President Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America. President Barack Obama is my president. President Barack Obama is the president of all Americans… And that is why what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did by agreeing to speak to a joint session of Congress at Speaker John Boehner’s invitation without President Obama’s mutual agreement to that invitation amounts to brazen arrogance on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s part.
To make matters worse, when Prime Minister Netanyahu found himself in a tight race during the Israel election this month, he backtracked on what he had led Israelis and America to believe was his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: he said that there would not be two states under his watch. This position is totally opposed to that of the United States and what Prime Minister Netanyahu has, at least, pretended to support in the past.
In this case, the Prime Minister’s political will to survive trumped his statesmanship and willingness to stand by his word. He decided to play politics and do his personal version of the Washington two-step. In other words, if he needed to say that there would absolutely not be a two-state solution under his watch in order to garner more votes and remain in power that was okay with him. He could always walk back this statement after the election was over…and he did.
The United States is and will remain Israel’s most important and closest ally despite the fact that the Prime Minister looked all Americans directly in the eye and insulted us before friend and foe. Prime Minister Netanyahu knows that Americans hold him in high esteem and that we deeply value our relationship with Israel but yet he was willing to completely disregard that and mortgage the future of Israel so that he could remain in power. He knows that the American people are not stupid and many were insulted by his actions. Nevertheless, he is gambling that his popularity and our strong support for Israel will override that and any insult will eventually fade from our memory.
This is not to say that Prime Minister Netanyahu was not overwhelmed with concern about the safety of Israel with respect to Iran and whether or not Iran would gain a path to building a nuclear weapon so felt compelled to appeal to all Americans to discourage President Obama from agreeing to a nuclear deal with Iran. His great concern is understandable. Naturally he has a great love for Israel and wants to keep her safe. The problem is not that he felt that President Obama was pursuing a bad deal; instead, it is how he went about trying to prevent him from making that deal.
When Democrats asked to speak as a caucus to the Prime Minister regarding Speaker Boehner’s invitation to him, he refused to speak with them because he said that he did not want to bring partisan politics into the situation. This on its face is disingenuous because he had already arranged through Speaker Boehner to speak to the joint session of Congress without the knowledge of congressional Democrats and the White House. Even if he did not know initially that these groups had not been informed, when he found out that they had not been and that President Obama was against it, he declined to cancel his speech.
During the recent Israel election Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to have taken a page directly out of the Republican Party playbook. He said some things that were somewhat ambiguous that he could easily explain away as having been misconstrued but yet there was no ambiguity as regards the fact that they were divisive.
During an interview with Andrea Mitchell after the election, he said that he wants to be fair to all Israeli citizens. Republicans in Congress say this same thing about American citizens yet they persist in using scare tactics as an excuse to continue to make it harder for eligible people to vote. They use these same scare tactics to continue to resist making it easier for them to vote.
President Obama is the President of the United States and no leader of a foreign government should be welcomed with open arms to come into our country in an effort to undermine him. That leader should especially not be welcomed by our elected officials to stroll down the very isle that our President tread, be treated like royalty and speak from the very rostrum and from behind the very lectern from which our President spoke during his State of the Union Addresses, while giving Americans and the rest of the world a foreign policy message that directly opposes the message that our President has conveyed and is still continuing to push.
This should not happen no matter how highly esteemed and popular this foreign leader is with the Congress and the American people. That person is still a foreign leader and it is not appropriate: they are not our leader; president Obama is! I cannot say too many times that President Obama is the President of the United States of America and, until a new president takes office, he is my president and he is your president whether we like it or not. As for me, I am proud and privileged to call him my president.
Eulus Dennis