MELANIE PHILLIPS: THE BITTER TEARS OF NANCY PELOSI
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/As-I-See-It-The-bitter-tears-of-Nancy-Pelosi-393082
As I See It: The bitter tears of Nancy Pelosi
The Democratic Party leader in America’s House of Representatives
stormed from the floor of the House before Netanyahu had finished
saying his goodbyes following his speech to Congress.
Why did Nancy Pelosi choke up? The Democratic Party leader in
America’s House of Representatives stormed from the floor of the House
before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had finished saying
his goodbyes following his speech to Congress.
Pelosi was “near tears,” she said, over what she had heard.
What had so upset her? She was, she said, “saddened by the insult to
the intelligence of the United States” and “by the condescension
toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader
commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.”
The relationship with Israel, which she said she “loves,” was a “deep
and abiding friendship that will always reach beyond party.”
A curious reaction, perhaps. After all, Netanyahu had explicitly
thanked Democrats and Republicans for their common support for Israel.
He had paid gracious compliments to President Obama for supporting
Israel over the years.
The speech was factual and reasoned.
Eschewing partisan points, Netanyahu merely laid out the devastating
case against the deal with Iran that he fears is about to be done.
So with what exactly did Nancy Pelosi feel she could not associate
herself? Netanyahu pointed out the terrible threat Iran poses not just
to Israel but to the world through its regional advances.
He warned of the supreme folly of treating Iran as an ally against
Islamic Sate when both are competing to impose a militant Islamic
empire upon the region and the world.
He laid out the threat posed by Iran to America, hundreds of whose
citizens it has killed in more than three decades of attacks on
American interests.
Careful to give away no secrets of the nuclear negotiations, he set
out how the imminent deal with Iran would leave this terrorist and
genocidal regime with a vast nuclear infrastructure that would enable
it to amass enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium for a nuclear
bomb in a matter of months or even weeks. And through its
intercontinental ballistic missile program, which wasn’t even on the
negotiating table, Iran could deliver nuclear weapons to every part of
the US.
He nailed the canard endlessly repeated by President Obama that there
was no alternative to this deal other than war. Not true, said
Netanyahu: The alternative to a bad deal was a better deal, to be
achieved only by holding Iran’s feet to the fire. And he made one new
and specific suggestion: that if Iran didn’t agree to change its
behavior before the deal was signed, at the very least it should be
required to do so before the deal’s timeline elapsed.
It was a good speech which provoked a stunning reaction. Indeed, the
reaction was what it was actually all about.
For the repeated standing ovations and cheering from Congress made a
number of points crystal clear.
First, this was the most pointed rebuke possible to Obama. For his
campaign of smears, snubs, insults and naked attempts stop Netanyahu
from speaking boomeranged badly against the president. It turned a
speech that might otherwise have been played down into a global event,
and ensured that Republican Congress would feel duty bound to stand up
for America’s beleaguered ally against the White House bully.
Most significant of all, however, was what Congress cheered the
loudest. When Netanyahu said, “The days when the Jewish people
remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies” had gone, Congress
erupted. When he said, “Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will
stand,” it went wild.
The warning from Netanyahu was unmissable. If this rotten deal goes
ahead and Obama enables Iran to achieve nuclear breakout capacity,
Israel will do what it must to stop it, including military attack.
That is what Congress was cheering. It was giving Israel permission to
attack Iran.
It was saying that the American people will understand and support it
if it is forced to do so.
What those cheers also signified is that Obama and those Democrats who
support him have been left isolated in an odious place. Contrary to
what Pelosi said, it is the deal being cooked up with Iran which is an
insult to the intelligence. And through its cheering, Congress was
saying that America will never support such a deal that exposes the
Jewish people to another genocide.
Here lay the real power of that speech but also its danger. It lined
up Congress behind Israel and left Obama stranded on the other side.
Obama said in response what he always says: that there is no
alternative to this deal. In the light of what Netanyahu so
unsparingly laid out, Obama is therefore saying there is no
alternative to empowering a nuclear Iran.
What Netanyahu did was to lay out exactly whom Obama is now siding
with and whom he stands against. Stunningly, Sunni Arab states are
behind Netanyahu.
In the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Jazirah, columnist Dr. Ahmad al-Faraj
wrote before the speech: “I believe that Netanyahu’s conduct will
serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the
foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents.” The
editor-in-chief of Al-Arabiya English, Faisal J. Abbas, wrote a piece
titled “President Obama, Listen to Netanyahu on Iran.”
And the speech drew a stark line within America itself. It showed that
Republican- dominated Congress will stand with Israel against genocide
while Obama will make that genocide a possibility.
Undeniably the issue of Israel, for so long enjoying bipartisan
support, has become dangerously politicized. The risk is that
supporting Israel will become a Republican issue with Democrats
becoming indifferent or opposed.
Some blame the Republicans for opening up that perilous divide. Others
may conclude it is Obama who has politicized the Israel issue and
smashed the consensus by subsuming Israel’s security into his lethally
deluded belief that appeasing Iran or the Palestinians will promote
peace rather than mass murder, genocide and war.
Regardless, there are Democrats who are truly pro-Israel and also
truly committed to stopping Iran getting the bomb. The problem is that
they are truly deluded about how to do so.
Those Democrats now find they are going to have to make a choice they
cannot bear: either back a deal that will expose Israel to the threat
of genocide, or oppose Obama.
That is surely why Nancy Pelosi choked up.
Melanie Phillips is a columnist for The Times (UK).
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/As-I-See-It-The-bitter-tears-of-Nancy-Pelosi-393082
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