so, then Washington needs to change, and right now, there is no reason to support those denying it. While the administration is clearly frustrated and resentful of Prime Minister Netanyahu, it also seems to have simply lost interest in the Palestinian issue.

The Palestinian issue is the main reason for my political engagement. The desire to end the occupation and to have Palestinians enjoy equal rights is what lies behind most of my political choices. There is something hollow in the robotic repetition of a commitment to Israel, without showing the slightest interest in the fundamental matter that shapes the lives of real people here, Jews and Arabs. It simply feels wrong to play along with this attitude, no matter how effectively one can rationalize it.

I do not expect the United States to pick sides in Israeli politics and I don’t want it to be anti-Israel. I expect it to be anti-occupation. In this particular sense, the Obama administration was much worse than Bush’s, who forced the road map upon both sides, and made Israel abandon its plan to built in the E1 region northeast of Jerusalem. Naturally, Bush was operating in a different environment, but as even former head of Mossad Ephrayim Halevi notes, for some reason Republican administrations are always more effective at keeping Israeli expansionist tendencies at bay. Maybe we should keep this in mind. In terms of policy – and not just rhetoric – I am not that sure anymore that a Romney administration would be that different from Obama’s.

There will be unfortunate and unpleasant results for a Republican victory in the coming elections. The celebrations in both the Israeli right and neo-con circles will be difficult to bear. Some might argue that it would make the Lobby even more powerful. But such micro-politics can only take you so far. At the end of the day, leaders should be judged on their actions. If Israel wasn’t on the agenda at all, it would have been a different case. But Israel is discussed constantly, and the administration has been making all  bad choices. There is zero evidence that things will be better in the second term – only wishful thinking. It’s simply not enough to win my support.

Luckily, I don’t get to vote.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing his intention to have elections early in 2013 (photo: Avi Ohayon / Government Press Office)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday evening his intention to hold early elections in roughly three months. Elections were due to take place in November 2013 in any case, but Netanyahu estimates that he will have trouble passing next year’s budget in the current Knesset.

The following is an excerpt from Netanyahu’s statement tonight:

Today, I finished a round of consultations with the heads of the coalition parties, and I came to the conclusion that it is not possible at this time to pass a responsible budget. We are on the threshold of an election year, and to my regret, in an election year it is difficult for parties to place the national interest ahead of the party interest. The result of this is liable to be a budgetary breach and a massive increase in the deficit, which would very quickly put us in the situation of the crumbling economies of Europe. I will not allow this to happen here.

(…)

The State of Israel would prefer a short election campaign of three months over what, in effect, would be a long election campaign that would continue for an entire year and would severely damage the Israeli economy. And therefore, after four years, we will go to elections.

Having early elections involves Knesset legislation, which should not be a problem since the opposition parties always vote to dissolve the Knesset. The date for the new elections will be set in the coming days, and is likely to be somewhere between late January and mid-February. It is worth mentioning that Netanyahu has already announced early elections, only to change his mind after a couple of days. It won’t happen this time.

Here are a few quick takeaways:

1. It wasn’t only the budget that made Netanyahu call for early elections. The prime minister wants to block a potential comeback by the incredibly-unpopular-yet-relentless Ehud Olemrt and the forming of a new party by the legendary Shas leader, Arye Deri, who has announced his return to politics. Deri has been cleverly building a reputation as the dovish alternative to Eli Yishai, and given enough time, he might actually hurt Netanyahu’s base among Sephardic right-wingers. 90 days will not allow him to compete with Shas’ formidable machine, even if he does chose to run on his own.

2. Netanyahu is Israel’s next prime minister. In the Israeli system, party sizes don’t matter that much. The name of the game is blocs. Likud is likely to be the biggest party in the next Knesset, but even if it ends up coming in second place, it won’t matter. Since the previous elections, I haven’t seen one poll – not a single one! – which shows a pro-Netanyahu coalition of Orthodox and right-wing parties with less than 61 seats. If you check out our poll tracking page, you will see that changes take place only within the blocs. Netanyahu’s coalition has a floor of approximately 62 seats and a ceiling in the low 70s. That is all that matters.

Both the media and the parties prefer the illusion of tight elections where “everything is possible.” It’s a good story, and it helps the politicians rally the base. But this story is also false. The math is very clear: Yair Lapid will not be the next prime minister, nor will Yachimovich, Olmert, Livni, Mofaz, or any other name being tossed right now. Netanyahu will.

3. Thought the Jewish center-left got blown away 4 years ago? You aint seen nothin’ yet. In the previous elections, Kadima was able to draw a surprising number of votes from the Jewish middle-class, resulting in a large party that could have challenged Netanyahu, had it any ideological backbone. This time, the votes which previously went to Kadima will be spread on no less than five major parties: Yesh Atid (led by journalist Yair Lapid), Yachimovich’s Labor, Barak’s Azmaut, Meretz and Kadima itself, which currently polls in the single digits. Add to this some votes which will be lost on smaller parties that will not pass the Knesset threshold, and you get the total collapse of the center-left, both as a political power and as an ideologically coherent idea.

