PrintMay 28, 2011
CNN's Zakaria: Couldn't He Just Call Netanyahu a Slut?
Just when you thought the Obama-Kool-Aid-swilling media couldn't sink any further into their foul muck, along comes ersatz expert-on-everything and Obama sycophant Fareed Zakaria. Attempting to defend Obama's imperious effort to force Israel back inside its indefensible pre-1967 borders, Zakaria has tried to link Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with a central figure in one of the most vicious anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli regimes in history.
Zakaria compared Netanyahu to former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in an opinion piece in the Washington Post this week, claiming petulantly that Netanyahu has become, like Gromyko, "'Doctor Nyet,' a man who will be bypassed in history."
Beyond proving that Zakaria has a tin ear, his column proves beyond all doubt that anyone who criticizes, or even disagrees with, Obama -- even in the interest of protecting their own country -- will be savaged by the media beyond any sense of decency, let alone fairness.
It is an attack that is vile, vituperative, and -- as we shall see -- viciously personal. And all because Netanyahu didn't roll over for Obama on a matter vital to his nation's security. (As an aside, one can't help wonder why Netanyahu didn't just tell Obama, much like Obama infamously told Republicans in 2009: We won. Get over it.)
Zakaria compared the Prime Minister of Israel to a man who played a key role in a regime that implemented anti-Israeli policies abroad and an anti-Jewish agenda at home, a regime that actively and systematically persecuted Jews. And Gromyko was the architect of a foreign policy that forced Israel, the world's lone Jewish state and the Middle East's only democracy, into two bloody wars for its very existence.
Gromyko served as Soviet Foreign Minister for most of the Cold War, including during the Six Day War in 1967, in which Israel won the more-defensible territories which Obama would now have it relinquish. Records released since then show that Gromyko's foreign policy helped instigate that battle for Israel's survival.
According to a June, 2000 report in the UK's Guardian newspaper:
The Soviet Union had played a central role in escalating tension in the Middle East and had falsely accused Israel of massing forces on the Syrian border... In memoirs published recently, Nikita Khrushchev said the USSR's military command persuaded its political leadership to support these steps, knowing they were aimed at starting a war to destroy Israel.
As Foreign Minister, Gromyko was a principal member of that political leadership.
And the records also revealed that, when it appeared Israel was poised to win a total victory over the Soviet's Middle Eastern client states, Gromyko's USSR was, itself, prepared to intervene militarily. By way of the hotline between the two superpowers, Gromyko warned then-US President Lyndon Johnson:
A very crucial moment has now arrived which forces us, if military actions are not stopped in the next few hours, to adopt an independent decision. We are ready to do this. However, these actions may bring us into a clash which will lead to a grave catastrophe ... we purpose [sic] that you demand from Israel that it unconditionally cease military action... we purpose to warn Israel that if this is not fulfilled, necessary actions will be taken, including military...(Then Defense Secretary Robert) McNamara recalled: "In effect it said: Mr. President, if you want war, you'll get war."After Kosygin's menacing message was received, the US under-secretary of state, Nicholas Katzenbach, was dispatched from the Situation Room to 'call in the Israeli ambassador and put pressure on the Israelis to accept a ceasefire'. The Israelis, presumably informed of the Soviet threat, did - after completing their conquest of the Golan.
By most accounts, the Soviet regime, in which Gromyko served so prominently, intensified its internal campaign against Jews after the humiliating rout of its Arab allies.
The hard-won 1967 borders proved vital to the Jewish state's survival when Israel was caught off-guard by a multiple-front, coordinated attack by Syria and Egypt: the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
It was a sneak attack of which Gromyko, and the Soviet Union, were aware -- if not actively involved in the planning -- beforehand.
In his book, The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East, Abraham Rabinovich wrote that the Soviets, and Gromyko, had armed Egypt and Syria with the modern arms necessary to wage war on Israel. Gromyko was even aware of the timing of the surprise assault. Two days before Syria and Egypt attacked, Gromyko summoned his top aides. "What they were about to hear, he said, must be kept completely confidential. Egypt and Syria were to open war on Israel on Saturday at 2 P.M."
Rabinovich noted that Gromyko "was skeptical of the Arabs' chances but acknowledged that a surprise attack might improve their odds."
Overlooking the historical and policy implications of Zakaria's contemptuous comparison, there is the personal aspect as well. Yonatan Netanyahu, "one of Israel's most celebrated heroes," was born in New York City in 1946. He died thirty years later, on the Fourth of July. At the time of his death he was a commander of the elite Israeli commando unit, Sayeret Maktal -- more or less the equivalent of our Navy SEALs. The best of the very best. He was killed during the Entebbe raid, in which the unit he headed rescued 103 hostages held aboard an Air France passenger plane in Uganda.
The Soviet Union, under the foreign policy directed by Gromyko, was the principal supplier of arms to Uganda and its dictator, Idi Amin.
The bullet which killed Yonatan Netanyahu was most likely provided to his killer through the largesse of Andrei Gromyko. The same man to whom Zakaria now compares Yonatan's younger brother, Binyamin.
Perhaps Zakaria just hadn't thought of calling Binyamin Netanyahu, the elected leader of a sovereign nation and a stalwart US ally, a talk show slut.
With Zakaria's column, it becomes clear that Barack Obama's mainstream media will stoop to any low, no matter how vile or disgraceful or personal, to protect their guy.
Just writing about Zakaria's comments leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. And it's not Obama Kool-Aid.
William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author.
