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Shaked is certain to work hard to undermine Israel’s fragile legal system. She will also be heading the powerful Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the Judicial Appointments Committee, giving her even more leverage to eliminate a legal system that she sees as a bastion of the left. Moreover, she is very likely to be minister of justice when the next attorney general is appointed. Uri Ariel can be equally certain to press hard for as much settlement expansion—all over the West Bank and, especially, in East Jerusalem—as the available shekels and the defense minister, who will still be Moshe Ya’alon, will allow. I would rather not even think about what Bennett, the new minister of education, is going to do to the minds of Israeli students. Academia is also thought of as a bastion of the left in Israel, and the climate for free thought in Israeli institutions is certainly threatened now.

A Question of Longevity The real question about all of this is how long it will last. An ultra-right government like this one is not going to get along well with the Obama administration or most of Europe, although the Republican-led Congress is likely to fall in love with it. Some may hope that this will be a case of things getting so bad that political pressure for improvement must come. Sadly, such is not the history of Israel or of this conflict. Netanyahu will be spending the next few months trying to woo Isaac Herzog into the government, and this is what the whole game comes down to. If Herzog joins and creates a national unity government of 85 seats, this government will survive. The Labor Party, which makes up most of the Zionist Union, is unlikely to provide much of a counter to the right-wing majority. Much more likely is that, as has happened in the past, many of Labor’s Knesset members and other leaders will bolt the party rather than serve as a fig leaf for such a far-right government.

If Herzog does not join the government, this fourth Netanyahu government will not outlast Barack Obama’s presidency, and might not even come close. The right wing does not play well together, and it will take nothing more than a few well-timed votes of no-confidence to take down this government even if none of the parties bolts. Even that scenario, however, offers little hope. The last elections were hailed as a comeback for Labor, but the center and left still cannot form a coalition without the Joint List (a coalition of mostly Arab parties), and that remains anathema in Israeli politics. In fact, little changed in the left-right balance in the last elections, and that is showing no signs of turning around. It has never been clearer that positive change in Israel is going to require some sort of meaningful action by the United States and/or Europe. If that does not come, and it does not seem to be on the horizon, disaster looms.

To rule Ukraine once more, the Orangists and their foreign backers have used and manipulated the ultra-nationalist elements of the population — some of which are openly anti-European Union — as their foot soldiers in an application of force against their democratically-elected opponents. Despite their views, the ultra-nationalists are actually more honest than the Orangist liberal figures like Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Unlike the misleading and utterly corrupt Orangist leaders, the ultra-nationalists do not hide their agendas and platforms.

The ultra-nationalists have inconsolably anti-Russian attitudes. Many of them also dislike a vast spectrum of other groups, including Jews, Armenians, Roma, Poles, Tatars, supporters of the Party of Regions and communists. In this context, it should come as no surprise that one of the first decisions that the post-coup regime in Kiev made was to remove the legal status of the Russian language as the regional language of half of Ukraine. Right Sector is, itself, a coalition of militant ultra-nationalists. These militants were instrumental in fighting government forces and taking over both government buildings in Kiev and regional governments in the western portion of Ukraine. Despite the protests of First Deputy Defense Minister Oleynik, Deputy Defense Minister Mozharovskiy and Defense Minister Babenk, Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s post-coup government has even given the ultra-nationalist opposition militias official status within the Ukrainian military and security forces. Yatsenyuk and the Orangists also dismissed all the officials that protested that the move would fracture the country and make the political divide in Ukraine irreversible.

