Everyone Hates Netanyahu

Remember last week when I described how Netanyahu inserted his foot fully into his mouth with that whole Biden thing? Well, now clean-up is happening.

Firstly, yesterday, Bibi was apparently trying to explain that he handled the situation with Biden:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he thought his apology to Joe Biden over the ill-timed announcement of east Jerusalem construction was sufficient and believed the matter was closed.

This he says the same day he was "harshly reprimanded" on the phone by Sec. State Clinton. She expressed this sentiment herself:

In an interview with CNN, Friday Secretary of State Clinton said the move was "insulting" to the US.

"We have to make clear to our Israeli friends and partner that the two-state solution which we support, which the prime minister himself said he supports, requires confidence-building measures on both sides," she said.

And then today, when Netanyahu sees that everyone is still talking about it, he tries again:

"We opened the newspapers today and read all kinds of commentaries and estimates about the crisis with the United States. I suggest that we avoid getting carried away and calm down."

But the fact that he, himself, called it a "crisis" belies his message. In any case, the more interesting question to some will be whether Netanyahu really didn't know that the Interior Ministry would make the announcement on the same day as Biden's visit. My sources say no, that in fact, Israel really is that disorganized. But Netanyahu intends to remedy that:

Netanyahu on Saturday decided to form a committee comprising senior officials in the aims of preventing such mishaps.


The new committee will be responsible for establishing procedural guidelines to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents in the future.

Basically, everyone is mad at Netanyahu. Also, the word "crisis" was used exactly seven times in this one article.