"Who the fuck does he think he is? Who's the fucking superpower here?" - President Bill Clinton in 1996, after being lectured by Netanyahu on the Middle East (Source: Wikiquote).
Yossi Sarid, the former head of Israel’s Meretz Party and leader of the opposition in the Knesset from 2001 to 2003, has just written a very blunt—far too blunt for “acceptable” political discourse in Washington, DC—op-ed published Sunday by Haaretz. Unfortunately, it’s behind a pay wall, so the most I can do is extract a few excerpts. The title is straightforward: “Beware: Republican Jews on the Warpath,” and Sarid, who also served as minister of education under Ehud Barak, doesn’t pull any punches about what Boehner’s fraudulent invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is really all about.
One Matthew Brooks – the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who does the will of its financial backers – explained over the weekend, “We will commit whatever resources we need to make sure that people are aware of the facts, that given the choice to stand with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu in opposition to a nuclear Iran, they chose partisan interests and to stand with President Obama.” Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, added unambiguously, “We will, of course, be publicly condemning any Democrats who don’t show up for the speech — unless they have a doctor’s note.” Doctor, this man is sick and urgently needs tranquilizers.
…
Israel, which until now was a cornerstone of bipartisanship, has become loathsome to its traditional supporters. Benjamin Nitay Netanyahu, the Israeli-American, has made it into something that reeks, even among its longtime supporters.
In these very moments, the protocols are being rewritten. Rich Jews are writing them in their own handwriting. They, in their wealth, are confirming with their own signatures what anti-Semites used to slander them with in days gone by: We, the elders of Zion, pull the strings of Congress, and the congressmen are nothing but marionettes who do our will. If they don’t understand our words, they’ll understand our threats. And if in the past, we ran the show from behind the scenes, now we’re doing it openly, from center stage. And if you forget our donations, the wellspring will run dry.
Sarid, whose op-ed is most unlikely to appear in any mainstream U.S. publication, has now pounded it with a sledgehammer.An excerpt from, "Obama and Netanyahu Clash From Afar Over Israeli’s Planned Speech" by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Isabel Kershner, The New York Times, February 9, 2015:
The latest conflict between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel erupted into public view on Monday, as the two leaders clashed from afar over Mr. Netanyahu’s plans to visit Washington next month and the direction of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama signaled his displeasure with the speech Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to give in March to a joint meeting of Congress at the invitation of Speaker John A. Boehner, suggesting that his visit two weeks before the Israeli election risked injecting politics into the relationship between the United States and Israel.
“It’s important for us to maintain these protocols, because the U.S.-Israeli relationship is not about a particular party,” Mr. Obama said, defending his decision to refuse to meet with the Israeli prime minister during the trip. “The way to preserve that is to make sure that it doesn’t get clouded with what could be perceived as partisan politics.”
