Bibi squanders Israel's greatest asset
This posting has these items – a measure of how much attention this decision is still getting:
1) Ynet: Netanyahu, do the right thing: Don’t go to Washington, it’s not Congress that decides on Iran, it’s the President;
2) Times of Israel: Netanyahu ‘determined to go to Washington’ as planned, Obama said Bibi visit ‘inappropriate’ as too close to election – and nothing to do with Iran;
3) Haaretz: Netanyahu: I will go to Congress like I went to Paris – to speak for all Jews, Barak Ravid reports Bibi’s claim that he alone is standing up to Iran;
4) Tikkun Daily: No, you will NOT be speaking for me or “the entire Jewish people” before Congress, David Harris-Gershon says Bibi’s claim to speak for all Jewry is preposterous;
5) The Media Line: Israeli Prime Minister Determined to Speak in Washington; it’s the election stupid – or is it Iran?
6)The Hill: Dems lining up to skip Netanyahu,Bibi risks losing bipartisan support as growing number of Democrats choosing to boycott Netanyahu;
7) Haaretz: How dare Netanyahu speak in the name of America’s Jews?, Bradley Burston could have asked that of all Jews anywhere;
Israel’s Prime Minister is not the spokesman for all Jews. JStreet petition for American Jews.
Netanyahu, do the right thing: Don’t go to Washington
Agreement with Iran will be determined by US administration, not by Congress. That’s who Israel’s prime minister should address, warn and maintain a good relationship with. Instead, he is turning our most important and strategic friend into a rival.
By Ben-Dror Yemini, Ynet Op-Ed
February 08, 2015
Don’t go, Netanyahu, don’t go, precisely because the Iranian threat is so important, precisely because you are right, precisely because the things you are planning to say at the US Congress are important – don’t go. Because this trip will impair the exact issue that you are traveling on behalf of.
You know that, Mr. Netanyahu. So if you are really concerned, you should do the right thing.
The intention was good. It turns out that the House of Representative speaker had even informed the White House, and that the White House hadn’t bothered answering. But now it turns out that there was also some deception. The invitation wasn’t made with both parties’ consent. It was a one-party invitation. It was the opposition’s invitation. It was an invitation which was aimed more at censuring the White House and President Barack Obama than warning against the Iranian threat.
With all due respect to the Republican majority in the Congress, the clauses of the agreement with Iran will be determined by the administration, not by the Congress. That’s who you should address. That’s who you should warn. That’s where you need to have a good, direct and real relationship. Because that’s where the decisions are made.
We know that Obama is wrong and that you are right. But if there is still a chance to get him to change his mind, you are making every possible mistake in order to turn him into a rival. Vice President Joe Biden has already announced that he will not attend your address. What other hint do you need in order to realize that you should change direction?
Mr. Prime Minister, there is a problem with your body language. You, the best speaker of all with the excellent PR skills, the man who knows so much, is succeeding in turning our most important friend, our strategic friend, into a rival. This isn’t happening because you’re wrong; it’s happening because you convey constant anger.
Look at Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. He represents a dark country, which stones women and executes homosexuals. But unlike you, he smiles. He just smiles. And at the end of the day, he is portrayed as moderate, while you are portrayed as Slobodan Milošević, the notorious leader of an aggressive entity.
So what good does it do that you are right? All you have succeeded in doing is deteriorating our relations with an American administration and an American president who we need so much right now, as we face a strategic threat.
These things, Mr. Netanyahu, are being written by a person who supported you on the Iranian issue throughout the way. There are things you can take credit for. While it isn’t clear that the sanctions were imposed on Iran thanks to you, it is clear that you made a serious and important contribution. Precisely because of that, Mr. Prime Minister, you must do the thing which you too, deep inside, know is the right thing to do.
If you go back on your decision, we will all know that the national interest is more important to you than the illusion that the trip will help your party in any way. So please, do it. We will all benefit – both Israel and you.
Netanyahu ‘determined to go to Washington’ as planned
PM says Israel and US have always had ‘substantive differences,’ convinced ties will remain strong despite current uproar
By JTA, Times of Israel, AFP
February 10, 2015
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he was determined to speak to a joint meeting of Congress on March 3, despite the ongoing uproar surrounding his planned address in the US capital.
