Spammy posts from the Jew hating al Guardian. DickHeaded posts from electronicintifada.net.
What more do we need to know about these two people???
The conclusions drawn in their 'articles' are so bizarre and absent of reality I don't even bother to refute them anymore.
Why should I? The entire forum knows the BEST THING they can say about Spammy is he's routing for the world's foremost terrorist state that brutalizes its own people and murders Jews, Christians and Sunnis all over the globe to be able to acquire the one weapon that could destroy the Jewish State; the worst thing anyone can say about me is I sell the games I bet. Some comparison.
What more do we need to know about these two people???
The conclusions drawn in their 'articles' are so bizarre and absent of reality I don't even bother to refute them anymore.
Why should I? The entire forum knows the BEST THING they can say about Spammy is he's routing for the world's foremost terrorist state that brutalizes its own people and murders Jews, Christians and Sunnis all over the globe to be able to acquire the one weapon that could destroy the Jewish State; the worst thing anyone can say about me is I sell the games I bet. Some comparison.
Just more shameless Tout boy lies. Sorry Bottom Feeder, but as much as you try and slime me an Anti Semite, and Anti Israel, and all your other BS, sane people know I'm a pro Israel Jew who sees and posts the truth about Bibi. It's you, who fail to call out a terrorist supporter, and even joke around with the pig about his terrorist support, who is the person who would be in any way rooting for terrorists or a terrorist state.
I'll start without you Vit....
For global terror networks like al Queda and State sponsors of terror the US is the #1 target. Israel is generally the second target. Among the Iranians they definitely are the second target. So we are holding negotiations our congress has already said they will not allow to become law (thank God for some sanity in DC) with crazed people who lie while breathing and who want to kill us all dead.
Obama is part of a MASSIVE US security apparatus that exists with or without and before and after him. IOW we target global jihadis regardless of his say so. The programs are in place. His voice matters but there are many others in the mix.
It's slightly different for Israel. The ideology of the enemy is the same, but the aspirations of the killers not always the same as those who target the US. Palestinians attack Israel out of 'nationalistic' aims. This of course is all inventive poppycock as Palestinians are no different than Egyptians or Jordanians, or other Arabs. The ultimate goal of all jihadi driven groups in the end is world domination.
Israel's fight is different than ours as it is on the front line of the jihad in a far worse neighborhood. And while it is of course unpalatable the US can withstand a large terror attack while Israel might be destroyed by one. Netanyahu and Obama have a common enemy. Bibi grew up with it as Israel has been surrounded by bellicose enemies bent on its destruction since its 1948 rebirth. Obama's much slower on the uptake regarding the realities of the world. He ran his campaign on 'war fatigue' by telling the masses what they wanted to hear. All well and good for him getting elected. But it didn't stop the al Queda terror mindset or the armageddon driven states like Iran from wanting to destroy us.
For global terror networks like al Queda and State sponsors of terror the US is the #1 target. Israel is generally the second target. Among the Iranians they definitely are the second target. So we are holding negotiations our congress has already said they will not allow to become law (thank God for some sanity in DC) with crazed people who lie while breathing and who want to kill us all dead.
Obama is part of a MASSIVE US security apparatus that exists with or without and before and after him. IOW we target global jihadis regardless of his say so. The programs are in place. His voice matters but there are many others in the mix.
It's slightly different for Israel. The ideology of the enemy is the same, but the aspirations of the killers not always the same as those who target the US. Palestinians attack Israel out of 'nationalistic' aims. This of course is all inventive poppycock as Palestinians are no different than Egyptians or Jordanians, or other Arabs. The ultimate goal of all jihadi driven groups in the end is world domination.
Israel's fight is different than ours as it is on the front line of the jihad in a far worse neighborhood. And while it is of course unpalatable the US can withstand a large terror attack while Israel might be destroyed by one. Netanyahu and Obama have a common enemy. Bibi grew up with it as Israel has been surrounded by bellicose enemies bent on its destruction since its 1948 rebirth. Obama's much slower on the uptake regarding the realities of the world. He ran his campaign on 'war fatigue' by telling the masses what they wanted to hear. All well and good for him getting elected. But it didn't stop the al Queda terror mindset or the armageddon driven states like Iran from wanting to destroy us.
I win betting sports too, thanks, and I don't even have to leech off people buying my picks to do it. I don't have to wrestle with my conscience(since you don't have one, I guesser you don't either)that I would ever stoop so low as to think about charging suckers for my picks. That's for low life, slimy, bottom feeding Touts.
