Today, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington and spoke to the Congress of the United States of America.
The Israeli PM opened his address thus :
“I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. That was never my intention.”
That’s a lie. PM Netanyahu could easily have had his visit pushed back beyond the elections due in two weeks in his country. He chose not to do so. As for the US political agenda, Netanyahu last addressed the Congress in May 2011, making today’s speech a second visit in 4 years , although each within a different electoral mandate for him. Still, that was his third address overall, after his July 1996 one during his first stay in office as PM of Israel. H thus joined Winston Churchill on top of the list of foreign speakers, an equality drawing a comparison that I’d be very tempted to call indecent. If he was to get another chance, he would then equal the US presidents that only served one term which I would deem disgraceful. The sole real reason for this visit was the Congressional majority’s wish to have a speaker that could unite it, a feat that they are incapable of by themselves as regard their job as legislators of the land. No matter if the view point is external or internal to America, this was nothing else than political.
The speech was almost solely on the negotiations with Iran to reach a deal on its nuclear development. It was one long whine with threatening overtones; one would be tempted to add : of course. PM Netanyahu had nothing to offer for very good reasons : Israel is not part of the P5 +1 format of the talks, Germany being the addition to the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. Again, this shows the present Congress to be blind to facts, for this discussion with Iran opened in 2006, during the second GW Bush administration. One could offer that the internal split of the GOP dates back to that era by the way. Thus, the Republican majority is doubly delegating the task of establishing a common party line to outsiders, unable to manage a tightening of the ranks by itself.
PM Netanyahu used the old saying of : A bad deal is worse than no deal at all. This calls for two remarks.
One, the White House Security Advisor Susan Rice said the same thing but in a different sense. She meant that if a proper deal could not be reached, it would be wiser to let the talks end without one. PM Netanyahu meant that any deal with Iran would be bad. As proof of which he called for a better deal but offered only one valid point that this better deal could include : a step to renegotiate the deal before it ran its due course ten years after it signing. On that he was right, an open ended lift of sanctions in return for a decade of temporization would be foolish. One could wonder if saying this alone warranted a Joint Session of Congress though.
Two, the analogy the saying is supposed to be about is not one concerning politics. The saying comes from the worlds of law & business. Anyone with knowledge of world politics knows very well that bad deals can be signed and forgotten. As a reminder, the US signed a treaty on nuclear weapons in late 1994, assuring Ukraine of protection for its territorial integrity in exchange for giving up its nukes of Soviet origin. We all know by now how much the United States’ word was worth in that instance! In the present case though, Teheran is already enriching uranium. The deal is intended to make watching over the process easier. Not making one will only see them press on as before. The PM’s pretense that it will get worse is unfounded in logic.
Everything else that PM Netanyahu uttered was fear mongering, the standard tool of Israel to keep its victim image even as it destroys a people, Palestine. And the words, the examples he used bordered on ignominy. His comparison between Iran and the Nazi regime was loathsome. Of course, it is true that the Islamic Revolution is now as repressive as the regime of the Shah that brought the revolution through which it took power of Persia, a sadly sarcastic unfolding of events but Teheran has not yet invaded its neighbors as Hitler did nor set up concentration camps. It is still true as Netanyahu said that Iran practices floggings and executions but if no one else calls him on that, let me add this distinguo : so do the Arabic Peninsula GCC States that are allies of the USA and now aligned with Israel in their distrust of Iran. If you then like sayings, sir : What’s good for the gander is good for the goose?
Similarly, the Israeli PM gloated over his Jewish State while sneering at the Shia one. As neither Jewish nor Shiite, I fail to see what distinction could honestly be made between the two. And this coming on the heels of stating America and Israel to be “promised lands that cherish freedom and offer hope”, as if no other fit the bill or of squaring the US Constitution with the Islamic Revolution’s own, conveniently forgetting how his government deals equality and justice for all to the Palestinians.
But the worst part was when Netanyahu tired to rewrite history in a fashion that any good revisionist of the Shoah would applaud :
“… for the last 36 years, Iran’s attacks against the United States have been anything but mock. [ It ]… murdered hundreds of American soldiers, Marines, in Beirut, … helped Al Qaeda bomb U.S. embassies in Africa … dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow. So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.”
OK then, if no one else will, I will provide the reality check your short cuts call for, sir! At the time of the attack in Beirut, another nation, a friend of America since its beginnings and a long time home to Jews ( each long before your country came to be ) was there too. The reason why both and others were in the region was because Israel had invaded Lebanon to hunt the PLO whose presence in the hitherto only other free land of the Middle-East had caused a civil war. Hezbollah that you chastise with reason as a pawn of Teheran came in response to this presence of your army! An army ( led by one of your predecessors ) that had cleared the way for the Sabra & Shatila massacre of a couple thousand of Palestinian refugees ( and kept going at it secretly afterwards ). An army that America and its ally-ies then had to replace as more honest and fair even though many poor people saw it/them as imperialist. An army for the mistakes of which those servicemen died!
And don’t you dare answer me, I served at the time for one of these!
Oh and accessorily, the Congress you addressed voted the demise of an Iraq ( Baghdad ) over which Iran had no control in 2003 by agreeing to an unnecessary war which added to the above on Beirut makes your whole rhetoric either empty or knavish. So that : Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, “Gobbling up nations” indeed!
That is the kind of immoral lies with which you tried to influence American politics today! And you dare say it was not political? Come on! Do you remember your call to French Jews to flee a nation over which you have no jurisdiction after the Charlie_Hebdo attacks of January ( repeated last month in Denmark )? Was that not political either? Well, the first anti-semite terrorist attacks in France came by way of Hezbollah in answer to its presence in the above mess, in 1985 or 30 years prior to the kosher supermarket in the aforementioned but only 2 years after the Beirut one! Still your country’s responsibility! To have used this as a rationale for your views on Capitol Hill this afternoon is beyond contempt!
Let me be clear : If Israel is the Jewish state, you have no business calling off the Islamic one of Iran. Their nation and yours have the exact same rights to existence. Of course they are wrong in stating their desire to annihilate your land. The question is however : are your government’s actions in attempting to erase the Palestinian people from history any better solely because not worded out loud?
In the world for which I served, there is a place for all nations, all people : Israel, Iran and Palestine. It is not a contest. In denying the right of any, you deny the right of all.
That is the spirit of enlightenment that presided over the forming of the august body that you used as a tool earlier today.
You may have forgotten it but I did not!
On the count of which, I assure you of my utter contempt for this dastardly deed,
sincerely, Tay.
Transcript of Netanyahu’s address :
OR SHUT UP!
Definitive Lapse of Reason 