“At a time when there are those who would deal with protocol and politics, an agreement with Iran is taking shape in Munich that would risk Israel’s existence,” Netanyahu said on Twitter, apparently referring to talks over the weekend in the German city between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
“Therefore, I’m determined to travel to Washington and present Israel’s position before Congress and the American people,” he said. “From the day the State of Israel was established, there have been substantive differences between Israel and the United States. Relations remained strong. That’s how it will be this time.”
In the address, Netanyahu is set to warn against a deal with Iran that would enable it to become a nuclear threshold state. The timing, arrangements and likely content of the speech have infuriated the Obama administration and some congressional Democrats. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the US House of Representatives speaker, invited Netanyahu without consulting with the White House, it later became clear. The prime minister indicated over the weekend that he believed the invitation had bipartisan support.
Earlier Monday, there were reports that Netanyahu was considering recalibrating the March 3 speech. According to Reuters, a source with inside knowledge of the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu was considering canceling the speech, or at least conducting it behind closed doors. This was later denied by the PMO.
The Obama administration said its top officials will not meet Netanyahu during his visit and a number of Democrats in Congress are saying they will stay away – most recently Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Va.), who is Jewish.
President Barack Obama, meeting Monday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, reiterated his view that meeting Netanyahu two weeks before Israel’s March 17 election would be inappropriate.
“As much as I love Angela, if she was two weeks away from an election, she probably would not have received an invitation from the White House,” the president said before pausing and adding, “And I suspect she wouldn’t have asked for one.” Merkel vigorously nodded.
Obama said his views on Netanyahu’s speech were separate from disagreements between the governments on Iran.
Tehran is locked in negotiations with the P5+1 powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany — aimed at a deal to resolve a long-running dispute over its nuclear program. Under an interim deal, Iran’s stock of fissile material has been diluted from 20 percent enriched uranium to five percent in exchange for limited sanctions relief.
Boehner invited Netanyahu in part to rebut Obama’s claims that nuclear talks now underway between major powers and Iran are productive. Netanyahu, like many Republicans, believes the talks are headed for a bad deal.
The Israel Democracy Institute’s Peace Index, which polls security issues each month, reported this week that a majority of Israeli Jews – 57 percent – believe Netanyahu should not deliver the speech because of its proximity to the elections.
Netanyahu: I will go to Congress like I went to Paris – to speak for all Jews
Prime minister says he will go anyplace he is invited to convey Israel’s position on Iran.
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz
February 9, 2015
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.”
In fact, before the January 11 solidarity march for the victims of the terror attacks in Paris, the Élysée Palace had asked Netanyahu not to attend the march. The French made it clear they weren’t interested in diverting public attention to controversial issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that they hoped the prime minister would understand. The French feared Netanyahu would exploit the event for election campaign purposes. Indeed, Netanyahu decided to go only after hearing that both Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett were going to attend.
Speaking to members of the France’s Jewish community, Netanyahu dwelled on the Iranian issue and argued that only he, and not his rivals, Zionist Camp leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, could “stand up to Iran and the international community.” He added, “I am standing up to the international pressures, and they are not small, and there are those who are surrendering to those pressures even before being elected.”
Netanyahu added that from the information he had available, the agreement evolving between Iran and the world powers was a bad one.
“I think that the proposal on the table is dangerous because under the agreement Iran could, within a short time, either break through to nuclear [weapons] or achieve nuclear capability by agreement within years, [and] to have industrial capabilities to produce many nuclear bombs,” he said. “This is life-threatening to the State of Israel and I think that it’s the obligation of every leader, or anyone who cares about Israel’s and the world’s security, to stand up in a clear and unambiguous fashion and oppose this agreement. This is what I’m doing.”
No, you will NOT be speaking for me or “the entire Jewish people” before Congress, Netanyahu
By David Harris-Gershon, Tikkun Daily
February 09, 2015
Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said yesterday that he will be speaking for “the entire Jewish people” in his controversial speech before Congress on March 3, anointing himself as leader and representative of all Jews – including the majority of American Jews who oppose his politics on Iran.
Witness the chutzpah:
“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.”
There is much to unpack here, and I will attempt to do so in a point-by-point response below:
1) From a purely political perspective, Netanyahu’s claim to be the voice for world Jewry, by virtue of being Israel’s leader, is preposterous. In Israel alone, only 23 percent of the 6.1 million Jews who live there voted for Netanyanu (Likud), while the world’s remaining 7.7 million Jews did not cast a ballot for the man as citizens of other nations. For those keeping score, that’s 1.3 million Jews out of the world’s 13.8 million who voted for Netanyahu.