You support policies that would end Israel. And you libel the POTUS who is doing everything he can to help save the Jewish State. You hate Israel AND the US. Yep.
[h=1]Netanyahu Campaign Hit by Perfect Storm[/h]
519 Mar 9, 2015 3:46 PM EDT By Daniel Gordis
For all the vitriol in the U.S. surrounding Benjamin Netanyahu's speech last week to Congress, it was nothing compared with what the Israeli prime minister faced upon his homecoming. Israeli politics are generally more vicious than their American parallel, and Netanyahu returned to face what is almost a perfect storm raging around his re-election campaign.
It began with comments by Meir Dagan, a former director of Mossad, who said that the prime minister’s conduct of the conflict with the Palestinians would lead Israel to being either a binational or an apartheid state. Dagan has long been critical of Netanyahu, but former Mossad chiefs have virtual demigod status in Israel, so his accusation (which he repeated in front of an estimated 80,000 people at an anti-Netanyahu rally Saturday in Tel Aviv, where he also said that Netanyahu has brought Israel to its worst crisis since its creation) clearly stung.
The Likud itself brought on the second phase of the storm with an undeniably stupid and offensive TV ad that showed people in a self-help group, all there due to Netanyahu's policies. There was the mobile-phone company executive who can no longer charge customers through the nose, the port worker who can no longer get away with working only three hours a week, and a Hamas terrorist complaining about Netanyahu's war on terrorism. In a country with deep socialist roots, the nasty portrayal of lazy workers was edgy enough. But depicting a Hamas terrorist in the same group as laborers went way too far. Israelis woke up Monday morning to a YNet headline noting that a Likud candidate, the head of Israel’s Airport Authority, said publicly that his workers are telling him they will not vote Likud because of the ad in which Netanyahu compared them to the enemy. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, long known as a straight shooter, said Netanyahu didn't know about the content of the ad. Given that the prime minister was filmed reciting lines clearly meant for the ad, though, people found even Yaalon hard to believe this time.
The third blow was a leaked document allegedly indicating that the prime minister had agreed in principle to return to the 1967 lines in a deal with the Palestinians, something he has said publicly he would never do. Avi Issacharoff, one of Israel’s leading political commentators, wondered whether the leak originated with U.S. President Barack Obama and was payback for the speech to Congress -- an indication of how damaging he thought it might prove. On Sunday night, apparently seeking to prove that Netanyahu has not softened, the Likud announced that the prime minister no longer supports the two-state solution. Hours later, Netanyahu denied he ever said that. The Likud is desperate, struggling to keep the ship afloat in a storm that keeps growing stronger.
It has been a steep and precipitous fall since those glory moments on the podium before the U.S. Congress. Netanyahu is clearly in trouble. The two major questions that will determine the outcome of next week’s election are what number of Likud voters will actually abandon the right-wing camp, and whether fear of Tzipi Livni as prime minister will prevent many people from voting Labor (now the Zionist Union). Isaac Herzog is apparently palatable for many, but not so Livni, who co-chairs the party. A large ad running on YNet this week showed Herzog’s face, and said, “You start with him … .” Then the photo slowly morphed into Livni, and the ad continued, “But you’ll be stuck with her as your Prime Minister for two years.” It was an ad for Likud, which seems to have decided that its strongest argument is no longer pro-Netanyahu, but anti-Livni.
Whatever the outcome, this election will almost certainly prove much closer than Netanyahu ever imagined it would be. Calling these elections seems to have been a major political blunder. President Reuven Rivlin has announced that in the event of a tie between the two major parties, he will work toward a unity government instead of an illogical amalgam of small parties cobbled together -- precisely what Netanyahu was hoping to put behind him.
For Netanyahu, the specter of a unity government is painfully ironic. It was a unity government in 1967, just before the Six Day War, that got Menachem Begin (Likud’s founder) into the government. If Israelis end up with a unity government in the next few weeks, the looming question will be whether these elections were a slight bump in Likud’s enduring run, or whether they signal the gradual return to power of Labor, which -- beginning in January 1949 -- ruled this country uninterrupted for 29 years.
519 Mar 9, 2015 3:46 PM EDT By Daniel Gordis
For all the vitriol in the U.S. surrounding Benjamin Netanyahu's speech last week to Congress, it was nothing compared with what the Israeli prime minister faced upon his homecoming. Israeli politics are generally more vicious than their American parallel, and Netanyahu returned to face what is almost a perfect storm raging around his re-election campaign.
