After weeks of buildup, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally delivered his long-planned speech to a joint meeting of Congress, attacking President Obama’s deal with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. Asserting that the agreement would only empower Iran to become nuclear armed, and painting the regime as a murderous cabal set on wiping Israel from the face of the earth, the speech fit neatly with the basic gist of Netanyahu’s public pronouncements over the previous 20 or so years.
The speech was the subject of a firestorm of controversy from the very moment it was announced. In total, more than 50 Democratic Congressmen and women ended up boycotting the speech, while National Security Adviser Susan Rice told Charlie Rose it was "destructive of the fabric of the relationship" between the US and Israel. Meanwhile, as reported by Al Jazeera, a number of former and current military officers earlier suggested that Netanyahu’s decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to speak to Congress had infuriated the US military, which was beginning to view Israel as a strategic liability.
It is interesting that this is what seems to have soured the normally subservient US political establishment on Israel and Netanyahu. After all, it could easily be argued that Israel was a strategic liability for the US long before this. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II, receiving billions of dollars military assistance a year over the last ten years, and many more billions over the decades prior. What does the US get in return for this assistance? For one, it’s dragged into supporting any and every war fought (and started) by Israel, including its last three wars in Gaza, which killed a total of more than 3,500 Palestinians, the vast majority of which were civilians, or its adventure in Lebanon which left more than 1000 Lebanese dead. The casualty figures don’t quite capture the brutality of conflicts, which also involved the maiming and large-scale displacement of civilians, the destruction of homes, and the evisceration of essential infrastructure like health care facilities and running water.
Continue reading “Netanyahu’s Crime Isn’t Playing Politics – It’s Warmongering”