On the issue of Iran – the issue Netanyahu will speak upon before Congress on behalf of “the entire Jewish people” – 52 percent of American Jews embrace President Obama’s diplomacy with Iran and reject Netanyahu’s approach, including those Jewish members of Congress who will be boycotting Netanyahu’s address. Not only that, more global Jews (4.6 million) voted for President Obama than global Jews (1.3 million) who voted for Netanyahu.
In other words, this [picture above] if you’re feeling snarky.
2) From a socio-religious perspective, what Netanyahu has done is not just offensive, but dangerous. As I’ve written in the past, conflating Israel and all Jews is an antisemitic trope that the world’s most vile hate-mongers often use. For by conflating Israel with world Jewry, antisemites can use Israel’s disastrous policies (such as its ongoing occupation & oppression of Palestinians) as occasions and motivations to target and attack random Jews.
Netanyahu, by casting himself as the leader of “the entire Jewish people” due to his seat in Israel’s government, simply strengthens this antisemitic trope.
Is it any wonder that such a conflation can happen when Israel’s leader feeds into it for perceived political gain?
3) When Netanyahu went to Paris to represent “the entire Jewish people” at the Charlie Hebdo march, he did so as an uninvited, unwanted guest who, in the most undignified of ways, pushed himself into the limelight. Both figuratively and literally. All of it to promote his political standing domestically as a serious world leader.
Now, after breaking diplomatic protocol and scheduling a visit behind President Obama’s back, he will be speaking before Congress on March 3 as an unwanted guest by the President and much of Congress. And again, he will be doing so to promote his political standing domestically as a serious world leader while simultaneously harming Israel’s relationship with the U.S. by turning the country into a political football.
Netanyahu Does Not Speak for Me
Netanyahu has a history of claiming to speak for me, and all Jews, by virtue of being Israel’s leader. In his mind, Israel is the Jew amongst the nations, and as such can stand in for all of the world’s Jews. This is the exact same idea the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been promoting for years to shield Israel from reproach, motivated by the idea that critiques of Israel, the Jew amongst the nations, should be viewed as anti-Semitic attacks on all Jews.
However, Netanyahu will never speak for me, nor most of America’s Jews, simply because he is Israel’s Prime Minister. Not with regard to Iran. Not with regard to Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinians. Not with regard to Israel’s expansion of settlements. Not with regard to Israel’s disproportionate destruction in Gaza and continued blockade. Not with regard to Israel’s rejection of diplomacy.
Netanyahu will never speak for me. For Israel and the entire Jewish people are not one and the same. This is something Israel’s own Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel recognizes.
Israeli Prime Minister Determined to Speak in Washington
March Election Still Too Close to Call
By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line
February 09, 2015
More than two weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, Netanyahu insists he will not back out despite a wave of criticism in both the US and Israel. President Obama said he would not meet the Israeli Prime Minister as it is too close to the Israeli election, and Vice President Joe Biden said he would not attend the speech to Congress because of “scheduling difficulties.”
The address is to focus on Iran and Israel’s efforts to stop any deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Netanyahu said over the weekend he would work in any way possible to stop a “bad and dangerous agreement that will cast a heavy cloud over the future of the State of Israel,” although he did not refer directly to his upcoming trip.
Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress, set for just two weeks before the Israeli election, has sparked controversy in both the US and Israel. Netanyahu’s opponents have charged he is endangering Israel’s primary strategic asset – Israel’s relationship with the US – to try to make sure he is re-elected as Prime Minister
US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, insisted that the relationship between the two allies remains strong.
“We will over come this and continue working together regardless of the debate about Netanyahu’s speech to Congress,” said Shapiro on Monday. “Our goal is to reach a diplomatic agreement that would ensure Iran does not require nuclear weapons.”
A poll published by Army Radio found that 47 percent of Israelis thought Netanyahu should cancel the speech, while 34 percent said it should go ahead as planned.
Some Israeli analysts played down the extent of the tension between the two allies.
“We’ve been through this before,” Amiel Unger, a commentator and journalist told The Media Line. “There are ebbs and flows in every relationship. Netanyahu has to go to warn against a deal that sounds like it will leave Iran a screwdrivers turn from a nuclear weapon.”
He said that if Netanyahu decided to cancel the trip now, it would “pull the rug out from under Boehner and anger the Republicans.”