It began with comments by Meir Dagan, a former director of Mossad, who said that the prime minister’s conduct of the conflict with the Palestinians would lead Israel to being either a binational or an apartheid state. Dagan has long been critical of Netanyahu, but former Mossad chiefs have virtual demigod status in Israel, so his accusation (which he repeated in front of an estimated 80,000 people at an anti-Netanyahu rally Saturday in Tel Aviv, where he also said that Netanyahu has brought Israel to its worst crisis since its creation) clearly stung.
The Likud itself brought on the second phase of the storm with an undeniably stupid and offensive TV ad that showed people in a self-help group, all there due to Netanyahu's policies. There was the mobile-phone company executive who can no longer charge customers through the nose, the port worker who can no longer get away with working only three hours a week, and a Hamas terrorist complaining about Netanyahu's war on terrorism. In a country with deep socialist roots, the nasty portrayal of lazy workers was edgy enough. But depicting a Hamas terrorist in the same group as laborers went way too far. Israelis woke up Monday morning to a YNet headline noting that a Likud candidate, the head of Israel’s Airport Authority, said publicly that his workers are telling him they will not vote Likud because of the ad in which Netanyahu compared them to the enemy. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, long known as a straight shooter, said Netanyahu didn't know about the content of the ad. Given that the prime minister was filmed reciting lines clearly meant for the ad, though, people found even Yaalon hard to believe this time.
The third blow was a leaked document allegedly indicating that the prime minister had agreed in principle to return to the 1967 lines in a deal with the Palestinians, something he has said publicly he would never do. Avi Issacharoff, one of Israel’s leading political commentators, wondered whether the leak originated with U.S. President Barack Obama and was payback for the speech to Congress -- an indication of how damaging he thought it might prove. On Sunday night, apparently seeking to prove that Netanyahu has not softened, the Likud announced that the prime minister no longer supports the two-state solution. Hours later, Netanyahu denied he ever said that. The Likud is desperate, struggling to keep the ship afloat in a storm that keeps growing stronger.
It has been a steep and precipitous fall since those glory moments on the podium before the U.S. Congress. Netanyahu is clearly in trouble. The two major questions that will determine the outcome of next week’s election are what number of Likud voters will actually abandon the right-wing camp, and whether fear of Tzipi Livni as prime minister will prevent many people from voting Labor (now the Zionist Union). Isaac Herzog is apparently palatable for many, but not so Livni, who co-chairs the party. A large ad running on YNet this week showed Herzog’s face, and said, “You start with him … .” Then the photo slowly morphed into Livni, and the ad continued, “But you’ll be stuck with her as your Prime Minister for two years.” It was an ad for Likud, which seems to have decided that its strongest argument is no longer pro-Netanyahu, but anti-Livni.
Whatever the outcome, this election will almost certainly prove much closer than Netanyahu ever imagined it would be. Calling these elections seems to have been a major political blunder. President Reuven Rivlin has announced that in the event of a tie between the two major parties, he will work toward a unity government instead of an illogical amalgam of small parties cobbled together -- precisely what Netanyahu was hoping to put behind him.
For Netanyahu, the specter of a unity government is painfully ironic. It was a unity government in 1967, just before the Six Day War, that got Menachem Begin (Likud’s founder) into the government. If Israelis end up with a unity government in the next few weeks, the looming question will be whether these elections were a slight bump in Likud’s enduring run, or whether they signal the gradual return to power of Labor, which -- beginning in January 1949 -- ruled this country uninterrupted for 29 years.
[h=1]Exorcising Netanyahu out of office[/h] [h=2]The election pits Bibi vs. Netanyahu, Groucho Marx against the face looking out at him from the mirror, with defeat on the way for both candidates.[/h] By Amir Oren 05:24 10.03.15
0
The State of Israel is sick. It needs a doctor, but to its great misfortune it is being treated by a medical clown. Between these two professions there is something of a difference: When a clown does surgery, what starts out with a laugh ends in tears.
It’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yes or no, he is the sole issue in this election. Those who want to bring him and his wife back for four more years (or less, depending on the chance of renewed legislation against Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom) will vote for him. Anyone who is tired of Netanyahu’s faded appearance will vote against him.