Several members of Svoboda have been given key cabinet and government posts. One of the two junior deputy prime ministers, or assistant deputy prime ministers, is Oleksandr Sych. The ministry of agriculture and food has been given for management to Ihor Shvaika. The environment and natural resources ministry has been assigned to Andry/Andriy Mokhnyk. The defense minister is Ihor Tenyukh, a former admiral in the Ukrainian Navy who obstructed Russian naval movements in Sevastopol during the Russo-Georgian War over South Ossetia and who was later dismissed by the Ukrainian government for insubordination. Oleh Makhnitsky, another member of Svoboda, has been assigned as the new prosecutor-general of Ukraine by the coup government. Andry Parubiy, one of the founders of Svoboda, is now the post-coup secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (RNBO). He was the man controlling the so-called “Euromaidan security forces” that fought government forces in Kiev. His job as secretary is to represent the president and act on his behalf in coordinating and implementing the RNBO’s decisions. As a figure, Parubiy clearly illustrates how the mainstream opposition in Ukraine is integrated with the ultra-nationalists. Parubiy is an Orangist and was a leader in the Orange Revolution. He has changed parties several times. After founding Svoboda, he joined Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine before joining Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party and being elected as one of the Fatherland Party’s deputies, or members of parliament.

While the mainstream media in North America and the EU look the other way about the ultra-nationalists in the coup government in Kiev, the facts speak for themselves. Both the EU and the U.S. governments have rubbed their elbows with the ultra-nationalists. Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda (formerly the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine), was even part of the opposition triumvirate that all the U.S. and EU officials visiting Kiev met with while performing their political pilgrimages to Ukraine to encourage the protesters to continue with their demonstrations and riots demanding Euro-Atlantic integration. Svoboda has popularly been described as a neo-Nazi grouping. The World Jewish Congress has demanded that Svoboda be banned. The ultra-nationalist party was even condemned by the EU’s own European Parliament, which passed a motion on Dec. 13, 2012 categorically condemning Svoboda.

The ultra-nationalists are such an integral part of the mainstream opposition that the U.S.-supported Orangist president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, posthumously awarded the infamous Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera the title and decoration of the “Hero of Ukraine” in 2010. Foreign audiences, however, would not know that if they relied on reportage from the likes of the U.S. state-run Radio Free Europe, which tried to protect Yushchenko because he wanted to reorient Ukraine toward the U.S. and EU. Parubiy also lobbied the European Parliament not to oppose Yushchenko’s decision. Other smaller ultra-nationalists parties were also given government posts, and several of the independent cabinet members are also aligned to these parties. Dmytro Yarosh from Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor) is the deputy secretary of the RNBO, and the Trizub Party was given the education ministry. Trizub had Sergey Kvit appointed to the post of education minister.

The role of the ultra-nationalists in executing the coup has been essentially ignored by the mainstream media in North America and the EU. The roots of the bloodshed in Kiev have been ignored, too. The shootings of protesters by snipers have simply been presented as the vile actions of the Ukrainian government, never taking into consideration the agitation of the armed ultra-nationalist gangs and the mainstream opposition leaders for a conflict. According to a leaked telephone conversation on Feb. 26 between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union Commissionaire Catherine Ashton, which was leaked by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) , the snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Ukrainian opposition leaders. Estonian Foreign Minister Paet made the statements on the basis of details he was given by one of the head doctors of the medical team of the anti-government protests, Olga Bogomolets, an opponent of Viktor Yanukovych’s government who wanted it removed from power. Paet tells Ashton the following first: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” This is also corroborated by the fact that Yanukovych actually had ordered the Ukrainian riot police and security forces not to use lethal force.

The Estonian official then mentions that it was verified to him that the same snipers were killing people on both sides. He tells Ashton the following: “And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.” Another important point that Paet makes to Ashton is the following: “[Dr. Olga Bogomolets] then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” Past reports that the mainstream media were hostile to the ousted Ukrainian government also raise serious questions that corroborate what has been said about the snipers intentionally killing protesters to instigate regime change.