4. The fragmentation of the center will lead to a prisoner’s dilemma. All the center fractions together could have some bargaining power, but every party will be afraid that another one will join the coalition, as Barak did in 2009, and leave the rest out in the cold. The result will be a rush by Mofaz, Lapid and Yachimovich to Netanyahu’s arms. All three have already made it clear that they “don’t rule out” entering a Likud-led government, in the name of the national interest. Read: They will do everything in their power to serve under Bibi.

5. Who will Netanyahu take? This is an interesting guessing game. Barak is the first option, naturally. If Barak fails to enter the Knesset, Netanyahu’s choice will be much less pleasant – he probably had enough of Mofaz, whose politics are beyond weird. Being the paranoid the prime minister is, Netanyahu might not want the likable Lapid on his side. Thus, he could end up with Yachimovich or with a narrow government of only right and orthodox parties. I would have taken Lapid though. The man has no more than hot air in him. Once in government, he will be as loyal as his dad was to Sharon a decade ago.

6. The effect of the American elections. Many wonder how the presidential elections will affect the Israeli one. My guess is that when all is said and done, they won’t matter that much. If Obama wins, Netanyahu’s base will feel that the prime minister is the only man who can stand up to “the hostile administration,” while his opponents will claim that Bibi’s support for Romney has cost Israel enough. The same goes for a Romney victory: the right will celebrate it, but it could also wake up the opposition, whose members won’t be able to hope for “pressure from Washington” that would do their job for them in the next Knesset.

I will post more on the elections in the coming weeks, including my own endorsement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a briefing to the press on Iran (photo: IDF Spokesperson / CC BY-NC 2.0)

The New York Times reported this morning on a “growing rift” between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The disagreements between the two regarding the strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the government’s attitude towards the American administration have found their way into the public sphere, with proxies for both sides attacking each other on every possible issue, from policy to personal character.

So, the strongest political alliance Israel has known in years is coming to an end? Don’t be so sure. Despite the obvious differences in their political approach (most notably, with regards to the U.S.), many within the Israeli political system suspect that the all-too-public dispute is a political stunt, designed to create the necessary separation between the two in the coming elections.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to announce early elections soon, due to take place in February instead of October 2013. Even if he doesn’t, we are still entering an election year. In the past, Netanyahu considered adding Barak to the Likud roster for the next Knesset, but due to the control of the hard right of the party machine, it seems like a too big a challenge, even for Bibi. It’s clear that Barak’s newly formed party, Atzmaut, will have to face the test in the polling booths.

In recent polls, Barak hovers on – and sometimes crosses – the 2 percent threshold that would get him into the Knesset. A little push, and he’ll be there. Barak’s constituency is to the left of Likud’s, so a small dispute with the prime minister could serve him very well. Considering the fact that it’s pretty certain that Netanyahu will be the next prime minister, I am willing to bet that there are just enough Israelis who would like to see Barak acting as “the responsible adult” at his side.

Meretz’s leader, Zehava Gal-On, posted this message on her Facebook wall yesterday:

It seems that friends Barak and Netanyahu really think that we are that naïve or foolish. They think we will buy their spin. That we will suddenly believe, out of the blue, that a black cat has crossed between them. So no. Oh no […]

We know that there is no rift between Netanyahu and his partner Barak. This dispute is staged and coordinated for the elections, so that Barak can run with Atzmaut as opposition to Netanyahu, thus taking votes from the center-left bloc […] it’s clear as day that right after the elections, Barak will fall again into Netanyahu’s arms… make no mistake, the alliance between Bibi and Barak is as tight and deep as ever.

The publicity the dispute has received in what is usually a very tight political ship run by Netanyahu suggests that Gal-On knows what she is talking about, especially given the fact that Israel Yahom, of all papers, is pushing the story so hard. (It’s the top headline today.) Since when does the Netanyahu daily report on rifts in the coalition?

But even more telling is the fact that a senior proxy to Netanyahu admitted this fact, telling Haaretz that:

If the defense minister was not functioning according to Netanyahu’s expectations, he would be fired. The truth is that there is professional harmony between them. It became important for Barak to recruit center-left votes to pass the electoral threshold, after he realized that he had no chance of getting a guaranteed place on the Likud Knesset list. To Netanyahu, on the other hand, it’s important to put some distance between himself and Barak, who is seen as the settlers’ enemy.