Netanyahu understands his vulnerability in these terms. This is why he sought opponents against whom he could muster a majority: U.S. President Barack Obama. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Zionist Union co-leader MK Tzipi Livni. Ex Prime Minister’s Resident chief caretaker Meni Naftali. The clumsy effort failed. Zionist Union co-leader MK Isaac Herzog, who as candidate for prime minister seems no match for Netanyahu, has been smart enough to minimize his presence to seeing-yet-unseen, and thus stop the general campaign from turning into a duel. The conflict remains, therefore, Bibi vs. Netanyahu, Groucho Marx against the face looking out at him from the mirror, with defeat on the way for both candidates.
On the intellectual level, the fact that former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service have come out against him is important. Not because Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin are gifted with higher understanding; before Netanyahu, they loyally served – without batting an eye, collaborators with corrupt prime ministers – Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Dagan and Diskin’s contribution is different. Citizens who are furious over the bitter reality they see might wonder if there is some other, hidden, secret universe open only to a few, which, if they were allowed to enter its inner sanctum with these select ones, they would necessarily identify with the leader’s decisions. There is no secret. What the Mossad, Shin Bet and Military Intelligence know is precisely what everyone seeks to know, and there is no reason to give Netanyahu credit that in the deepest darkness, the situation is closer to his view and gives greater justification to his way.
On the emotional level, the issue of the elections is shame or pride. Israelis, including many Likud loyalists, are ashamed of Netanyahu and his destructiveness, and tend to distance themselves from him. Netanyahu tried to combat the feeling that this time it is shameful to support him with his trip to Washington. He wasn’t going after Iran in Congress, he was out to restore national pride in him as a leader – the glorious, well-spoken representative of Israel (applause applause), the most beloved, well-groomed child in kindergarten. The goal was not achieved.
Netanyahu is a worn face in a time when new faces have the advantage. Between the new faces and the old are those who are not new but who have not yet withered on the vine, among them the great Rabbi Yair Lapid, the surprising devotee of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Lapid is one of the three figures holding Yosef’s robe, along with Yahad chairman MK Eli Yishai and Shas chairman MK Arye Dery. Last May Lapid’s education minister, Shay Piron, in response to a High Court petition by attorney Eran Lev and the organization Be Free Israel against the separation of boys and girls in Orthodox schools, embraced a religious ruling by Yosef: “All educational leaders of mixed schools and youth movements will bear their iniquity, and their sin is the unfathomably great.” Piron relied on Yosef’s ruling, which also mentions the messiah, son of Joseph, and the war of Gog and Magog; the evil inclination that does not rule relations between men and women during eulogies; and Maimonides’ recommendation that men and women not eat and drink together so as not to commit a sin. This is a mockery of his party Yesh Atid’s pretense to be the party of modernity.
Lapid’s future, with Ovadia’s past, is strengthened by another of Piron’s idols, the Baba Sali. If only Lapid could get the late kabbalist to exorcize the dybbuk – out, Bibi, out!
| |
The State of Israel is sick. It needs a doctor, but to its great misfortune it is being treated by a medical clown. Between these two professions there is something of a difference: When a clown does surgery, what starts out with a laugh ends in tears.
It’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yes or no, he is the sole issue in this election. Those who want to bring him and his wife back for four more years (or less, depending on the chance of renewed legislation against Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom) will vote for him. Anyone who is tired of Netanyahu’s faded appearance will vote against him.
Netanyahu understands his vulnerability in these terms. This is why he sought opponents against whom he could muster a majority: U.S. President Barack Obama. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Zionist Union co-leader MK Tzipi Livni. Ex Prime Minister’s Resident chief caretaker Meni Naftali. The clumsy effort failed. Zionist Union co-leader MK Isaac Herzog, who as candidate for prime minister seems no match for Netanyahu, has been smart enough to minimize his presence to seeing-yet-unseen, and thus stop the general campaign from turning into a duel. The conflict remains, therefore, Bibi vs. Netanyahu, Groucho Marx against the face looking out at him from the mirror, with defeat on the way for both candidates.
On the intellectual level, the fact that former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security service have come out against him is important. Not because Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin are gifted with higher understanding; before Netanyahu, they loyally served – without batting an eye, collaborators with corrupt prime ministers – Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Dagan and Diskin’s contribution is different. Citizens who are furious over the bitter reality they see might wonder if there is some other, hidden, secret universe open only to a few, which, if they were allowed to enter its inner sanctum with these select ones, they would necessarily identify with the leader’s decisions. There is no secret. What the Mossad, Shin Bet and Military Intelligence know is precisely what everyone seeks to know, and there is no reason to give Netanyahu credit that in the deepest darkness, the situation is closer to his view and gives greater justification to his way.