The Telegraph reported on Feb. 20 that “[a]t least three of the bodies displayed single bullet wounds to the heads,” and “were shot in the head, the neck or the heart. None were shot anywhere else like in the legs.” This means that the snipers were making kill shots by design, which seems like the last thing that the Ukrainian government would want to do when it was trying to appease the protesters and bring calm to Kiev. The Ukrainian journalist Alexey Yaroshevsky’s account of the sniper shootings is also worth noting, and it is backed up by footage taken by his Russian crew in Kiev.  Their footage shows armed opposition members running away from the scene of the shooting of anti-government protesters. What comes across as unusual is that the armed members of the opposition were constantly agitating to start firefights at every opportunity that they could get.

The commandant of the SSU, Major-General Oleksandr Yakimenko, has testified that his counter-intelligence forces were monitoring the CIA in Ukraine during the protests. According to the SSU, the CIA was active on the ground in Kiev and collaborating with a small circle of opposition figures. Yakimenko has also said that it was not the police or government forces that fired on the protesters, but snipers from the Philharmonic Building that was controlled by the opposition leader Andriy Parubiy, which he asserts was interacting with the CIA. Speaking to the Russian media, Yakimenko said that 20 men wearing “special combat clothes” and carrying “sniper rifle cases, as well as AKMs with scopes” ran out of the opposition-controlled Philharmonic Building and split into two groups of 10 people, with one taking position at the Ukraine Hotel. The anti-government protesters even saw this and asked Ukrainian police to pursue them, and even figures from Right Sector and Svoboda asked Yakimenko’s SSU to investigate and apprehend them, but Parubiy prevented it. Major-General Yakimenko has categorically stated that opposition leaders were behind the shootings. Following the release of the conversation between Paet and Ashton, the Estonian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the leak was authentic, whereas the European Commission kept silent. The mainstream media in North America and the EU either ignored it or said very little. The Telegraph even claimed that Dr. Bogomolets told it that she had not treated any government forces even though she contradicts this directly in an interview with CNN where says she treated military personnel.

CNN, on the other hand, quickly glossed over the story, giving it only enough attention to create the impression that the network is fairly covering the news. Opting not to give the story the airtime that it deserved, CNN instead posted it on its webpage. The conversation is immediately discredited, undermined and dismissed in the first sentence of the article, which is attributed to Foreign Minister Paet: “Don’t read too much into the conversation.” The article was deliberately structured by CNN to undermine the important information that would challenge the narrative that the U.S. mainstream media have been painting. The title, sub-titles and opening sentences of most texts act as microcosms or summaries of the articles, and in many cases, readers evaluate or decide to read the articles on the basis of what these texts communicate. Moreover, the first sentence of the article sets the tempo for readers and and influences their opinion, too. Although anyone who listens to the conversation between Paet and Ashton and considers the evidence that is being discussed would realize just how important the news was, the message being set forth by CNN was a dismissive one.

The Iraqi president also said there was progress on a new arrangement for sharing Iraq’s oil revenues, a major source of internal grievances under Maliki. A decision has been made that each of the regions will have representation on a higher oil and gas council, Massoum said. He also expressed confidence in Iraq’s new oil minister, Adel Abdel-Mahdi. Asked whether Iraq would split into three countries—as Vice President Joe  Biden once recommended—Massoum said there might be an eventual move toward a more confederal system but “partitioning Iraq … into three independent states is a bit far-fetched, especially in the current situation.”

“Today there is no possibility to announce such a state,” Massoum, a Kurd and former prime minister of the Kurdish region, told a packed room at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “Forming a Kurdish state is a project, and a project like that has to take into account” the views of regional and other countries and the extraordinary circumstances of the current terrorist menace to Iraq. Kurdish threats to hold a referendum and declare independence were widely seen as leverage to force the resignation of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki—also under pressure from President Barack Obama’s administration, Iraqi Sunnis and Iran—stepped down to allow a less polarizing member of his Shia Dawa party, Haider al-Abadi, to take the top job.

