On Tuesday’s CBS This Morning, the panel completely downplayed President Obama’s actions to withdraw support for Israel during a recent United Nations vote. On top of that, CBS went out of their way to bash Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and report uncritically on President Obama’s controversial decision.
Anchor Margaret Brennan began the panel discussion by asking her left-wing guest, Ian Bremmer, if Netanyahu was overreacting to the UN vote condemning Israel for humanitarian violations. Bremmer, founder of leftist organization Eurasia, an international political risk consulting company, took the bait, calling out Netanyahu’s “manufactured anger” at the “pretty weak” move.
MARGARET BRENNAN: [I] think furious is the right word. Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to Twitter. He has spoken out strongly against this. If it's simply a symbolic vote what is he so angry about?
IAN BREMMER: Well, it’s a lot of manufactured anger. Netanyahu is a lot less popular now in Israel now than he was a couple years ago during the last election. Also, the majority and the connection with the Israeli parliament right now is literally one seat. So this is a way to manufacture outrage at the international community. He's a patriot standing up against all of these other countries. He's the one that can defend Israeli patriotism. No question, that's useful for him at home right now. But for, you know, in response to a vote taken against Israel, with Obama abstaining literally four weeks before Trump comes in and undoes it all, it's pretty weak from the United States.
Brennan pointed out Netanyahu was going to “continue building settlements despite” Obama’s disapproval, adding later that the President took the settlement building “personally.” Bremmer agreed, pointing out that Netanyahu “embarrassed” Obama and he was “not going to forget that either.”
BREMMER: [A]nd there's no question, remember, when Biden made his trip to Israel, literally on the day -- I think you were there, actually. I remember you reporting about this at the time. That they decided to announce there was going to be new settlements on the day. What an embarrassment to the United States. And Obama is not going to forget that either.
CBS again came to Obama’s defense, arguing that Netanyahu essentially had no legs to stand on because “the rest of the world” was against Israel so he should just be happy that the U.S. didn’t join in the vote against Israel.
BREMMER: The fact that we decided to abstain when the rest of the world is for this resolution after Obama works out with Netanyahu a $38 billion defense deal for ten years, the biggest the U.S. has ever given to any country, there's no question this is being overhyped.