On the emotional level, the issue of the elections is shame or pride. Israelis, including many Likud loyalists, are ashamed of Netanyahu and his destructiveness, and tend to distance themselves from him. Netanyahu tried to combat the feeling that this time it is shameful to support him with his trip to Washington. He wasn’t going after Iran in Congress, he was out to restore national pride in him as a leader – the glorious, well-spoken representative of Israel (applause applause), the most beloved, well-groomed child in kindergarten. The goal was not achieved.
Netanyahu is a worn face in a time when new faces have the advantage. Between the new faces and the old are those who are not new but who have not yet withered on the vine, among them the great Rabbi Yair Lapid, the surprising devotee of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Lapid is one of the three figures holding Yosef’s robe, along with Yahad chairman MK Eli Yishai and Shas chairman MK Arye Dery. Last May Lapid’s education minister, Shay Piron, in response to a High Court petition by attorney Eran Lev and the organization Be Free Israel against the separation of boys and girls in Orthodox schools, embraced a religious ruling by Yosef: “All educational leaders of mixed schools and youth movements will bear their iniquity, and their sin is the unfathomably great.” Piron relied on Yosef’s ruling, which also mentions the messiah, son of Joseph, and the war of Gog and Magog; the evil inclination that does not rule relations between men and women during eulogies; and Maimonides’ recommendation that men and women not eat and drink together so as not to commit a sin. This is a mockery of his party Yesh Atid’s pretense to be the party of modernity.
Lapid’s future, with Ovadia’s past, is strengthened by another of Piron’s idols, the Baba Sali. If only Lapid could get the late kabbalist to exorcize the dybbuk – out, Bibi, out!
[h=1]American Jews are angry with Netanyahu[/h] [h=2]The community fears the worst of the backlash over Netanyahu's speech to Congress has yet to be seen.[/h] By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie 14:01 09.03.15
0
I talked over the weekend with a longtime friend – a committed Jew, active in Jewish communal life, and a strong supporter of Israel. He calls himself an independent but votes mostly Republican. On U.S. President Barack Obama, he is wary and reserved; he voted for him once but for his opponent the other time. And my friend is very, very worried about the threat that Iran poses to Israel’s security.
When I asked for his thoughts on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, I was taken aback by his reaction. He was angry; furious, in fact. He saw the speech as a wildly inappropriate orgy of Obama-bashing. As an American, he was offended – and worried. Had it ever happened before, he asked, that a foreign leader spoke to our Congress and launched a direct attack on the American administration? I told him that, to the best of my knowledge, it had not.
A couple I know with more or less the same Jewish commitments and political views responded similarly. They had watched the speech and felt that members of Congress were being bullied by a foreign leader. True, the leader in this instance was from a place they love dearly, have visited often, and advocate for vigorously. And yes, they are concerned about the dangers posed by an Iranian bomb. But Netanyahu’s high-handed reprimand seemed out-of-place to them and the adoring responses more political than sincere. They saw the whole spectacle as an affront to American dignity. An American Congress with any self-respect, they said, should not tolerate being lectured in this manner.
And these were the Republicans. The Jewish activists who are Democrats that I spoke to – and most Jews are Democrats – were much tougher. While all are Israel supporters, they had a range of views about Iran. Some shared the fears of Netanyahu, some backed the position of the Obama administration, and some were simply unsure or undecided. But no one was happy with Netanyahu's speech. “Look at what Nancy Pelosi said,” one friend told me. “That’s what Democrats really think.” Pelosi, who possesses an impeccable pro-Israel record, had referred to the speech as “an insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
Several people worried about the impact the speech would have on African-American support for Israel. Jews on the left side of the political spectrum have worked with African-Americans on Israel issues for decades, with significant success. But the decision of Civil Rights hero John Lewis and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to skip the speech was widely noted, and some Jewish activists are wondering if the task of drawing minorities to the pro-Israel flag has now become a good deal more difficult.
The organized Jewish community is desperate to move beyond the speech and the divisions it generated. As noted by the Forward, Jewish organizations now want to unite the community by focusing on the substance of the Iran deal, rather than the breach of protocol that marred Netanyahu's visit.