Massoum attributed the collapse of the Iraqi army at Mosul to poor leadership, corruption and decades of setbacks starting with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980. This was followed a decade later by his invasion of Kuwait and subsequent refusal to cooperate with the international community. “These blows all had an impact on the psychology of the commanders and soldiers,” Massoum said. Iraqi armed forces have gone “from failure to failure.” The president confirmed that under the new Iraqi government, each governorate will have its own national guard made up of local people. This concept, which may be partly funded by the Saudis and other rich Gulf Arabs, is an attempt to replicate the success of the so-called sons of Iraq by motivating Sunni tribesmen to confront IS as they previously did with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Asked what would happen to Shia militias—which have committed abuses against Sunnis and helped alienate that population from Baghdad—Massoum said the militias would eventually have to be shut down but only after the IS threat had been eliminated. He did not indicate how long that might take. Massoum was also asked about reported IS plots against US and French subway systems. Abadi earlier this week made reference to such plots, but US officials said they had no such intelligence. Iraqi officials accompanying Massoum, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said Abadi had been misinterpreted and was referring only to the types of attacks IS might mount in the West.

Asked about Turkey, which has been reticent about aiding Iraq against IS, Massoum, who met at the UN this week with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he expected more help now that 49 Turkish hostages in Mosul have been freed.

“I am going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me, that they were preparing something in Syria. … This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister of Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate. Naturally, I refused, I said I am French, that does not interest me. … This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance. … Consequently, everything that moves in the region…- and I have this from a former Israeli Prime Minister who told me ´we will try to get on with our neighbors but those who don´t agree with us will be destroyed. It is a type of politics, a view of history, why not after all. But one should  know about it”. The Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL has its origin in the Unites States, the UK’s, NATO’s and Middle Eastern NATO allies’ attempt to introduce Al-Qaeda into Iraq as a pretext for the U.S.-led military presence in the country.

War For Oil – By Foreign Funded Mercenary Brigades. Details about the genesis of ISIS have been published in the nsnbc international article entitled “ISIS Unveiled: The Identity of the Insurgency in Syria and Iraq”. ISIS initially launched its assaults against Syria via Turkey and Jordan.

In 2012 the Iraqi government under the then Prime Minister al-Maliki deployed troops to Iraq’s al-Anbar province to stem up for the trafficking of weapons, munitions and fighters via old smuggling routes to Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ez-Zour province where ISIS had gained a foothold. The al-Maliki government’s initiative made it necessary to re-route much of that traffic via Jordan, where the U.S. JSOC, CIA, USAID and other organizations had established a joint command and intelligence structure with the “opposition” at the Ramtha Air Base as well as in the border town Al-Mafraq. April 22, 2013 the European Union (EU) lifted its ban on the import of Syrian oil from “rebel-held territories”. The export of Syrian oil to Turkey has since then more than doubled. In June 2014 nsnbc international’s editor-in-chief met a person from within the inner circle around the former Lebanese PM and multi-billionaire Saad Hariri. The meeting took place in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Concerned about that the war was developing into a regional war that eventually also would engulf Lebanon the whistleblower presented evidence to support his claim that the final decision to launch the invasion of Iraq with ISIS brigades was made on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council Energy Summit in Turkey on November 22 -23, 2013. He added that ISIS operations via Turkey are run via the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, involving Ambassador Riccardione.

Also in 2013, U.S. Senator John McCain met with the then Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Salim Idriss, ISIS leader al-Badri, a.k.a al-Baghdadi and Caliph Ibrahim in a safe house in the Syrian city of Idlib, near the Turkish border. In 2014 over 5,000 the fighters of the so-called “moderate opposition” groups which are supported by the United States and others would join the ranks of ISIS. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusrah are currently fighting side-by-side for control over the Damascus suburb and Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk at the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. The deployment of Swedish troops, regardless how small or symbolic the contingent is, constitutes, arguably, a crime against peace committed by Margot Wallström and Peter Hulquist as it is implausible that the two Swedish Ministers are unaware of the above mentioned information that is readily available in the public domain.

