Ebrahim Moosa – Radio Islam News | 26 September 2016

Despite being the neighbourhood bully, the only nuclear weapons power in the Middle East, possessing one of the world’s top ranked militaries, commanding an $18.6 billion military budget and being the globe’s largest drone exporter, when Benjamin Netanyahu – commander in chief of this military empire – goes to toilet in a foreign country, he has to take along 20 men to guard him!

The New York Post’s Page Six last week reported on the incredulous story of how Netanyahu, who was in New York recently for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, was escorted to the bathroom in a New York City restaurant by an estimated 20 security agents.

The upscale Harry Cipriani eatery where the Israeli premier was dining with his wife only seats about 100, so, for starters, Netanyahu’s entourage took up a lot of space — not to mention the other guards placed discreetly and not so discreetly around the venue, both inside and out.

The Netanyahu’s dinner was then interrupted when the war monger needed to take a bathroom break. The toilet was barely a few feet away in the adjacent Sherry-Netherland Hotel, but even that was deemed too far for the Zionist leader to go it alone.

As he rose, Netanyahu was followed by a host of elite Shin Bet security agents. A few of the guards even went into the bathroom with Netanyahu, a source told the Post, adding, “One watched the door, and the rest lined up with their arms up to form a human barricade, so nobody could enter the bathroom or even get close.”

Fellow diners who watched the scene unfold reportedly included talk show host Charlie Rose, billionaire Ronald Perelman, ­DuJour magazine CEO Jason Binn and fashion icon Iris Apfel.

The insider said 20 security guards were at the restaurant an hour before Netanyahu arrived, and when the prime minister came, he brought an additional 20 agents with him into the venue. Other agents were “discreetly placed around the restaurant,” and they carried a “large security device in a black box,” he said. Security agents were also positioned around the hotel.

“In order to get to the restaurant, you had to walk around the block to a barricaded area, which was manned by security and attack dogs,” said the source. “Guests were patted down and had to go through metal detectors. He must be the most protected man in the world right now.”

Following the incident, some have quipped that, with such a penchant on security, Netanyahu had New York transformed into Occupied Territory.

Pakistani media took a slightly different view, dubbing Netanyahu’s sense of insecurity “the height of fear”

We say this paranoia is the proverbial case of a loathsome old bully having his deep-seated vulnerabilities exposed.

To paraphrase Frank Baum from his Rinkitink in Oz, “Like all bullies and marauders, Netanyahu has revealed himself as simply a coward at heart”

(With reporting from the Times of Israel and the Algemeiner)