The speech by the Israeli PM to the US Congress has drawn much comment. That it was shameful and that the US members of Congress and the Senate lapped it all up says much for the politicians - no doubt, petrified to upset, however minor, the Israel Lobby, especially with an election coming up in 2012.
Jeffrey Goldberg on Bloomberg:
"If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning.
I would applaud Netanyahu for including no bold initiatives that would have suggested to the world that Israel is alive to the threat posed by its seemingly eternal occupation of the West Bank.
In fact, I would make support for Netanyahu the foundation stone of my patient campaign to dismantle the world’s only majority-Jewish country. I would support not only Netanyahu, but the far-right parties of his governing coalition, the parties that seem uninterested in democracy and obsessed with planting more Jewish settlements on the West Bank."
Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss:
"In Israel they say that the occupation devoured Israeli politics so that everyone is beholden to the settlers, well the same thing is happening to American politics and today it was evident. I'm not the only one to feel shattered by Netanyahu's bravura performance in Congress today laying claim to the West Bank as the ancestral Jewish homeland-- and the Congress's prostrate acceptance of his rightwing declarations.
"In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers," he said to a standing ovation-- I even saw John Kerry standing. "We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo."
And Netanyahu got the same standing ovation when he said, crazily: "Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel. I know that this is a difficult issue for Palestinians."
No wonder David Welna of NPR has quoted John Mearsheimer as lead analyst in his piece tonight-- a breakthrough by the gobsmacked media. Writes a friend: "With this speech Netanyahu becomes the right-wing politician of most serious national stature in America. He put a lot of work into the words, and the delivery. It was necessary to have some understanding of (a) history, (b) politics, and (c) character in order to see through it. The distortions were everywhere. But I doubt that 20 members of Congress were equipped to notice them. There must have been a dozen standing ovations. He has taken Hamas off the table, put the peril of Iran back on the table, and bound the U.S. to Israel under the sign of power and providence."
ABC says there were 20 standing ovations, on MSNBC I heard there were 26. Staggering. Our president is overseas, and his spokesman Ben Rhodes was afraid to contradict Netanyahu in any way today. This is power of the lobby in our politics, and it looks as disastrous to me as the slave power's ability to enforce unanimity in American politics in the 1850s."
Gideon Levy in Haaretz:
"It was an address with no destination, filled with lies on top of lies and illusions heaped on illusions. Only rarely is a foreign head of state invited to speak before Congress. It's unlikely that any other has attempted to sell them such a pile of propaganda and prevarication, such hypocrisy and sanctimony as Benjamin Netanyahu did yesterday.
The fact that the Congress rose to its feet multiple times to applaud him says more about the ignorance of its members than the quality of their guest's speech. An Israeli presence on the Jordan River - cheering. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel - applause. Did American's elected representatives know that they were cheering for the death of possibility? If America loved it, we're in big trouble."
Jeffrey Goldberg on Bloomberg:
"If I were a Palestinian (and, should there be any confusion on this point, I am not), and if I were the sort of Palestinian who believed that Israel should be wiped off the map, then I would be quite pleased with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance before Congress this morning.
I would applaud Netanyahu for including no bold initiatives that would have suggested to the world that Israel is alive to the threat posed by its seemingly eternal occupation of the West Bank.
In fact, I would make support for Netanyahu the foundation stone of my patient campaign to dismantle the world’s only majority-Jewish country. I would support not only Netanyahu, but the far-right parties of his governing coalition, the parties that seem uninterested in democracy and obsessed with planting more Jewish settlements on the West Bank."
Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss:
"In Israel they say that the occupation devoured Israeli politics so that everyone is beholden to the settlers, well the same thing is happening to American politics and today it was evident. I'm not the only one to feel shattered by Netanyahu's bravura performance in Congress today laying claim to the West Bank as the ancestral Jewish homeland-- and the Congress's prostrate acceptance of his rightwing declarations.
"In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers," he said to a standing ovation-- I even saw John Kerry standing. "We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo."
And Netanyahu got the same standing ovation when he said, crazily: "Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel. I know that this is a difficult issue for Palestinians."
No wonder David Welna of NPR has quoted John Mearsheimer as lead analyst in his piece tonight-- a breakthrough by the gobsmacked media. Writes a friend: "With this speech Netanyahu becomes the right-wing politician of most serious national stature in America. He put a lot of work into the words, and the delivery. It was necessary to have some understanding of (a) history, (b) politics, and (c) character in order to see through it. The distortions were everywhere. But I doubt that 20 members of Congress were equipped to notice them. There must have been a dozen standing ovations. He has taken Hamas off the table, put the peril of Iran back on the table, and bound the U.S. to Israel under the sign of power and providence."
ABC says there were 20 standing ovations, on MSNBC I heard there were 26. Staggering. Our president is overseas, and his spokesman Ben Rhodes was afraid to contradict Netanyahu in any way today. This is power of the lobby in our politics, and it looks as disastrous to me as the slave power's ability to enforce unanimity in American politics in the 1850s."
Gideon Levy in Haaretz:
"It was an address with no destination, filled with lies on top of lies and illusions heaped on illusions. Only rarely is a foreign head of state invited to speak before Congress. It's unlikely that any other has attempted to sell them such a pile of propaganda and prevarication, such hypocrisy and sanctimony as Benjamin Netanyahu did yesterday.
The fact that the Congress rose to its feet multiple times to applaud him says more about the ignorance of its members than the quality of their guest's speech. An Israeli presence on the Jordan River - cheering. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel - applause. Did American's elected representatives know that they were cheering for the death of possibility? If America loved it, we're in big trouble."
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