It’s been a bad week for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on two fronts, as gambles he took last week blew up in his face.
In the North, an escalation with Hezbollah has left two Israeli soldiers dead. Middle East analyst and JPost contributor Yossi Melman argues that the escalations, which were a response to Israel’s alleged strike on Hezbollah targets in Syria last week, have not achieved worthwhile security goals, and elicited an unnecessary incident. Did Netanyahu misstep?
Then, we turn to US-Israel relations. Last week, Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican John Boehner to speak before Congress on Iran sanctions, a move that was seen as an attempt to undermine US President Barack Obama. Washington Bureau Chief Michael Wilner explains how the kerfuffle helped postpone the very sanctions bill Netanyahu endorsed. That, however, may only be a taste of things to come if a so-called bad deal goes through. Would Bibi have done better by playing nice with Obama?