That the New Zealand government engages in precisely the mass surveillance activities Key vehemently denied is now barely in dispute. Indeed, a former director of GCSB under Key, Sir Bruce Ferguson, while denying any abuse of New Zealander’s communications, now admits that the agency engages in mass surveillance.

Meanwhile, Russel Norman, the head of the country’s Green Party, said in response to these stories that New Zealand is “committing crimes” against its neighbors in the Pacific by subjecting them to mass surveillance, and insists that the Key government broke the law because that dragnet necessarily includes the communications of New Zealand citizens when they travel in the region.

So now that it’s proven that New Zealand does exactly that which Prime Minister Key vowed would cause him to resign if it were proven, is he preparing his resignation speech? No: that’s something a political official with a minimal amount of integrity would do. Instead — even as he now refuses to say what he has repeatedly said before: that GCSB does not engage in mass surveillance — he’s simply retracting his pledge as though it were a minor irritant, something to be casually tossed aside:

When asked late last week whether New Zealanders have a right to know what their government is doing in the realm of digital surveillance, the Prime Minister said: “as a general rule, no.” And he expressly refuses to say whether New Zealand is doing that which he swore repeatedly it was not doing, as this excellent interview from Radio New Zealand sets forth: Interviewer: “Nicky Hager’s revelations late last week . . . have stoked fears that New Zealanders’ communications are being indiscriminately caught in that net. . . . The Prime Minister, John Key, has in the past promised to resign if it were found to be mass surveillance of New Zealanders . . . Earlier, Mr. Key was unable to give me an assurance that mass collection of communications from New Zealanders in the Pacific was not taking place.” PM Key: “No, I can’t. I read the transcript [of former GCSB Director Bruce Ferguson’s interview] – I didn’t hear the interview – but I read the transcript, and you know, look, there’s a variety of interpretations – I’m not going to critique–”

Interviewer: “OK, I’m not asking for a critique. Let’s listen to what Bruce Ferguson did tell us on Friday:” Ferguson: “The whole method of surveillance these days, is sort of a mass collection situation – individualized: that is mission impossible.” Interviewer: “And he repeated that several times, using the analogy of a net which scoops up all the information. . . . I’m not asking for a critique with respect to him. Can you confirm whether he is right or wrong?” Key: “Uh, well I’m not going to go and critique the guy. And I’m not going to give a view of whether he’s right or wrong” . . . . Interviewer: “So is there mass collection of personal data of New Zealand citizens in the Pacific or not?” Key: “I’m just not going to comment on where we have particular targets, except to say that where we go and collect particular information, there is always a good reason for that.”

From “I will resign if it’s shown we engage in mass surveillance of New Zealanders” to “I won’t say if we’re doing it” and “I won’t quit either way despite my prior pledges.” Listen to the whole interview: both to see the type of adversarial questioning to which U.S. political leaders are so rarely subjected, but also to see just how obfuscating Key’s answers are. The history of reporting from the Snowden archive has been one of serial dishonesty from numerous governments: such as the way European officials at first pretended to be outraged victims of NSA only for it to be revealed that, in many ways, they are active collaborators in the very system they were denouncing. But, outside of the U.S. and U.K. itself, the Key government has easily been the most dishonest over the last 20 months: one of the most shocking stories I’ve seen during this time was how the Prime Minister simultaneously plotted in secret to exploit the 2013 proposed law to implement mass surveillance at exactly the same time that he persuaded the public to support it by explicitly insisting that it would not allow mass surveillance. But overtly reneging on a public pledge to resign is a new level of political scandal. Key was just re-elected for his third term, and like any political official who stays in power too long, he has the despot’s mentality that he’s beyond all ethical norms and constraints. But by the admission of his own former GCSB chief, he has now been caught red-handed doing exactly that which he swore to the public would cause him to resign if it were proven. If nothing else, the New Zealand media ought to treat that public deception from its highest political official with the level of seriousness it deserves.