But, from all that I have seen and heard, American Jews are not yet ready to move on. They are unsettled, uneasy and personally distressed. They are worried that the speech will generate repercussions that have yet to be felt and that could be severe. They are especially concerned that the partisan atmosphere that the speech has sparked and legitimized will drive away Democrats and progressives who have always been a mainstay of the pro-Israel coalition.
None of this means that the prime minister should not have dealt with the terrible, existential threat posed by Iran. But it does mean that he should not have given that speech. Instead, he should have declared a three-day election moratorium and arrived in Washington together with Isaac Herzog, his main election rival. They could have jointly addressed AIPAC, conferred with senior members of Congress and the State Department, and forcefully delivered the message that preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon is not a partisan issue for anyone but a concern for all Israelis, whatever the outcome of Israel’s election. And had they done so, they would have made their points without turning into enemies those very people whose support they require if Iran’s march to the bomb is to be thwarted.
But Mr. Netanyahu chose another course, one that may have advanced his personal political interests but did not advance the security interests of Israel. And in doing he so made American Jews' efforts to support Israel in taking on Iran much harder than it was before.
| |
I talked over the weekend with a longtime friend – a committed Jew, active in Jewish communal life, and a strong supporter of Israel. He calls himself an independent but votes mostly Republican. On U.S. President Barack Obama, he is wary and reserved; he voted for him once but for his opponent the other time. And my friend is very, very worried about the threat that Iran poses to Israel’s security.
When I asked for his thoughts on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, I was taken aback by his reaction. He was angry; furious, in fact. He saw the speech as a wildly inappropriate orgy of Obama-bashing. As an American, he was offended – and worried. Had it ever happened before, he asked, that a foreign leader spoke to our Congress and launched a direct attack on the American administration? I told him that, to the best of my knowledge, it had not.
A couple I know with more or less the same Jewish commitments and political views responded similarly. They had watched the speech and felt that members of Congress were being bullied by a foreign leader. True, the leader in this instance was from a place they love dearly, have visited often, and advocate for vigorously. And yes, they are concerned about the dangers posed by an Iranian bomb. But Netanyahu’s high-handed reprimand seemed out-of-place to them and the adoring responses more political than sincere. They saw the whole spectacle as an affront to American dignity. An American Congress with any self-respect, they said, should not tolerate being lectured in this manner.
And these were the Republicans. The Jewish activists who are Democrats that I spoke to – and most Jews are Democrats – were much tougher. While all are Israel supporters, they had a range of views about Iran. Some shared the fears of Netanyahu, some backed the position of the Obama administration, and some were simply unsure or undecided. But no one was happy with Netanyahu's speech. “Look at what Nancy Pelosi said,” one friend told me. “That’s what Democrats really think.” Pelosi, who possesses an impeccable pro-Israel record, had referred to the speech as “an insult to the intelligence of the United States.”
Several people worried about the impact the speech would have on African-American support for Israel. Jews on the left side of the political spectrum have worked with African-Americans on Israel issues for decades, with significant success. But the decision of Civil Rights hero John Lewis and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to skip the speech was widely noted, and some Jewish activists are wondering if the task of drawing minorities to the pro-Israel flag has now become a good deal more difficult.
The organized Jewish community is desperate to move beyond the speech and the divisions it generated. As noted by the Forward, Jewish organizations now want to unite the community by focusing on the substance of the Iran deal, rather than the breach of protocol that marred Netanyahu's visit.
But, from all that I have seen and heard, American Jews are not yet ready to move on. They are unsettled, uneasy and personally distressed. They are worried that the speech will generate repercussions that have yet to be felt and that could be severe. They are especially concerned that the partisan atmosphere that the speech has sparked and legitimized will drive away Democrats and progressives who have always been a mainstay of the pro-Israel coalition.
None of this means that the prime minister should not have dealt with the terrible, existential threat posed by Iran. But it does mean that he should not have given that speech. Instead, he should have declared a three-day election moratorium and arrived in Washington together with Isaac Herzog, his main election rival. They could have jointly addressed AIPAC, conferred with senior members of Congress and the State Department, and forcefully delivered the message that preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon is not a partisan issue for anyone but a concern for all Israelis, whatever the outcome of Israel’s election. And had they done so, they would have made their points without turning into enemies those very people whose support they require if Iran’s march to the bomb is to be thwarted.
But Mr. Netanyahu chose another course, one that may have advanced his personal political interests but did not advance the security interests of Israel. And in doing he so made American Jews' efforts to support Israel in taking on Iran much harder than it was before.