The ad is sponsored by an American nonprofit 501 c (4) called Secure America Now, an organization founded after the 9/11 attacks committed to impacting U.S. national security. A quick look at their website shows they are not big fans of President Obama or “Islam.” A story featured prominently on their website  reports a poll showing that 70 percent of Americans in Ohio and Florida “believe Iran would arm terrorists with nuclear weapons to attack us.”

Both Ohio and Florida are swing states that presidential candidates Romney and Obama are vying for. It is no coincidence that the ad starring Netanyahu will be running in Florida specifically – since it is not only a battleground state but one with the third largest Jewish population in the U.S. (behind New York and New Jersey) with over 630,000 Jews, nearly 5% of the Sunshine State.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has also targeted Florida: It recently put up billboards in Florida Jewish communities that read: “Obama Oy Vey, Had Enough?” According to JTA, the RJC is also responsible for launching a $5 million TV ad campaign aimed at Jewish voters in swing states like Florida, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

It is not clear whether Netanyahu was aware he would star in the ad, although he did insist earlier this week on CNN that his criticism of American policy on Iran is not an electoral but a security issue for both Israel and the U.S.:

This is not an electoral issue. It is not based on any electoral consideration. I think that there’s a common interest of all Americans of all political persuasions to stop Iran. This is a regime that is giving vent to the worst impulses that you see right now in the Middle East.

Considering the recent leak of a video in which Republican candidate Mitt Romney managed to insult both Palestinians, half of America and embarrass himself regarding regional geography (he thinks Syria borders the West Bank), this ad appears to be a concerted effort by pro-Romney groups to focus on the states the Republican may still have a chance in – and specifically where he can try and woo Jewish voters on Israel.

Except for the radical fringe of the Republican Party, there is almost an absolute consensus that Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” remark was stupid and damaging to his candidacy. A story on Politico yesterday quoted the many attacks on Romney from leading right-wing columnists, among them Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Warren, David Frum and more.

Yet in Israel, Sheldon Adelson’s paper, Israel Hayom, chose to put a different spin to the affair. Quoting an interview by Ann Coulter to Newsmax, a headline at the top of the page declares that “Romney is completely right.” Half of the story is dedicated to the Coulter interview, alongside quotes from Romney’s recent op-ed in USA Today. The only different view is presented by a couple of short sentences from Obama’s interview to talk show host David Letterman, buried deep in the text. The subheadline sums it all up: “Pundits believe that the current affair will help Romney.”

Israel Hayom story on Mitt Romney, September 20 2012

The paper also ran an editorial by top analyst Dror Eydar regarding the GOP nominee’s remarks on the Palestinian issue. Eydar writes: “What did Romney say? The truth.” A few months ago it was revealed by Channel 10 that while serving as a reporter and pundit of Israel Hayom, Eydar was also on the payroll of the Prime Minister Office, directly employed under Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Eydar later confirmed the report, stating that he has no problem working with people he writes about.

This would be funny if Israel Hayom, which is distributed for free at considerable losses, weren’t the most widely read daily in Israel, and the only paper through which many Israelis get their news.

Read More:
2012: Netanyahu’s shadow war for the GOP begins?
Mainstream American media and pro-Israel pols are turning against Netanyahu

It’s common knowledge that Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer Mitt Romney in the White House. They’re pals, they used to hang out in the States, they’re closely coordinated. In fact, in the exposed “secret video” on Mother Jones, Romney boasts that some of the consultants he hired for his campaign had worked for Netanyahu in the past.

So, it wouldn’t far fetched to say that when it comes to talking points on the Middle East, Romney gets his material straight from the top. From Bibi.

That’s why I was so jealous of Americans yesterday. They finally heard what Bibi thinks, even if it wasn’t exactly him speaking.

In my opinion, this was the money quote, when Romney explained his vision for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.

You Americans are lucky. First, you have Bibi just this Sunday talking to all the American morning news shows. I mean, when did the Israeli media ever get a chance to ask their prime minister the tough questions? You guys know more about him than we do!

And now, you have this Romney video.

See, what everybody wants to know – especially us leftwingers – is this: What’s your solution? Where are you taking us? Two states? One state? 3.5 states? Just tell us already! But no, Bibi doesn’t say a word. Not a thing. In 2009 he “accepted” the two state solution, but nothing happened. We always wanted to know what the plan was, but never had a clue!

Until this video.

We always knew he was a staller. Even better than his mentor Yitzhak Shamir. But now we hear the words:

“It’s like China and Taiwan. We just have to kick the ball down the field and hope for the best.” This is Bibi’s plan. Not Romney’s. Romney is just rehashing stuff he heard from his buddy.

If anyone ever needed any proof that Prime Minister Netanyahu has no intention to do anything about this conflict, that the status quo is good for him and Israelis, that Palestinians will be occupied for decades to come, you got it today.

I just hope Israelis and Palestinians are listening.