Binyamin Netanyahu is Sheldon Adelson's puppet

Adelson and Netanyahu

There is a lot of talk about Binyamin Netanyahu these days, but Bibi is just a figurehead, the real operator in this whole story is the American casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who is going about proving beyond any reasonable doubt (if anybody still doubted it) that the American political system is for sale. In fact, he has been doing the same thing in Israel.

Since in his mind, Israel and the USA seem to be of one flesh, it might be interesting to visit Sheldon Adelson's view of democracy in Israel:

“I don’t think the Bible says anything about democracy. I think God didn’t say anything about democracy,” Adelson said. “God talked about all the good things in life. He didn’t talk about Israel remaining as a democratic state, otherwise Israel isn’t going to be a democratic state — so what?” The Jewish Daily Forward

What does Adelson's money buy for Israel in Washington? Nothing but the best.

Among foreign leaders, nobody has been invited to address Congress more often than Netanyahu. He now stands equal at the top of the table along with Winston Churchill. Behind Netanyahu trail Nelson Mandela and Yitzhak Rabin. That’s a pretty devastating commentary on the state of contemporary American political culture and the very notion of leadership. Roger Cohen - New York Times

The results of Adelson's meddling could have disastrous results for both Israel and the USA and many Israelis are fully aware of this and very disturbed by the prospect and so are many American Jewish people too.

If anyone ever decides to make a movie of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' the opening scene is already done. An Israeli prime minister bewitching hundreds of American Congress members who cheer him on as if he is their Caesar and they are his legions; a few short miles away, meanwhile, the leader of the free world and sole superpower sits in the White House, helplessly seething, pretending to be otherwise engaged, while his aides studiously ignore his very public humiliation.(...) They see a brash Jewish leader, backed by battalions of loyal AIPAC lobbyists and one casino magnate with billions of dollars to spare, thumbing his nose at the U.S. president and openly trying to derail his efforts to achieve a nuclear deal with Tehran, which most of the world supports. Netanyahu’s success, the conventional wisdom goes, could ultimately lead to war.  (...) And if the U.S. and Iran find themselves in an escalating conflict that leads to armed confrontation, Netanyahu, Israel and the Jewish people will find themselves in the dock, cast in a central role in a new chapter in the Protocols of the elders of Zion, but one which will be much harder to refute. As a student of Jewish history, this seems to be Netanyahu’s most reckless gamble of all.  Chemi Shalev - Haaretz

Iran may or may not be the existential threat to Israel that Netanyahu insists it is. But a lessening of U.S. support for Israel certainly would be. With an indifferent America, Israel would become a lonely, frightening place. Its chief export would not be high tech, but people looking to get out — Jews once more on the go. This is hardly the settlements policy that Netanyahu intends. Richard Cohen - Washington Post

Alas, Bibi is Churchill when it comes to isolating Iran, but he is AWOL when it comes to risking his own political future to make it happen. I have a problem with that. I still don’t know if I will support this Iran deal, but I also have a problem with my own Congress howling in support of a flawed foreign leader trying to scuttle the negotiations by my own government before they’re done. Rubs me the wrong way. Thomas Friedman - New York Times

How are Adelson's obsessions, vanity and dollars potentially more even harmful than, say, the Koch brothers' obsessions, vanity and dollars?

The answer is ISIS.

Everything is building up to this: ISIS's greatest wish is too draw the US armed forces back into a ground war in the Middle East. The ISIS is mobilizing, radicalizing and even more important, giving military training to hundreds of citizens of the European Union (who can enter the USA without a visa) and dozens of American citizens too. This means that within months, weeks, days, hours, anyone of these men or women could walk into a shopping mall  or Wal-Mart in the deepest flyover America and blow him or herself up, along with dozens of peaceful shoppers... And there might be several such instances in the space of a few hours in different regions. It is not difficult to imagine the ensuing paranoia, rage and hostility. 

Hysteria is modern America's default reaction to almost anything, it is hard to imagine how a series of well executed suicide bombings would play out and what lasting effect they might have on American life and institutions... any country seen to have brought it on in any way might face the full force of all the hysterical, paranoia, rage and hostility that might be out of control for quite some time.

Obviously in any US ground war against ISIS, any Israeli intervention against the jihadis would be worse than useless, just as it would have been in the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq. If Israel intervened militarily to help the USA kill Sunni Muslims, it would instantly turn the ISIS into heroes for most of the world's Sunni Muslims. The only country that could reliably help the USA with the heavy lifting would be, (some say already is) Shiite Iran.

Sheldon Adelson and his puppet Netanyahu are simply playing with fire. DS