From the Liveblog of
Monday, July 22, 2024
Golan hails ‘Zionist president’ Biden, blasts Netanyahu for trip to Washington
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Yair Golan, head of the Labor-Meretz union The Democrats, praises US President Joe Biden before launching into a heated condemnation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
“There was never a Zionist president like Biden and there has never been a past American president who was treated as rudely, bluntly, and irresponsibly by the Israeli government and its leader, as President Biden,” Golan declares.
“The president, in his quick and decisive response, prevented the expansion of the war into other arenas, protected Israel in the world political arena, allowed the IDF to breathe, and physically protected Israel from Houthi and Iranian attacks throughout the long months of the war.”
By contrast, Netanyahu’s flight to the United States to address Congress and meet with the president is an “unnecessary, wasteful, ostentatious, and corrupt PR campaign.”
Netanyahu’s government proved itself to be “irresponsible and incompetent, causing ongoing damage to Israel’s security,” Golan says. “Netanyahu’s trip to Washington is nothing more than a show trip empty of content, absent of real goals, all of which is designed for domestic purposes, and has nothing to do with Israel’s relations with its most important ally.”
