March 19, 2015 --

Media personality Geraldo Rivera declared, on his talk show March 16, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bad for Israel. That probably means Rivera does not want to see Netanyahu returned as prime minister of the Jewish State. Rivera followed up his distaste for Netanyahu by referring to last summer's fighting in Gaza and cited the death of 2,000 Palestinians compared to some 75 Israelis, most of them soldiers. It is of no apparent concern to Rivera that Hamas insures that civilians in Gaza are in harm's way. Would Rivera prefer that the losses were more even on both sides? (LPR is not aware that Rivera has commented on deaths in Ukraine's fighting, said to exceed 5,000.)

LPR next heard Rivera assert that Israel is two-faced. A few weeks earlier, LPR heard Rivera assert that references to the Holocaust in debating the issue of a nuclear Iran were "unforgivable," and dismiss the threat to Israel of a nuclear-armed Iran, adding that the U.S. was committed to come to the defense of Israel. Anyone know of such a U.S. commitment?

LPR does not believe it exists.

Mr. Rivera has also called for a strong U.S. reply to ISIS barbarity. Indeed, he seems to want us to kill all of ISIS. Okay. But if we kill 10,000 ISIS barbarians and, it is to be hoped, suffer very, very, very few losses, will Mr. Rivera raise the proportionality issue he raises against an Israel faced by the Hamas terrorist organization committed to destroying the Jewish state? Could it be Mr. Rivera who is the two-faced one?

LPR does not discount the possibility that Geraldo Rivera has a compromise in mind to settle Israel's difficulties with Hamas and the Palestine Authority: let the country be known as "The Islamic Republic of Israel" -- including the proportional number of religious conversions to justify the new name.