Attorney Yaakov Weinroth told Channel 2 news Tuesday that the two businessmen in question were old friends of the prime minister, and the gifts being looked into were “the smallest of trifles.” He alleged that unnamed rivals of the prime minister were lodging false complaints against him, citing as evidence the closing of four other probes into alleged financial improprieties by the prime minister. Sources close to Netanyahu have pointed out that Milchan — whose films include “Fight Club” and “Pretty Woman” — sits on the board of Channel 10, which the prime minister has previously tried to shutter. Channel 10 is also partially owned by US billionaire and World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder, who has also been questioned by police in connection with the case. Lauder, whose family founded the Estee Lauder cosmetics giant, has long been seen as an ally of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has also acknowledged receiving money from French tycoon Arnaud Mimran, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in France over a scam involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and taxes on them. The Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu received $40,000 in contributions from Mimran in 2001, when he was not in office, as part of a fund for public activities, including appearances abroad to promote Israel. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, saying repeatedly that “there will be nothing because there is nothing.”

Israel’s new culture minister is Miri Regev, who in 2012 helped incite a violent anti-African riot when she stood before a racist mob and labeled non-Jewish African asylum seekers a “cancer”, a statement that 52 percent of Israeli Jews agreed with. Regev later apologized, not to Africans but to cancer survivors for likening them to Black people.  Israel’s new deputy defense minister is Eli Ben-Dahan, who proudly proclaimed, “[Palestinians] are beasts, they are not human,” and, “A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.” Citing a combination of religious text and the writings of far rightwing Israeli figures, Israel’s new deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely asserted Jewish ownership over all of historic Palestine, declaring, “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologize for that.” 

Earlier this month, Moshe Yaalon, who will continue to serve as Israel’s defense minister in Netanyahu’s new governing coalition, threatened to nuke Iran and promised to kill civilians, including children, in any future conflict with Lebanon or Gaza.  Unlike Obama’s hollow threats, this is not empty rhetoric. We saw this incitement play out last summer, from the burning of Muhammad Abu Khudair by Jewish extremists and “death to Arabs” mobs hunting Palestinians in the streets of Jerusalem, to the sadistic conduct and eliminationist chauvinism exhibited by Israel’s military in Gaza. With Israeli Jewish society submerged in anti-Palestinian racism from the top down, the Obama administration has guaranteed Israel’s capacity to carry out its most destructive ambitions. 

With respect to Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, I think it's important to understand that the issue here is not what I believe, but it’s what the Palestinians and the parties in the negotiations and the Israeli people believe is possible.  That's the most important issue.  I've said before and I'll simply repeat:  Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the election run-up, stated that a Palestinian state would not occur while he was Prime Minister.  And I took him at his word that that's what he meant, and I think that a lot of voters inside of Israel understood him to be saying that fairly unequivocally. Afterwards, he pointed out that he didn’t say “never,” but that there would be a series of conditions in which a Palestinian state could potentially be created.  But, of course, the conditions were such that they would be impossible to meet anytime soon.  So even if you accepted, I think, the corrective of Prime Minister Netanyahu in subsequent days, there still does not appear to be a prospect of a meaningful framework established that would lead to a Palestinian state even if there were a whole range of conditions and security requirements that might be phased in over a long period of time -- which was always the presumption. 

Number two, that the evaluation that’s taking place is specific to what happens between the Israelis and Palestinians going forward.  We’ll continue to engage the Israeli government as well as the Palestinians, and ask them where they are interested in going and how do they see this issue being resolved.  But what we can’t do is pretend that there’s a possibility of something that’s not there.  And we can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows is not going to happen at least in the next several years.  That is something that we have to, for the sake of our own credibility, I think we have to be able to be honest about that. And I guess one last point about this, because obviously I’ve heard a lot of the commentary -- there’s a tendency I think in the reporting here to frame this somehow as a personal issue between myself and Prime Minister Netanyahu.  And I understand why that’s done, because when you frame it in those terms, the notion is, well, if we all just get along and everybody cools down, then somehow the problem goes away.  I have a very business-like relationship with the Prime Minister.  I’ve met with him more than any other world leader.  I talk to him all the time.  He is representing his country’s interests the way he thinks he needs to, and I’m doing the same.

