Netanyahu's Moment; Obama's Shame

Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered the speech that President Barack Obama never gave, would never have given and could never have given.

Never wishing to miss a chance to demonstrate its legendary ineptitude, the Obama administration enhanced the speech’s importance by surrounding it with what Bret Stephens called “a campaign of vilification.”

As Stephens explained yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration would never have shown the same contempt for Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan. In addition, Obama always speaks respectfully of the Muslim Brotherhood and has bent over backwards to make nice with Iran.

While showering Israel and its prime minister with contempt, Obama always speaks reverentially of the Prophet Mohammed. He even speaks reverentially about Minister Farakhan.

Administration spokespeople were oozing contempt and hostility for the Israeli Prime minister, before and after his speech. To be fair, they were attempting to have it both ways. While Susan Rice declared that the speech would have a “destructive” influence on Israeli-American relations, John Kerry said that it wouldn’t.

The administration rightly feared that Netanyahu would humiliate President Obama. Considering the immediate reaction of the more unhinged Democratic representatives, Netanyahu succeeded.

Nancy Pelosi was caterwauling about how she felt insulted that Netanyahu imagined that the Obama administration did not understand the threat posed by Iran. Other Democrats called the Israeli prime minister a child, accused him of fearmongering, and said it was all political theatre.

There is little doubt that it was orchestrated by the White House to show how Obama really, really felt about Israel.

Taking a page out of the Zionist conspiracy chapbook, commentator Chris Matthews denounced Netanyahu for trying to take over the American government. Christiane Amanpour called the speech that it was “Strangelovian.”

One expects that television talking head try to say something that will get them quoted. But, coming from Democratic members of Congress, the rudeness was grotesque. Directed against a foreign leader, who was duly invited to speak to Congress, it smacked of anti-Semitism.

In trying desperately to save Obama’s face they lost their own.

If anyone had offered the same invective about an Africa-American he would have quickly been denounced as racist and run out of town.

Such is the confidence of the Democratic party in their ability to control Jewish voters—perhaps through witchcraft—that they believe that Jewish voters will continue to vote for them, no matter what.

By giving the speech that Obama could never have given, Netanyahu exposed the administration’s failure to name Iran as the greatest threat to international peace and order.

In comparison with Netanyahu, Obama looked very bad. He looked weak. He looked cowardly. His strategy of being nice to Iran looked like appeasement. Clearly, he was humiliated, less by what Netanyahu said about him as by the way that the presence of a true leader made him look.

Peter Baker in The New York Times captured the scene and the event:

... for nearly an hour, Mr. Netanyahu seemed in command of the chamber, with his baritone voice and bracing message generating a passionate response. Glancing down occasionally at a written text, he quoted Moses and Robert Frost, introduced the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in the gallery and displayed the colloquial English and almost American political mannerisms that have served him through three terms in office.

Mr. Netanyahu argued that Iran’s “tentacles of terror” were clutching Israel and that failing to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons “could well threaten the survival of my country.” Tehran already dominates the capitals of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, he said, and the United States should demand that it stop aggression against its neighbors and threats to annihilate Israel before agreeing to any deal.

All you need to know is the name of the man who was running America’s foreign policy while Iran was marching across Western Asia. While Obama did nothing, a rebellion against the mullahs in Iran was crushed mercilessly. While Obama sat on the sidelines, Iran’s Syrian proxy massacred his people. When Obama pulled out of Iraq, the Iranians were more than happy to fill the vacuum. And, of course we know what happened in Yemen.

The question is not what Netanyahu said and did. By presenting himself as a leader, a man who understood the threat posed by Iran, who refused to coddle the mullahs, who was willing to call things by their names… he humiliated the president by exposing him as an incompetent poser.

Note also a Saudi columnist, Dr. Ahmad al-Faraj who declared that Barack Obama was “one of the worst American presidents,” and that he was:

… working to sign a deal with Iran at the expense of America's longtime allies in the Gulf…

The American deal with Iran does not merely threaten the state of Israel. It also threatens Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Al-Faraj added that:

… therefore Netanyahu's campaign against the deal is justified and serves the interests of the Gulf states.

He concluded, making the point that Netanyahu made when he declared that “the enemy of our enemy is our enemy:”

Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.'s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu's firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration's anger and fury. I believe that Netanyahu's conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents. Do you agree with me?"

When a leader speaks clearly and forcefully, when he achieves moral clarity, other players are willing to align themselves with him.

We know that the Saudis despise Obama. They despise him for abandoning Hosni Mubarak. They despise him for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. But they despise him for helping Iran to expand its power and influence in the region.

The Saudi government is very unlikely to embrace the Israeli prime minister openly, but columns like the one I quoted must at least receive the tacit approval of the authorities in that country.

Compare it to the fact that Nancy Pelosi’s disrespect for Netanyahu led the news in Tehran.