Palestinians banned from riding same buses as Israelis: official

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The head of FIFA has already explicitly said there are no grounds to suspend Israel - something they didn't even consider doing to Iran when they butchered hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets and hung gay teenagers - so any further action on that front will only discredit FIFA, much like "Zionism is Racism" discredited the UN.

As for the actual article - asshole proposes bad policy, government looks into it and doesn't put it into effect.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This entire thing is sketchy as hell. An anonymous official in the Defense department announces this policy, claiming to have the agreement of the Defense minister, only for the Prime Minister to come out only hours later and announce "No, this isn't happening"?

I hope Israel is investigating exactly what happened here. There's a couple of options, neither of which really make the government look like they have a handle on things.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The head of FIFA has already explicitly said there are no grounds to suspend Israel - something they didn't even consider doing to Iran when they butchered hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets and hung gay teenagers - so any further action on that front will only discredit FIFA, much like "Zionism is Racism" discredited the UN.

It isn't really Blatter's call, though.

Yep, it's mob rule.

Guess we'll see how much rank hypocrisy they want to embrace.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The head of FIFA has already explicitly said there are no grounds to suspend Israel - something they didn't even consider doing to Iran when they butchered hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets and hung gay teenagers - so any further action on that front will only discredit FIFA, much like "Zionism is Racism" discredited the UN.

As for the actual article - asshole proposes bad policy, government looks into it and doesn't put it into effect.

The asshole happens to be the Defense Minister. Happy, at least, you are willing to acknowledge he is an asshole.

Yeah, at first it was just "anonymous official", but if the Defense Minister is responsible, that's a more serious issue.

Still, Netanyahu determines policy, not him. And Netanyahu is a smart man who wouldn't sign on to something like this.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The head of FIFA has already explicitly said there are no grounds to suspend Israel - something they didn't even consider doing to Iran when they butchered hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets and hung gay teenagers - so any further action on that front will only discredit FIFA, much like "Zionism is Racism" discredited the UN.

As for the actual article - asshole proposes bad policy, government looks into it and doesn't put it into effect.

The asshole happens to be the Defense Minister. Happy, at least, you are willing to acknowledge he is an asshole.

Yeah, at first it was just "anonymous official", but if the Defense Minister is responsible, that's a more serious issue.

Still, Netanyahu determines policy, not him. And Netanyahu is a smart man who wouldn't sign on to something like this.

And Netanyahu has just appointed this asshole to the Defense post.  BTW, that is the position from which the asshole in question has nearly absolute control over the lives of Palestinians in the territories (unless the PM is willing to step in, of course). BTW, from what we know, on any "assholeness" measure one can think of, this guy is well under the median in the present government. Which Mr. Netanyahu-the-adult has just appointed.

Not really any argument with this, but as this showed, Netanyahu is willing to step in when he goes over the line.

If this policy goes into effect at any point, that's a different discussion, but that's not the case now.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The head of FIFA has already explicitly said there are no grounds to suspend Israel - something they didn't even consider doing to Iran when they butchered hundreds of peaceful protestors in the streets and hung gay teenagers - so any further action on that front will only discredit FIFA, much like "Zionism is Racism" discredited the UN.

As for the actual article - asshole proposes bad policy, government looks into it and doesn't put it into effect.

The asshole happens to be the Defense Minister. Happy, at least, you are willing to acknowledge he is an asshole.

Yeah, at first it was just "anonymous official", but if the Defense Minister is responsible, that's a more serious issue.

Still, Netanyahu determines policy, not him. And Netanyahu is a smart man who wouldn't sign on to something like this.

And Netanyahu has just appointed this asshole to the Defense post.  BTW, that is the position from which the asshole in question has nearly absolute control over the lives of Palestinians in the territories (unless the PM is willing to step in, of course). BTW, from what we know, on any "assholeness" measure one can think of, this guy is well under the median in the present government. Which Mr. Netanyahu-the-adult has just appointed.

Not really any argument with this, but as this showed, Netanyahu is willing to step in when he goes over the line.

If this policy goes into effect at any point, that's a different discussion, but that's not the case now.

I am just reminding you, that Netanyahu CHOSE this guy to be the person who controls pretty much every aspect of day-to-day live of every single Palestinian in a big chunk of the West Bank (Zones C and B). Are you expecting to even hear of every outrage that is being done there?

Yes, Mr. Netanyahu will interfere when things become a public scandal. But he, obviously, intends everything else to go through. And, as long as you do not hear about it, you will sleep sound thinking Netanyahu is a nice guy.

Given the total focus the global media has on Israeli misdeeds, I have little doubt that we'll hear of every significant change in this vein, so if public scandals are what needed, they'll happen.

It's really more than I think Netanyahu is a savvy politician who knows that Obama is looking for anything to make it politically acceptable for him to drop the hammer on Israel.