After years flouting international law and violently repressing his Palestinian neighbors, it seems Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally found his soul mate in the form of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, the chairman of Israel’s rightwing Likud party has been showering the US’s new commander-in-chief with golden praise since the inauguration, littering his twitter account with US flag emojis and hailing an age of unprecedented US-Israeli cooperation.
But Netanyahu’s servile attitude toward our baby-fingered Mussolini-in-the-making backfired very quickly when he threw his support behind Trump’s border wall with one shamelessly self-congratulatory tweet.
Indeed, Bibi seems to have forgotten that Mexico is home to one of the most significant Jewish populations in the Americas, and they were none too happy about Netanyahu throwing his weight behind Trump’s xenophobic delusions. In a press release circling around social media, representatives of Mexico’s Jewish community affirmed their support of President Peña Nieto’s stance, stating: “We are not in agreement with [Netanyahu’s] point of view, and we firmly reject his position.”
Mexico’s government reacted even more strongly, with foreign minister Luis Videgaray demanding an apology and insisting that Netanyahu’s declaration “felt like an act of aggression.” Attending a Holocaust memorial event in Mexico City that same day, Videgaray insisted on the importance of remembering the holocaust in the context of the growing global tendency toward racism and division. Additionally, a meeting was called with Israeli ambassador to Mexico Jonathan Peled, where many expect representatives of Mexico’s foreign ministry to chastise the ambassador.
For their part, Netanyahu and his lackeys have taken to playing dumb; claiming the tweet merely spoke to the success of Israel’s own border wall, without taking any stance on US-Mexico relations. To boot – and in case anyone doubted Netanyahu’s paranoid narcissist bona fides – Bibi has blamed the misunderstanding on an unprecedented Bolshevik media conspiracy against him. How do you say “alternative facts” in Hebrew?
In any event, between Bolsheviks and border walls, you know the world has gone mad when Mexico’s repressive and dictatorial Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) suddenly seems like a beacon of tolerance and reason.