So the issue is not a matter of relations between leaders; the issue is a very clear, substantive challenge.  We believe that two states is the best path forward for Israel’s security, for Palestinian aspirations, and for regional stability.  That’s our view, and that continues to be our view.  And Prime Minister Netanyahu has a different approach.  And so this can’t be reduced to a matter of somehow let’s all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.”  This is a matter of figuring out how do we get through a real knotty policy difference that has great consequences for both countries and for the region. Q    Will you consider supporting Palestinian statehood at the U.N.? PRESIDENT OBAMA:  We’re going to do that evaluation -- we’re going to partly wait for an actual Israeli government to form.

Yossi Cohen was appointed head of the Mossad a year ago, after a government vetting committee accepted that he had no personal ties to Netanyahu. But Cohen forgot to mention that he is extremely close to Netanyahu’s high-flying friends – connections that are now under investigation. Milchan set up a global security firm in 2008 called Blue Sky International, stuffed with Israeli security veterans. Packer soon became a partner. They developed close ties to Cohen, first while he was a senior official at the Mossad and later when he headed Israel’s national security council. Before Cohen was appointed head of Mossad in December 2015, the pair had hoped to recruit him to their cyber-security operations. Cohen received several gifts from Packer, in violation of Israeli government rules, including a stay at one of his luxury hotels. A source speaking to Haaretz said Blue Sky had “more than [a] direct line” to Netanyahu. They “would pull him out from anywhere, at any time, on any occasion.” According to Haaretz’s military analyst, Amir Oren, the new disclosures raise serious questions about whether Milchan and Packer twisted Netanyahu’s arm to parachute Cohen into the post over the favored candidate. In return, Packer may have been hoping that Cohen would authorise exceptional Israeli residency for him, classifying him as a security asset.

From Hollywood to Mossad Cases 1000 and 2000 share at least one figure in common. Milchan gave Netanyahu extravagant gifts over many years, but he is also reported to have acted as go-between, bringing arch-enemies Netanyahu and Mozes together. Milchan has his own financial stake in the media, in his case a holding in the Channel 10 TV station. In addition, Milchan introduced Netanyahu to sympathetic businessmen, including his friend Packer, to discuss taking the ailing Yedioth media group off Mozes’ hands. Only last October he arranged for media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, to fly to Israel for one night for a secret meeting with Netanyahu. Milchan is undoubtedly at the centre of the shadowy world of power and finance that corrupts public life in Israel. Not only is Milchan a highly influential Hollywood figure, having produced more than 100 films, but he has admitted that he is a former Mossad agent. He used his Hollywood connections to help make arms deals and secure parts for Israel’s nuclear weapons program. One can only wonder whether Milchan was not effectively set up in his Hollywood career as a cover for his Mossad activities. But Milchan, it seems, is still wielding influence in Israel’s twilight world of security.

eyond this, one one can only speculate about how Cohen’s indebtedness to Milchan, Packer and Netanyahu might have influenced his decisions as head of the Mossad. It was only a few years ago that the former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, was reported to have wrestled furiously with Netanyahu to stop him launching a military strike on Iran. Prosecution drags feet It is unclear for the time being whether the revelations are drawing to a close or will lead deeper into Israel’s twin netherworlds of financial corruption and security. But what has emerged so far should be enough to finish off Netanyahu as prime minister. Whether it does so may depend on the extent of Israel’s compromised legal system. Attorney general Avichai Mendelblit was appointed by Netanyahu and is a political ally. He appears to have been dragging his feet as much as possible to slow down the police investigation, if not sabotage it. But the weight of evidence is looking like it may prove too overwhelming. As political analyst Yossi Verter observed: “There’s no way that a police commissioner … appointed [by Netanyahu] and a cautious attorney general, who in the past was part of his close circle and one of his loyalists, would be putting him through the seven circles of hell if they weren’t convinced that there’s a solid basis for indictment and conviction.” The next question for Netanyahu is whether he will step down if indicted. He should, if Olmert’s example is followed. But his officials are citing a 1993 high court ruling that allows a cabinet minister under indictment to remain in office. Certainly if Netanyahu chooses to stay on, his decision would be appealed to the court again. However, the judges may be reluctant to oust a sitting prime minister. The court of public opinion is likely to be decisive in that regard. A recent poll shows few Israelis believe Netanyahu is innocent of the allegations. Some 54 per cent think he broke the law, while only 28 believe him. Opinion, however, is split evenly on whether he should resign.

