Soccer Dad

Bibi tete a tete meme

In what has to be one of the highlights of my blogging career, I was invited by Rick Richman of Jewish Current Issues to participate in a conference call with Binyamin Netanyahu yesterday along with seven other bloggers. It was an honor to be included with the likes of Ed Lasky of the American Thinker, Pamela of Atlas Shrugs, Anne Lieberman of Boker Tov Boulder, Lynn of In Context, Rick, Omri of Mere Rhetoric, and Paul Mirengoff of Power Line.

I'm a little late to the party, in that they've all already posted their impressions of the interview. Atlas Shrugs has a complete transcript of the interview. Mere Rhetoric reviews what Netanyahu said topically. There are other summaries by the American Thinker, Boker Tov Boulder, In Context, Jewish Current Issues, and PowerLine. Jewish Current Issues also links to a recent interview Netanyahu had with Ari Shavit.

There's not much to add in terms of content, the other bloggers have covered the interview very well.

Netanyahu was very forthcoming about the Iranian threat. He decribed the current war (the ceasefire being an "interlude" in that war) as the first salvo against the West. Hamas and Hezbollah are the southern and northern "tentacles" of Iran that is engaging Israel as it seeks to gain a nuclear capability.

He expressed his confidence in President Bush not to let Israel (and the West) down.

Though Netanyahu was given opportunities to criticize the government, he held his tongue. When Rick asked him about the possibility of a unity government he answered that that was something that would have to come from the Prime Minister. (I had not realized at the time that Netanyahu had been approached by a member of the opposition about such a possibility but that he had rejected the idea.)

While Netanyahu appears to realize that this may be his moment or that his moment is about to arrive, he does not want to appear too eager take advantage. Or at least not openly.

Since the other bloggers were taking advantage of talking to a newsmaker about current events, I felt a little funny asking a more general question. I asked (from Atlas Shrugs)

Thank you very much for talking with us. I have a more general question, and that is as in the past you've been an excellent spokesman for Israel, we're trying to do that in our own little way, and four things that I can think of that we can focus on. I was wondering, which ones do you feel are the most important. Are we best off arguing for Israel's legitimacy, or fighting media bias, or emphasizing Israel's alliance with the United States, or finally, number four, emphasizing Israel's contributions to the world such as in science and medicine. Which one of these do you think are the best areas for us to be focusing on, for us to be defending Israel?

I was surpised that without hesitating he said #3, emphasizing the alliance between Israel and the United States. Given that he'd written a book A Place Among Nations, I figured his answer would have been defending Israel's legitimacy.

But his answer was in line with his opening statement and the theme he returned to several times during the interview, that the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, is just the first battle in Iran's war against the West.

Netanyahu's warnings about Iran sounded familiar. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Gen. Moshe Yaalon who also focused on the Iranian threat and also described the war as being the first military encounter between Iran and the West.

Gen. Yaalon should be completing his fellowship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy soon and returning to Israel. I was very tempted to ask Netanyahu if he had been in contact with Yaalon about the general's political future. (I don't see Gen Yaalon as a politician, that doesn't mean he won't get involved.) I'm glad I didn't as Netanyahu wouldn't have answered that.

What I am convinced of is that what Netanyahu and Yaalon state about the Iranian threat is based on more information than we are privy to. For all those media outlets now currently trumpeting Hezbollah's success, few are emphasizing that Hezbollah was a well armed and trained unit of the Iranian army. They see (and celebrate) Hezbollah's fight against Israel as David against Goliath, when, in fact Israel remains the David and the Goliath is the Islamist threat to Israel (and the West) emanating from Iran.

Thanks again to Rickfor including me in the call. Thanks to Netanyahu and his staff for making the time for us.

Technorati tags: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Iran.