After all, there are a couple weeks before Israel's national elections. A brief flight on Air Force One, undercut Netanyahu by speaking to the Knesset about what policies they should pursue, and the President could be home in time for dinner. No problem! Right?
How would Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu react to an invitation to the President from Israeli opposition parties? Would he be pleased, or outraged at such hostile political game playing right before an election? I'm going with the latter and he'd be right to take offense. People in Israel and here at home would rightfully share in that outrage.
But apparently it is more than permissible for Netanyahu to play that exact insulting game with our President and our nation's foreign policy.
I wonder about his reaction, if any, to the warnings issued by retired military and security officers in both Israel and the United States about the damages Speaker Boehner and Prime Minister Netanyahu have inflicted upon the United State's and Israel's relationship.
"...Serving uniformed officers are loath to comment on an inflammatory political question — “You’re inviting me to end my career,” one senior Pentagon officer told me when asked to comment on Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu, “but, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.” But a senior Joint Chiefs of Staff officer who regularly briefs the U.S. high command was willing to speak bluntly in exchange for anonymity. “There’s always been a lot of support for Israel in the military,” the officer said, “but that’s significantly eroded over the last few years. This caps it. It’s one thing for Americans to criticize their president and another entirely for a foreign leader to do it. Netanyahu doesn’t get it. We’re not going to side with him against the commander in chief. Not ever.”
Retired Army Gen. Paul Eaton concurs. He was recently quoted as an avowed friend of Israel in a widely discussed article in the Israeli daily Haaretz. He warned that Netanyahu’s appearance would be “perilous to both countries” but saved his harshest criticism for Boehner, saying, “It is highly inappropriate for the speaker of the House to so publicly meddle in foreign affairs,” he said. “It is a gross breach of protocol to invite a head of state without due coordination with the president.” Eaton was quick to add that, despite the controversy, “Israel will never lose me or the American people as the most loyal of friends.”
But retired U.S. Air Force Col. Richard Klass, an Air Force Academy graduate, isn’t so sure. Writing for War on the Rocks, a website popular with serving officers, Klass called Netanyahu’s scheduled congressional appearance “a new level of chutzpah” and argued that it raised the question of “whether Israel is becoming a strategic liability for America.” Klass pointed out that Netanyahu’s scheduled congressional appearance was specifically timed to derail the Obama administration’s delicate nuclear negotiations with Iran, pointedly describing it as “intrusion” that purposely “undermines U.S. security.” While Klass admits that his argument sparked an outcry from a number of his fellow officers (“several of my War College classmates are upset with the piece” he told me in an email) he staunchly defends his position. “Netanyahu gives new meaning to the term ‘bull in a china shop,’” he said..."
Yesterday, over 180 former Israeli security officials said that
Netanyahu's speech before Congress actually harms Israel while helping Iran.
A group of more than 180 former commanders in Israel's security apparatus called Sunday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel his speech to the US Congress scheduled for Tuesday.
Commanders for Israel's Security, a group of former senior commanders from the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet and Israel Police, held a press conference Sunday, in which they warned that Netanyahu's security and diplomatic policies were destroying the alliance with the US, ruining Israel's power of deterrence and serving to bring Iran closer to obtaining nuclear weapons.
I wonder if Netanyahu has even thought about the issues raised by US and Israeli security officials.
I also wonder if our own main stream media is going to highlight those concerns.
Perhaps, opposition parties in Israel really do need to invite President Obama to address the Knesset before the Israeli elections. The President could speak upon the issues raised by retired security officials here and in Israel. Then, at the very least, we'd be able to see the hypocrisy of the Right in both the US and Israel in full riotous bloom.
Of course, Israeli opposition parties will not issue an invitation to the President to speak before the Knesset this close to an election. Even if they did, President Obama would not accept for all the obvious reasons.
But reason has nothing to do with Speaker Boehner's invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Neither does Israel's or the United States' national security. Boehner's invitation and Netanyahu' acceptance are simply partisan politics at its worse.
That is why Democrats need to boycott Netanyahu's election stunt. He's not serving Israel. He's not serving the world wide Jewish community. Neither is he serving the interests of the United States. Netanyahu is not serving any thing but his own needs.
There is nothing he can "inform" us about that we don't already know.
"...Given all this, can it really be the case that the American people will not know what to think about any prospective Iran deal until one man, and only one man, gets up to speak in one venue, and only one venue, and does so in the first week of March, and only in that week? That is what those who insist it is vital that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak before a joint meeting of Congress next week would have us believe.
Even the most eloquent speech by Netanyahu will not add more than marginally to what has already been said and heard. But even if the drama of the situation and the prime minister’s eloquence were to highlight the already well-articulated case against a bad deal, the question is: at what price?..."
For there is a price to be paid for Speaker Boehner's and Netanyahu's political grandstanding.
For once, Speaker Boehner could have chosen to put America's well being before his own. For once, he could have chosen not to put our National Security at risk in order to insult and diminish the President. Instead, Speaker Boehner chose an action that has harmed US and Israeli relations, and the security of the United States and Israel.
Netanyahu could have chosen to serve Israel first by refusing Speaker Boehner's invitation. He could have chosen not to damage US and Israeli relations. He could still lessen that harm by canceling his speech in front of Congress and returning home.
But he won't. I hope he loses re-election by a landslide. I hope every Democratic member of Congress boycotts his re-election speech. It's the right thing, the moral thing, to do.