Other Israeli analysts said that Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, whether or not President Obama was informed of the invitation before Netanyahu accepted, has done damage to the US-Israel relationship.
“It has done significant damage because it has moved Israel from being a bipartisan issue to being a partisan conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats,” Reuven Chazan, a professor of political science at Hebrew University told The Media Line. “There’s no way we can come out of this positively. If Netanyahu goes, he angers the Democrats who are forced to choose between supporting Israel and supporting their President. If he doesn’t go, after the Republicans have put so much into this trip, he angers them. It is a lose-lose situation we should never have walked into.”
Yet the tiff with the US does not seem to be affecting Netanyahu’s support in Israel. Polls continue to show his Likud party running neck-and-neck with the Zionist Camp as the leading party.
Reuven Chazan says part of that is because President Obama is seen critically in Israel, especially when it comes to Iran.
“Most in Israel including on the dovish left-wing do not understand how you can negotiate with Iran in good faith and how you can consider at all lowering the sanctions that are having some effect on keeping iran from becoming a nuclear power,” Chazan said. “Netanyahu is fighting with a president who is perceived as not having Israel’s interests at heart.”
Both Netanyahu and Zionist Camp leader Yitzhak Herzog say they will not join a coalition with the other, although their promises are not being taken seriously. In the end, both parties want to be part of the ruling coalition, and polls show the public prefers a unity government. At this point, it looks like it will be easier for Netanyahu to form either a center-right coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox parties, than it will be for Herzog to form a center-left coalition, since the Arab parties are not expected to join.
Although the election is just five weeks away, a significant portion of Israeli voters remain undecided. Many of them will decide based on events in the two weeks preceding the elections.
Dems lining up to skip Netanyahu
By Mike Lillis, The Hill
February 06, 2015
A growing number of top Democrats plan to skip next month’s Capitol Hill speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), are just the latest lawmakers to indicate they won’t attend the March 3 address before a rare joint session of Congress.
The Democrats join other leading Capitol Hill liberals – including Reps. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights hero, and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – in protesting the speech by vowing to steer clear of it.
And the White House re-entered the fray on Friday, announcing that Vice President Biden will also miss the speech as a result of travel abroad.
The uproar surrounding the address has taken on a life its own; the speech is scheduled to come near the end of delicate negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran over the future of the Iranian nuclear program.
One Democratic aide lamented that the debate has evolved in such a way that lawmakers risk the perception of being forced to choose between their support for Israel and that for the White House.
“We want to support both,” the aide said, “and there’s no way to attend this speech and do that.
Several other liberal Democrats, including Reps. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), also intend to boycott the address.
The Democrats’ criticisms of the speech are three-fold. First, they object to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) decision to invite Netanyahu without first approaching the White House or Democratic leaders in Congress, a move they say bucks the tradition of consulting across the aisle before bringing heads of state into the Capitol.
Second, the Democrats contend Netanyahu’s speech is ill-timed because it comes just a few weeks before the Israeli prime minister faces a tough reelection contest in Israel. To use the Capitol as a campaign prop, they charge, is an inappropriate “exploitation” of the U.S. Congress, in the words of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
And third, the critics fear Netanyahu’s message – which is expected to feature calls for tougher sanctions on Iran – could undermine the multilateral nuclear disarmament talks being led by the Obama administration, which opposes new sanctions while the negotiations are ongoing.
“When nuclear security and Middle East stability hang in the balance, no member who cares about peace and Israel should participate in this effort to undercut our president,” Blumenauer wrote in a recent Huffington Post column decrying the invitation.
Neither leaders in the Black Caucus nor those in the Progressive Caucus are whipping members to join them in skipping the speech, saying the decision is a personal one.
With that in mind, it’s unclear how many other Democrats will ultimately choose to protest the speech by refusing to go.
A number of liberals in both the CBC and CPC have declined to weigh in, while a number of others – including Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus – say they’re still on the fence while they push for a postponement.
“A lot can happen between now and the proposed speech in March,” a Johnson spokesman said Friday.
Still other Democrats are already signaling an intent to attend. Pelosi, for instance, said she thinks that, “as of now,” she’ll be in the audience. And the office of Rep. David Scott, a CBC member, said Friday that the Georgia Democrat will also be there.
Boehner, for his part, has defended the invitation, saying Netanyahu’s voice deserves America’s ear considering the heightened threat that Islamic terrorism poses to Israel and the West.
