Republicans hope to paint Democrats as “anti-American” “Nazis” if they don’t attend Netanyahu’s speech, but President Obama has done more for Israel’s security than any other president.
Conservatives are desperately trying to paint a Democratic revolt against the blatant attempts of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to humiliate and defy the sitting U.S. President and hijack the United States’ foreign policy — letting Israel not only dictate our policy with Iran but humiliate our President in the doing — as Democrats having “contempt” for Israel.
Yet, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Colin H. Kahl wrote for Foreign Policy in August of 2012, “No president in history has done more for Israel’s security than Obama”. He made a darn good case for this claim, and the facts would humiliate thinking, non-delusional people:
… As the Defense Department official with primary responsibility for enhancing Israel’s defense capabilities and deepening joint military cooperation with the United States from 2009 to 2011, I can attest to a different reality: No president in history has done more for Israel’s security than Obama.
The case for Obama’s Israel policy begins with record-high levels of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). The Obama administration has increased security assistance to Israel every single year since the president took office, providing nearly $10 billion in aid — covering roughly a fifth of Israel’s defense budget — over the past three years. To put this in perspective, this is about 20 percent higher than the remaining six dozen recipients of U.S. FMF combined. Historic aid levels have been complemented by other steps to ensure Israel’s unrivaled military advantage in the region, including high-level consultation with Israeli officials on U.S. arms sales to the region, operational cooperation to improve Israel’s conventional military and counterterrorism capabilities, and providing Israel with advanced technology, such as the fifth-generation stealth Joint Strike Fighter, to which no other state in the Middle East has access.
Under Obama’s direction, the United States has also deepened defense cooperation aimed at helping Israel address its most pressing security concerns, including rocket and missile threats emanating from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. When then-Senator Obama traveled to Israel in 2008, it wasn’t for a political fundraiser. Instead, he visited Israeli victims of Palestinian rocket fire in the southern town of Sderot, declaring “I came to Sderot with a commitment to Israel’s security.” These were not just words. As president, Obama has championed efforts to provide Israel with $275 million over and above its annual FMF to help finance Iron Dome, an anti-rocket system that has already saved Israeli lives by intercepting approximately 90 percent of projectiles launched against protected areas in the country’s south in the past year.
The humiliation of the sitting U.S. President was yet another petty Republican conspiracy with Speaker Boehner-level fail all over it. Not only is it backfiring, but their attempts to spin the backfire in their favor only serve to bring up facts that they can ill afford to have highlighted.
It turns out that under the fevered, hate-filled rhetoric of madcap conservatives (bizarrely calling Democrats “anti-American” for standing up against a power grab by a foreign country), Republicans think they can use this to paint Democrats as “Nazis”.
Demonstrating a troubling disregard for the horrific tragedies enacted by the actual Nazis, a commenter opined at the Federalist Papers (one of many places these comments have surfaced), “No fate, but what we make….The GOP, will be able to paint them as Jewish hating elitist Nazi, party in the election. LETS ROLL!!!!!!!!”
And then, James Woods gave us this:
Dems might skip Netanyahu – POLITICO – I would love to see Biden/Pelosi show their contempt for Israel. #truecolors http://t.co/9stJ9ZP5TG
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 5, 2015
Yeah, that’s totally legit. Except President Obama, a Democrat, has done more for Israel’s security than any other president.
As White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained in a briefing on February 4th, “(O)ne of the concerns about the breach in protocol that we’ve seen and articulated is that it might cause some to view the relationship between the United States and Israel as a relationship between one political party in Israel and one political party in the United States. The President does not believe that would be a positive development in our relationship.”
Israel is spitting in the face of the man who has bent over backward to help Israel, and trying to destroy his nuclear negotiations with Iran — a matter that impacts us all, not just Netanhayu and his right wing craving for war and blood.
Ultimately, Republicans hope to turn Democrats standing up for protocol and U.S authority over its own foreign policy into an attack on Democrats, claiming they have “contempt” for Israel and calling them “anti-patriotic”. But it’s clear that it is Republicans who have shown contempt for their own country, in a groveling move to hand U.S. power over to a foreign leader just to spite the man in the White House.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
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