Key target is Israel, not Netanyahu

There is no world leader more hated by bien-pensant, liberals in America and Europe than Prime Minister Netanyahu. Whereas once the bile was directed at former U.S. president George W. Bush—for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, for identifying radical Islam in both its Shi’a and Sunni variations as an existential threat, and for backing Israel — it’s now largely focused on Netanyahu, an alleged “racist” and “war criminal” who just happens to have won a resounding vote of confidence from the Israeli electorate on Tuesday.

Two New York Times editorials speak to my point rather elegantly. The first, published on March 13, asked whether Turkey could still be considered a reliable North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally — concluding, based on the Ankara government’s stance towards international crises from the Islamic State insurgency to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that it can’t. But while the substance of the editorial was basically correct, notable was the lack of any ad hominem attack on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Increasingly authoritarian” was the best the New York Times could manage when it came to describing this boorish thug, who rejoices in conspiracy theories, baits his country’s declining Jewish population even as he assures them that they are safe, and imprisons journalists with the devil-may-care attitude only a dictator can enjoy.