"Despite the fact too many Israeli citizens are under great stress from Hamas rockets, these weapons do not represent an existential threat to Israel. Rather than a serious military challenge, these rockets are like a drug gang that uses drive by shootings as a tactic to terrify a neighborhood. When is the solution to this type of terror for authorities to lay waste to the neighborhood?"
Thousands of Hamas rockets and missiles fired at Israeli towns and cities are no more than a "tactic" intended to terrify a neighborhood? I don't know another member of Congress who is so vile and immoral.
Well, it's six years later, and McCollum is now telling us in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Why I won’t be attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress" that she will refuse to listen to Israel's prime minister on March 3. McCollum writes:
"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a heated reelection campaign. Yet he is traveling 5,900 miles to give a speech before a joint meeting of Congress on March 3 — just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), working with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a former Republican political operative who renounced his U.S. citizenship, extended the invitation in a clear effort to undermine the president while the United States and its five partners engage in tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons — a national security priority I strongly support."
"Tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons"? In fact, Obama has consistently given in to Khamenei in order to obtain an agreement described by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes's as "probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy." Rhodes went on to characterize such a deal as the equivalent of healthcare for the president.
However, as observed today by Charles Krauthammer in a must-read Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The fatal flaw in the Iran deal," Obama is in fact conceding to the Iranians the right to manufacture atomic weapons and ICBMs:
"News leaked Monday of the elements of a 'sunset clause.' President Obama had accepted the Iranian demand that any restrictions on its program be time-limited. After which, the mullahs can crank up their nuclear program at will and produce as much enriched uranium as they want.
. . . .
Meanwhile, Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile program is subject to no restrictions at all. It’s not even part of these negotiations."
Apparently, Obama is gambling that Khamenei will not attempt a covert break out under his watch, which ends in two years. From 2017, it becomes someone else's mess. And then, just maybe, Khamenei, who is ill with cancer, might be replaced by someone more "moderate." But given that Iran stones to death women accused of adultery, hangs homosexuals, persecutes Baha'is, oppresses Kurds, abuses Sunni Muslims, and brutally quashes political opposition, this is a gamble that even a fool would not accept.
McCullom further states:
"[T]he speaker of the House has provided the Israeli prime minister with a global platform to both attack our president and deliver a campaign message to voters at home."
It just doesn't occur to McCullom that Netanyahu does not intend to "attack" Obama. Rather, at a time when Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei continues to call for Israel's annihilation, Netanyahu has no choice but to address Congress and protest Obama's willingness to offer Iran the opportunity to manufacture nuclear weapons on a silver platter. But then what should we expect from a congresswoman who believes that Grad missiles aimed at Israeli civilians are not a "serious military challenge"? Maybe she believes that ICBMs with nuclear warheards aimed at Israel are just another nuisance?
A "campaign message to voters at home"? I know many Israelis who detest Netanyahu and would never vote for him, but still want him speaking before Congress. After all, their lives and those of their children are very much at stake.
No comments:
Post a Comment