Kind of a step down from speaking to Congress. The neoconservative thinktank, American Enterprise Institute, announces:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive the 2015 Irving Kristol Award on November 9, 2015, in Washington, DC. The annual award, AEI’s highest honor, is given to individuals who have made exceptional practical and intellectual contributions to improve government policy, social welfare, or political understanding. The winner is selected by AEI’s Council of Academic Advisers. The award ceremony and dinner will be held at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.
Currently in his fourth term, Prime Minister Netanyahu will share his insight into the Middle East;
“I am honored to have been chosen to receive the Irving Kristol Award,” said Netanyahu. “I was fortunate to have known Irving, who was a towering intellectual, a stalwart friend of Israel, and a great champion of the US-Israel alliance. I look forward to receiving this award and discussing ways in which the unique friendship between Israel and the United States can continue to grow deeper and stronger as we confront the enormous challenges we face together.”
But you kiboshed that friendship, Mr Prime Minister.
The speech will take place the same day that Netanyahu is due to see President Obama. Showing up the president, again?
The AEI Council of Academic Advisers that selected the speaker is an “outside” body. It includes Bard historian Walter Russell Mead, longtime opponent of the Israel lobby theory. I wonder if he signed off on this?
Also, remember that Irving Kristol wrote that he left the Democratic Party in 1973 for the following reason:
Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States… American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.