If past experience is any measure, Netanyahu will try to turn public opinion his way by increasing friction with the Palestinians and exploiting the international arena, especially his relations with the Trump administration. He may be expected to encourage Trump at the very least to posture more stridently against Iran. Nonetheless, most observers assume Netanyahu is doomed – it is simply a matter of when. The odds are on an indictment in late spring, followed by elections in the fall, say Israeli analysts. At this stage, none of his political rivals wants to be seen stabbing Netanyahu in the back. Most are keeping quiet. But behind the scenes, political leaders are hurrying to forge new alliances and extract political concessions while Netanyahu is wounded.

Who might succeed Netanyahu? Yair Lapid, of the centre-right Yesh Atid, is heading the polls, but that may in part reflect the disarray in Netanyahu’s Likud party. In a sign of where the deeper currents in Israeli society are leading, a Maariv poll last week showed that settler leader Naftali Bennett would win an election if he were to head the Likud. Netanyahu now needs the help of all the powerful friends he can muster. His biggest ally, U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, may not be among them. After the revelations that Netanyahu was conspiring against him with Mozes, Adelson has cut back on Israel Hayom’s circulation and is reported to be offering less favorable coverage of the Netanyahus. That could prove the final straw, sealing Netanyahu’s fate.

At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu expressed outrage that under the terms of the emerging deal, “not a single centrifuge would be dismantled, not one.” Israel believes the imminent deal will leave Iran with uranium enrichment capabilities, and thus enable it to become a nuclear breakout state at a time of its choosing. Secretary of State John Kerry hit back at Netanyahu on Sunday, declaring, “I’m not sure that the prime minister, who I have great respect for, knows exactly what the amount or the terms are going to be because we haven’t arrived at them all yet. That’s what we’re negotiating.”

After the talks broke up in Geneva after midnight Saturday, Kerry complained about critics who were “jumping to conclusions” about the terms of the accord on the basis of “rumors or other parcels of information that somebody pretends to know.” Netanyahu on Friday publicly pleaded with Kerry not to rush to sign what he called a “very, very bad deal.”

Asked to explain what zero tolerance means, and what is being done to enforce it, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney replied, four days later, with a detailed list of Canada’s updated hate laws, noting that Canada has one of the most comprehensive sets of such laws “anywhere in the world.”

As I’ve argued many times — most comprehensively here — all applications of hate speech laws are inherently tyrannical, dangerous and wrong, and it’s truly mystifying (and scary) that people convince themselves that their judgment is so unerring and their beliefs so sacrosanct that it should be illegal to question or dissent from them. But independent of that, what we see here again is the utter foolishness of endorsing such laws on pragmatic grounds: they will inevitably be used against not just the ideas you hate but the ones you like, and when that happens, if you cheered when such laws were used to suppress the ideas you hate, then you will have no valid ground to object.

UPDATE: Various Israel devotees such as David Frum spent the morning insisting the CBC story is false, and now the Canadian government has followed suit, issuing a statement denouncing it. Unfortunately for them, the full email exchange between the CBC reporter, Neil Macdonald, and a spokesman for the Public Safety Department can be read here, and it proves that the CBC story is 100% accurate.