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Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO
Netanyahu can't afford to miss out on such an important opportunity
Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO
Noah Klieger

It's Netanyahu's duty to address US Congress

Op-ed: All of Israel's party leaders should have escorted the prime minister to Washington to prove their solidarity and support for an issue threatening the Jewish state's future.

First of all, some semantics: The prime minister doesn’t have to address the Congress in Washington, he must.

  

 

Benjamin Netanyahu cannot afford to miss out on such an important and talked-about opportunity to warn, once again, against the danger of a nuclear Iran and to try to persuade the leaders of the United States to back off from their intention to sign a vague agreement with Tehran, an agreement which will likely not give the Americans and the entire world any solid guarantees or proper tools to supervise what is happening in the ayatollahs' reactors.

 

As the prime minister of Israel, the country which is most threatened by an Iranian nuclear weapon, Netanyahu must address the Congress in order to explain the dangers to tens of millions of listeners in the US itself and countless other people across the universe.

 

The fact that the speech – which was initiated and organized by the leaders of the Republican majority in the Congress – was not coordinate with US President Barack Obama and with the White House – has nothing to do with our prime minister. It's merely an internal American conflict, which has unfortunately aggravated the relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, a relationship which wasn't optimal to begin with, to say the least.

 

But this is a risk Netanyahu has to take, because it's a critical issue and because there is no doubt that the relations between the two countries will go back to normal, as they have several times in the past.

 

Iranian Revolutionary Guards mock American carrier. And these are the 'partners' the US president plans to rely on? (Photo: AP)    (Photo: AP)
Iranian Revolutionary Guards mock American carrier. And these are the 'partners' the US president plans to rely on? (Photo: AP)

 

In order to express their resentment over the Republicans' trick, Democratic Congress members have announced that they will not attend Netanyahu's speech. So what? They will all listen very carefully to what he says, as his comments will be broadcasted of course. In fact, this is not a protest against him but against the Republican majority.

 

And while we can understand the absence of American Congress members, we cannot understand or accept in any way the fact that almost all of Israel's party leaders did not come with the prime minister to Washington to prove their solidarity and support for an issue threatening the state's future – in other words, not a political issue at all.

 

This absence, in my opinion, as well as the criticism over Netanyahu's decision, can be seen as an almost incomprehensible and unforgivable scandal. One would think that Netanyahu is representing himself in Washington rather than the entire State of Israel, the future of the Jewish state.

 

One last word to President Obama and his advisors: Last week, in a bombastic and well staged display, the Iranians simulated the so-called destruction of an aircraft carrier by their heroic forces. And how did they present the aircraft carrier? As an American cruiser of course.

 

Can anyone find a more blatant example of the Iranian mockery towards the US? Tehran's leaders have proved again that they couldn’t care less about Obama and about his country. And all that while holding talks about an agreement. And these are the "partners" the president and his advisors plan to rely on? Both we and the entire free world are in trouble.

 


פרסום ראשון: 03.03.15, 00:10
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