“It was a very good idea,” Boehner said Thursday. “There’s a message that the American people need to hear and I think he’s the perfect person to deliver it.”
How dare Netanyahu speak in the name of America’s Jews?
Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing in common with the vast majority of American Jews, seven out of ten of which voted for a man he implicitly demonized as ‘anti-Israel’; but he still intends to speak as their representative before Congress.
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz
February 09, 2015
American Jews, brace yourselves. Benjamin Netanyahu is coming. And to hear him tell it, when he takes the rostrum to speak to Congress, he’ll be doing so not only as the leader of Israel, but as your man.
“I went to Paris not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people,” Netanyahu said late on Sunday, in a reference to his visit to the French capital following the January murders at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in the city.
Then, alluding to House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session of Congress over Iran, Netanyahu let it be known that on March 3rd, he’d once again be speaking for all Jews:
“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.”
American Jews, brace yourselves. Netanyahu, having spent much of his youth in America, ought to know you better. But no such luck. The prime minister relates to American Jews like a house-pet dog, trainable, capable of being useful, manageable, tamed to violate its undesirable inbred instincts.
Besides, what does Netanyahu care? You can tell Israelis anything you like about American Jews. In Hebrew, anyway. Neither will ever know the difference.
The fact is, though, that it does matter. What he does represents Israel, and how he does it – insulting allies, mystifying and horrifying the world’s largest Diaspora Jewish community – has a huge effect.
He may choose not to see it. The back of his hand continues to be licked by the likes of the Zionist Organization of America, and American audiences, some of them anyway, continue to stand on their hind legs at his every oratorical flourish. Maybe that’s enough for him.
Nonetheless, the question remains:
How dare Netanyahu speak in the name of American Jewry?
How dare he pretend that he has more than a shred in common with the values of the vast majority of this community, which overwhelmingly supports equal rights and opportunities for minorities, which strongly backs exhausting all diplomatic avenues and possibilities of compromise before resorting to the use of military force, which abhors supremacism and carefully couched racism and religious intolerance and institutionalized denial of due process to asylum seekers and jailed Palestinians, children among them; a community which in large part favors a two-state solution and has zero sympathy for occupation.
How dare Benjamin Netanyahu pose as a representative of the Jewish people in America and elsewhere, when he does everything in his power to undermine, humiliate, and implicitly demonize as anti-Israel a man whom seven of every ten American Jewish voters chose to represent them – in part because of Barack Obama’s role in fostering security cooperation with Israel, including additional funding for the Iron Dome rocket defense system?
For that matter, how can Netanyahu so wholeheartedly fake a pose as the representative leader of the Jewish people, when a Monday opinion survey commissioned by Israel Army Radio showed that 47 percent of his own Israeli public now believes that he should cancel his speech to Congress? According to the survey, only 34 percent of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should go through with the speech.
Until now, he’s been feeding his electorate on the idea that Israel defends itself by itself, that America’s little more than a hindrance to Israel’s pursuit of self-defense.
Netanyahu’s message is a simple one: I keep you alive. No one else knows what I know. No one else does what I do. I keep Israel from being overrun by Islamist decapitators. Vote for me, or die.
There are people – both here and there – who lap up this stuff. And maybe that will be enough to see him through yet another squeak-through victory.
But if the Army Radio poll is indicative, the idea of empty seats in Washington’s capitol chamber is not playing the way Netanyahu had hoped. The prime minister wants to be seen as valiantly soldiering on despite being unfairly victimized by people – in this case, Democrats – who don’t understand what Israelis go through, what they feel, what they need, the dangers they face.
It’s not going as hoped
When all of this speech business began, Netanyahu seemed to have pulled off the political trifecta: a projected grand climax to his own election campaign, a huge gesture to the Republican Party, and a telling slap to Obama’s face.
Lately, though, that’s not the way it’s playing here. It’s beginning to appear less and less like a plea for sanctions more and more like make-believe, the ploy of ploys.
If, in fact, Netanyahu’s people conclude that the speech has become a campaign liability and he finds a way to cancel, then all of us – American Jews included – will know for sure what the speech was for in the first place.
We will know that it had very little to do with Iran. We will know that it had everything to do with Benjamin Netanyahu being able to continue to sit behind his desk for a few more years, and blow his dog whistle, and pretend – at least to himself – to be the prime minister of the Jewish people.