Below excerpts of a longer analysis by Dr. Jahanpour on TFFs blog here. It also exposes how Netanyahu misused the Bible and what the reality is about the four Middle Eastern capitals that he stated were now controlled by Iran. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the joint session of US Congress proved a great disappointment and even an embarrassment. The speech was a cynical use of the US Congress for domestic electoral ambitions. In the process, his intrusion into America’s domestic politics has deepened the divide between the Democrats and the Republicans and has introduced a strong element of partisanship to US relations with Israel.
When Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator, visited Jerusalem last December, he told the Israeli leader: “I’m here to tell you, Mr. Prime Minister, that the Congress will follow your lead… [on Iran].” Therefore, it was no surprise when the Republican Majority leader asked Netanyahu to address a join session of Congress, for the third time, to issue his marching orders. After President Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he indicated that he was working hard to resolve Iran’s nuclear dispute by peaceful means, House Speaker John A. Boehner decided to invite the head of a foreign state to address the Congress without informing the White House or even Minority Democratic leaders. This was an act of gross discourtesy to the president, a violation of diplomatic protocol, and a clear departure from the US Constitution that puts the executive branch in charge of foreign policy and relations with foreign political leaders. An Insulting Speech Netanyahu’s speech was deeply insulting on many fronts. First of all, he insulted the American president by intruding in US politics and speaking openly against the main program that President Obama had announced even before coming to power. Netanyahu insulted the tireless US Secretary of State John Kerry who has devoted so much time and effort to the nuclear talks. He also insulted the entire negotiating team in the State Department and US technical experts who have spent hundreds of hours scrutinizing every detail of Iran’s nuclear program. He insulted the CIA and other US intelligence organizations that ever since 2007 had declared in the NIE reports that Iran had not decided to follow a nuclear weapons path. He also insulted the entire P5+1 – Great Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – that are also involved in the talks. Britain, France and Germany had in fact been engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran since 2003. In effect, he said that they were all stupid and naïve and could not understand Iran and only he possessed some special insight and wisdom that was denied to them. He insulted the intelligence of the American people who by large margins are in favour of the deal with Iran. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a fervent supporter of Israel, condemned the speech as insulting and condescending. “I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech, saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5+1 nations,” she said. Netanyahu also insulted the intelligence of every peace-loving person who believes that wars are not the only way to end conflicts. After the disastrous world wars in the 20th century as the result of which the Jews also suffered horribly, and after almost non-stop wars in the current century, especially in the Middle East, most of them involving Israel, any sane person would try to find peaceful solutions to the conflicts, especially when, after 36 years of futile estrangement between Iran and the West and mutual hostility between Iran and Israel, an opportunity has been provided to resolve one of the most contentious and dangerous issues through negotiation. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, no agreement with Iran is a good one. On March 2, Netanyahu addressed a 16,000-strong crowd at the AIPAC conference. Later, one of the chief donors to AIPAC, told The Huffington Post: “They absolutely have to be bombed. If they’re not bombed, they’re going to do it… You go in there, you blow the place completely apart. They’re not going to go in there and salvage the uranium. If they dare [retaliate], we can completely take them down.” This is the mentality of Netanyahu and his violent supporters. In fact, Netanyahu threatened a unilateral Israeli war against Iran, in his statement “even if Israel stands alone, the Jewish people will not remain passive.” Exposing the power of the Jewish lobby By injecting himself so clumsily into American politics and by using AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) as a tool for the achievement of his ambitions, Netanyahu has done a great disservice to Israel and to the Jews by fracturing the so-called “bipartisan support” for Israel, exposing the power of the Jewish lobby. As Philip Weiss wrote: “The great news about the Netanyahu speech is that it brings the classic era of the lobby to an end… The lobby’s power is waning because people are sick of it.” Netanyahu’s lies about Iran’s nuclear program For at least the past twenty-three years, Netanyahu has been saying that Iran would have a nuclear bomb within two, three or four years. As early as 1992, he predicted that Iran would be able to produce a nuclear weapon within three to five years. In 1993, Netanyahu claimed that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. In September 2012, he stood in front of world leaders at the United Nations warning that Iran could have a bomb within a year. The interesting point is that his claim was contradicted by the head of Mossad, who said that there was no indication that Iran was moving towards the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Lies about Iraqi nuclear bombs Netanyahu used the same tactics in relation with Iran. Appearing before Congress in 2002, Netanyahu said: “There’s no question that [Saddam] has not given up on his nuclear program, not [sic] whatsoever. There is also no question that he was not satisfied with the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that he had and was trying to perfect them constantly.” Time to Open a New Chapter As two people who have had a long history of friendly relations over millennia, it is time for the leaders of Israel and Iran to put the short-lived political differences aside and try to deal with the real challenges that the world is facing, namely the scourge of terrorism and religious and sectarian conflicts. Permanent link to this PressInfo
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Netanyahu’s dangerous, dishonest speech
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