<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div><span><p class="ydp3c546648date">Tuesday, May 15, 2018</p>
<p>
For Bibi Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister save only
founding father David Ben-Gurion, it has been a week of triumph.
</p>
<p>
Last Tuesday, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the
Iran nuclear deal as Bibi had demanded. Thursday, after Iran launched
20 missiles at the Golan Heights, Bibi answered with a 70-missile attack
on Iran in Syria.
</p>
<p>
"If it rains on us, it will storm on them. I hope we have finished the
episode," Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, boasting that
Israel's raids hit "nearly all Iranian infrastructure in Syria."
</p>
<p>
The day before, Bibi was in Moscow, persuading Vladimir Putin to cancel
the sale of Russia's S-300 air defense system to Damascus.
</p>
<p>
Yesterday, in an event televised worldwide, the U.S. embassy was
transferred to Jerusalem, with Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law
Jared Kushner doing the honors in what Bibi called a "glorious day." Few
can recall a time when Israel seemed in so favorable a position.
</p>
<p>
The White House and the Republican Party that controls Congress are
solidly behind Israel. Egypt is cooperating to battle terrorists in
Sinai.
</p>
<p>
Israel has a de facto alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf royals.
And the Palestinians have never been more divided, isolated and alone.
</p>
<p>
Yet, there is another side to this story, also visible this last week.
</p>
<p>
As the transfer ceremony of the Jerusalem embassy was taking place, TV
split screens showed pictures of protesting Palestinians, 52 of whom
were shot dead Monday, with thousands wounded by snipers. Some 40,000
had rallied against the U.S. embassy move.
</p>
<p>
Even before Monday's body count, the Gaza Health Ministry said that,
over the previous six Fridays of "March of Return" protests, 49
Palestinians had been killed and 2,240 hit by live fire from Israeli
troops.
</p>
<p>
Those dead and wounded Palestinians are not likely to be forgotten in
Gaza. And while Israel has never had so many Arab regimes willing to
work with her in pushing back against Iran, Arab League Chief Ahmed
Aboul Gheit called the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem, a "clear
violation of international law."
</p>
<p>
Gheit added: "The fall of Palestinian martyrs by the bullets of the
Israeli occupation must ring an alarm ... bell to any state that does
not find anything wrong with the immoral and illegal stance that we are
watching."
</p>
<p>
Last week, Hezbollah, which arose in resistance to the 1982 Israeli
occupation of Lebanon, and expelled the Israeli army 18 years later, won
Lebanon's elections. A Hezbollah-backed coalition will likely form the
new government in Beirut.
</p>
<p>
Michael Oren, Israel's former ambassador to the U.S. and Bibi ally, said
that any attack by Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a standstill in
2006, should bring an Israeli declaration of war -- on Lebanon.
</p>
<p>
While Israel launched some 100 strikes on Syria in recent years, Syrian
President Bashar Assad has survived and, with the aid of Hezbollah, Iran
and Russia, won his civil war.
</p>
<p>
Assad and his army and allies are far stronger now, while President
Trump, Israel's indispensable ally, speaks of bringing U.S. troops home
from Syria. In polls, a majority of Americans lines up behind Israel in
its clashes, but a majority also wants no more U.S. wars in the Middle
East.
</p>
<p>
Also, Sunday, the U.S. sustained another major political defeat.
</p>
<p>
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi lost his re-election bid. Based on
early results, the winning coalition was that of Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr, against whose forces U.S. troops fought a decade ago.
</p>
<p>
Running second was a ticket led by a Shiite militia general close to
Iran. When a new government is formed in Baghdad, the orientation of
Iraq seems certain to shift away from the United States.
</p>
<p>
While the Israelis are the most powerful nation in the region, how long
can they keep 2 million Palestinian Arabs confined in the penal colony
that is the Gaza Strip? How long can they keep the 2 million
Palestinians of the West Bank living in conditions even Israeli leaders
have begun to compare to apartheid?
</p>
<p>
Across the West, especially in universities, a BDS movement to have
students, companies and consumers boycott, divest and sanction
Israeli-produced products has been gaining ground.
</p>
<p>
The Palestinians may have been abandoned by Arab rulers and the wider
world. Yet, history teaches that people forced to survive in such
conditions eventually rise in rebellion and revolution, take revenge,
and exact retribution for what was done to them and their own.
</p>
<p>
Republican leaders often say that we cannot permit "any daylight" between the U.S. position and that of Israel.
</p>
<p>
But can the country that decried for decades the panicked reaction of an
Ohio National Guard that shot and killed four students at Kent State
University sit silent as scores of unarmed protesters are shot to death
and thousands are wounded by Israeli troops in Gaza?
</p></span><div><span>
Bibi and Israel appear to be on a winning streak. It is difficult to see how, over the long run, it can be sustained. <br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span><span>A Commentary By Patrick J. Buchanan</span><br></span></div></div></div></body></html>