What's Bibi done for the U.S. lately?

By G. Jefferson Price III

     A few questions come to mind after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to members of Congress.

     Netanyahu repeatedly proclaimed his gratitude for the abiding U. S. support of Israel. “I want to thank you, Democrats and Republicans, for your common support for Israel, year after year, decade after decade. . . . Thank you America. Thank you for everything you do for Israel.”

     Here’s a question: What have you done for the United States, Bibi? Is it the construction of all those settlements illegally placed on occupied territory in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in direct defiance of international law and the specific policy of the United States government? Is it the relentless Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip marked by the occasional retaliatory assaults using U.S. supplied weapons, that in the last round left almost 2,000 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of them innocent civilians?

     Netanyahu’s adoring supporters in Congress would not pose these questions but the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz raised the issue in an editorial that appeared the day after Netanyahu’s speech, declaring that he ignored . “the real existential threat to Israel and its ability to survive as a “Jewish and democratic state”: the unending occupation of the territories. Israel’s insistence on ruling over millions of Palestinians in the West Bank who lack civil rights, expanding the settlements and keeping residents of the Gaza Strip under siege is the danger that threatens its future.”

     Or, in the catalog of what Netanyahu has done for the United States, might we include his personal part 13 years ago in the drumbeat for the invasion of Iraq.

  The Israeli prime minister’s speech to Congress this week was a redux of the case that Netanyahu – out of office at the time -- was making in print and in person before congress 13 years ago joining in the clamor for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.

     Writing in the Wall Street Journal Netanyahu declared “Two decades ago it was possible to thwart Saddam's nuclear ambitions by bombing a single installation [as Israel had done in 1981]. Today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do. For Saddam's nuclear program has changed. He no longer needs one large reactor to produce the deadly material necessary for atomic bombs. He can produce it in centrifuges the size of washing machines that can be hidden throughout the country – and Iraq is a very big country. Even free and unfettered inspections will not uncover these portable manufacturing sites of mass death.”

There were no nukes in Iraq, nor were there any of the other weapons of mass destruction that the circle of Bush neo-cons, joined by Israeli hawks like Netanyah, claimed there were in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.  The price to America: More than four thousand Americans killed in Iraq; more than 32,000 wounded. Some estimates put the number of Iraqis killed at more than 200,000.    Finally, when it’s all added up, estimates are that the war in Iraq will have cost the U.S. taxpayer somewhere between two and three trillion dollars. That’s not to mention the power vacuum caused by regime change that left Iran with unprecedented sway in Baghdad and ISIS holding terrifying sway in northern Iraq.

 So what does the United States get in return “for everything you’ve done for Israel?” Judging by Tuesday’s scene in the capitol, it’s the opportunity to stand in thunderous applause on the side of whatever Netanyahu believes is best not only for Israel, but for the United States as well. That seems to be good enough for Republican Speaker John Boehner and pretty much all the members of his party in Congress.

    But there were exceptions for which Americans may be grateful in the long run. They include the 50 who refused to attend the Netanyahu adoration exercise. And there was, most powerfully, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader who was understandably outraged by the whole show: “I was near tears throughout the Prime Minister's speech -- saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States . . .  and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation."