The stakes are rising over the Netanyahu speech to Congress to push a hardline on Iraq. The White House has reportedly cut off some communications with Israel following leaks by Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani calls Obama a “moron” for talking to Iran.
The Netanyahu speech controversy is a neverending disaster on Capitol Hill and it just keeps piling up headlines. Eighteen congresspeople say they’ll skip it. ‘The Hill’ calls it likely the most controversial speech ever by a foreign leader to a joint session of Congress. Bill Kristol, the head of the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel, put out a tongue-in-cheek letter to Hillary Clinton offering her to drive her to the speech.
On Wednesday the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee convened a hearing on cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority in response to joining the International Criminal Court. The hearing panel was staffed exclusively by neoconservatives—three out of four of whom have written about Palestinian children as constituting a “demographic threat” to the Jewish state. Citizens concerned about human rights in Israel/Palestine packed the hearing to represent the growing number of Americans who object to the US government’s one-sided diplomatic and military support for Israel. Subcommittee chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) was not amused.
What are the odds that Netanyahu backs out of the invitation to speak to Congress? Neocon Robert Kagan and liberal Zionist Martin Indyk both want the speech not to happen, lest it politicize Congress’s blind deference to Israel supporters
Supporters of Israel from the White House to Foxman to J Street to Chris Matthews agree that the invitation to Netanyahu to speak to Congress and rebut Obama on Iran is damaging the special relationship between Israel and the U.S. Look for the speech to be cancelled.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to both Houses of Congress to rebut President Obama’s Iran policy is a full-on fiasco. It keeps stirring things up and getting attention. Opposition to the speech is mounting on Capitol Hill, say both the US Campaign to End the Occupation and Jeffrey Goldberg. And any reasonable person has to wonder, Wait, why are the warmongering Israelis messing in our negotiations? Where did a rightwing foreign prime minister derive the power to take on the president on equal terms?
If it was outrageous and inappropriate and unprecedented for the Republicans to ask Netanyahu to speak to Congress, thereby undermining Obama’s Iran policy, those who oppose war should take action, and give Netanyahu the cold shoulder when he comes to Congress
Israel supporters call on Congress to delay Netanyahu’s speech lest it divide the Israel lobby publicly. But the real fear is that it could lead the US to war. Chris Matthews says the US will have no choice but to “blow up” Iran if it acquires a nuclear weapon.
We are moving toward a confrontation over Iran sanctions. President Obama vowed to veto sanctions on Iran and give negotiations time in his State of the Union speech. But today House speaker John Boehner on behalf of bipartisan congressional leadership invited Israeli PM Netanyahu to speak to a joint session Feb. 11 in a rebuke to the president
Dennis Ross revives his career as Israel’s lawyer in the NYT, saying that Palestinians, rooted in “grievance,” have three times rejected fair deals to create a state