Haaretz is left-of-centre, but far from the only Israeli paper hashing out how to get rid of Netanyahu. This summary presents the problem for the West as one that can be solved by treating him like Putin, for reasons described below. The one thing the columnist missed is that Harris has *already* been given diplomatic roles to signal US keenness to work with someone else.
But locals have to throw off their far-right nightmare first. And soon.
@MLClark The problem can only be solved by Israeli electors. Israel is becoming the sort of country it once despised.
I'm guessing you didn't read the piece before concurring with the last part I mentioned; the point made here is that many locals still think of Netanyahu as someone with legitimacy on the world stage, even if they despise him. Without directly interfering in another country's elections, outside leaders can go a long way to disabusing locals of that notion by refusing to treat him with the same level of legitimacy.
(Colombia, Brazil, & Mexico are doing similar with Maduro right now.)
@MLClark I agree with the premise of the article, but ultimately it doesn't matter what I think. The electorate in Israel has to wise up.
Netanyahu's visit to Donald Trump should have been a powerful indication of his pathology, but a lot of Israelis probably saw that simply as smart statecraft.
I would like to see Netanyahu treated as a pariah by more countries, but I suspect that Israel engages in nuclear blackmail these days.
Israel is tacitly another nuclear power, even though (along with not agreeing to all four Geneva Conventions, and for this reason refusing to be party to the ICC) it is also not party to the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does not accept some key IAEA safety checks for local relevant production.
This status quo allows Israel to hold in reserve a disastrous nuclear option, which Westerners keep in mind when engaging in diplomacy with its wartime leaders.
@MLClark @hallmarc Israel avoids checks and balances by refusing to officially confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons.
In reality, everybody knows that it possesses them. There are enough breadcrumb trails beginning in the 1960s to prove that.