One shoe dropped on Friday: Abe Foxman of the ADL said that Israeli PM Netanyahu ought to cancel his scheduled speech to the Congress because the controversy has turned into a political “circus.” Foxman: “Now is a time to recalibrate, restart and find a new platform and new timing to take away the distractions.”
Another shoe dropping. Haaretz reports increasing pressure on Israeli PM Netanyahu to cancel the speech, set for early March.
An official at the Prime Minister’s Office denied on Monday a Reuters report claiming Benjamin Netanyahu was considering canceling his speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
Earlier, the report quoted Israeli officials who said that the content of Netanyahu’s speech may be “toned down” to be less partisan, that the speech may be made behind closed doors and that Netanyahu may make his speech at the AIPAC convention rather than in Congress.
That could be the out: Netanyahu would just address the AIPAC policy conference on March 1-3 in Washington, thus saving face. And he’d get full attendance of Congress after all!
Another Democrat has bowed out of the Netanyahu show. Independent Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont. DaveWeigel tweets:
At Brookings, Bernie Sanders says he’s not going to the Netanyahu address to Congress.
No one can put this fire out. Now David A. Love of the Grio is calling on the Congressional Black Caucus to boycott the speech as a “highly abnormal” affront to President Obama. Two black congresspeople have already said they’re not going: John Lewis and G.K. Butterfield. Love says “the rest of the CBC should follow suit” because the Republicans are trying to embarrass Obama and undermine his Iran policy. And the move is the “ultimate sign of disrespect” to African-Americans. It follows Republican efforts to disempower African-American voters and Israel’s efforts to punish African asylum-seekers.
[I]f all of this will not keep the Congressional Black Caucus from Netanyahu’s speech, then perhaps they should ask the prime minister why he believes African people are a threat to Israel.
Netanyahu said yesterday that he accepts invitations to speak, and implied that the plans are full speed ahead.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that despite the growing criticism both in Israel and the United States, he plans to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress to lobby against a nuclear deal with Iran, just as he went to Paris last month after the attack on a kosher supermarket.
“I went to Paris not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people,” Netanyahu said, during a conference for French-speaking Likud activists. “Just as I went to Paris, so I will go anyplace I’m invited to convey the Israeli position against those who want to kill us. Those who want to kill us are, first and foremost, any Iranian regime that says outright it plans to destroy us. I will not hesitate to say what’s needed to warn against this danger, and prevent it.”
Netanyahu is becoming increasingly incensed about a possible Iran deal with the west. He tweets:
PM at the Cabinet meeting: The major powers and Iran are galloping toward an agreement that will endanger the existence of Israel.
Josh Block of the Israel Project does Netanyahu one better. President Obama is demented.
Sadly its Pres Obama who is trying cement Iran as what he dementedly calls “a force for stability”
What a historic humiliation for Bibi. He’ll be re-elected, of course. See http://www.knessetjeremy.com/ for all the polls. Not a single one is even close. We’ll be looking at a hard-right government like the one that emerged out of Cast Lead.
But so what? They’ll reschedule this. He’ll do his speech to AIPAC and a symbolic Congress tour/mini-speech with no TV cameras to try to save face but it is already too late.
Obama has all the political capital in the world to ignore the Israelis now. The Palestinians are going to the ICC. Is Obama going to stop them? He’ll still veto at the UN but watch them do nothing as the ICC begins its investigation and the pressure turns up.
Was this the final nail in the coffin? Of course not. Clinton is waiting in the wings, much to the relief of the lobby. But Clinton is the last breath of the post-war liberal concensus, protect Israel, lock black people up, puff up Wall Street.
Meanwhile, the American campus has already been lost. The only question now is how long. How long until the changes in the liberal universities start to seep into progressive publications.
When I see Jewish Clintonite liberals write this kind of drivel I know that they are feeling the screws:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html
The Jewish vote for the democrats has been declining in 3 consecutive elections. It’s bound to get even lower. I wrote yesterday that Scarsdale, NY was the perfect town to represent the social isolation of the assimilaited Jewish elites who have so thoroghly moved into white America that we are now seeing people like Chait talking like retrograde WASPs. Are you telling me the purge of the TNR is unrelated?
All I say is this: please don’t drag down the rest of us with you.
Anybody catch Joe Scarborough this morning concerning Nettie’s speech?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/joe-scarborough-democrats-jews
“That could be the out: Netanyahu would just address the AIPAC policy conference on March 1-3 in Washington, thus saving face. And he’d get full attendance of Congress after all!”
That is brilliantly written and sadly, too true. I did laugh, though.
I don’t think he can “save face” with the WH or the American people, though. I also believe that some others in Congress and in AIPAC were aware of this way ahead of the WH. Dermer , Netanyahu, and Boehner are not that skilled to have pulled this off alone. ahem.
Just read this in The Guardian:
“According to a poll by Army Radio published on Monday, 47% of Israelis believe Netanyahu should cancel the speech, scheduled for 3 March, and 34% think he should go ahead with it. However, a majority of 63% say the speech doesn’t factor in to their decision on whether to vote for Netanyahu in elections due later next month.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/feb/09/merkel-obama-white-house-ukraine-russia-summit
I’m not sure how he could really spin a speech to AIPAC back home as not caving in. He has been adamant that he was going to speek to congress and insisting he wouldn’t back down and that it is a duty. I think his opponents would be able to make hay with such an action.
That said the analysis is right that it would be just as effective.
Zionism is a stranger
In an open tank
To tempt you in
And drive you far away
And I want it
And I want it
And I want the land
It’s an obsession
Zionism is a danger
Of a different kind
To take you away from Judaism
And leave you far behind
And Land- land -land
Is a dangerous drug
You have to receive it
And you still can’t
Get enough of the stuff
Zionism is savage and it’s cruel
And it shines like Gaza destruction
Comes in like the flood
And it seems like religion
It’s ignoble and it’s brutal
It distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up
And you’re left like a zombie
And it’s not Jewish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6f593X6rv8