‘Vindicator only of her own’

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On the 15th day of Donald Trump’s second term as US President, he welcomed the first foreign leader to the White House; no real surprise that it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a short welcoming fireside chat in the Oval Office, the Israeli PM sat with a gleefully smug smirk on his face, looking like the cat who ate the canary, as President Trump answered a few questions that the media were screaming at him.

Here were two politicians with dreadful reputations of being loose with the truth. In spite of his media platform being Truth Social, President Trump has been documented for years as frequently and extremely exaggerating facts and figures, while those around him sometimes explained what he had said were ‘alternate facts’. The Israeli PM has frequently had members of his own coalition lambaste him in the media. Jerusalem Post carried headlines that a Knesset member of the far-right Yisrael Beytenu party declared that he was a “ traitor, liar and cheater”; Haaretz carried a column titled ‘Netanyahu : Israel’s Leading Pathological Liar’; Times of Israel quoted Bob Woodward’s latest book War in which he wrote that Joe Biden, a deeply-religious Catholic, had called Netanyahu a “f***ng liar”, among other things. Bearing their mutual aversion to veracity in mind, it would have been nice to have been a fly on the wall during their relatively short closed-door meeting.

When they emerged for a press conference, President Trump nonchalantly announced that the US would take over the Gaza Strip, which he described as a “Demolition Zone” where US troops would clear unexploded munitions, etc.. After being levelled, Gaza would be entirely rebuilt into a “riviera of the Middle East’. PM Netanyahu said the plan is worth paying attention to, but everyone in the gobsmacked press corps wanted to know what was the plan for the current two million residents.

President Trump seemed to think he could cajole neighbouring states to accommodate the Palestinians, and it makes one wonder how many more land developments are on the former real estate tycoon’s mind ? Amid all this highly-entertaining lunacy, maybe it’s time to recall what the 6th US president said about 200 years ago. Before his inauguration in 1825, John Quincy Adams had never been a real estate developer, but had been a Congressman; a Senator; an Ambassador to England, Russia, Prussia and Holland. Also as Secretary of State on Independence Day in 1821, he famously said : America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own”.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada