Wednesday
A few thoughts of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress yesterday:
I was moved almost beyond belief by the Congress’s reception of the leader of the Jewish state. They greeted him as a hero, and head of a hero nation, both of which are true. Netanyahu is the son of a pioneer of Zionism. His brother was a super hero of combat at Entebbe, killed there. His own combat record is almost incredible. This is a man with courage.
The state of Israel has given the West and the world of democracy its only clear victories post-World War II: the 1956 War, the 1967 War, the Yom Kippur War — all of these were wars between a state of law and freedom versus states of unfreedom. The ’67 and ’73 wars were wars between Soviet-armed and Soviet-controlled states and a free Western state. The Israelis, and their main friend, the United States of America, won every war decisively. There are no other similar cases after WWII.
In the ’73 War, the explicit aim of the Soviets was to destroy Israel. They had armed Egypt and Syria to the teeth. Egypt and Syria were winning at first, caused largely by colossal mistakes by Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger.
Israel came close to going nuclear. Who saved the day? Richard M. Nixon. He shipped over arms, went to a high state of readiness for nuclear combat. The Israelis, with that help, crushed Egypt and Syria. Let us remember that no other President has ever gone even close to as far for Israel as Richard Nixon. No one even came close.
Richard Nixon was an anti-Semite when he talked to anti-Semites, but the best friend the Jews have ever had in all of history. A saint. And with U.S. help, Israel has delivered victory.
Not one U.S. soldier has ever died fighting for Israel.
To see Mr. Netanyahu walk into the Congress, applauded like mad — then to think of how the Jews were shunned, ignored, despised, when they pleaded with the U.S. for help in the run-up to the Holocaust, during the Holocaust, immediately after the War — to think of that transformation in affection and admiration for the Jewish state — it is a miracle of God’s grace and one of the many miracles that are the USA. I kept saying to myself over and over as I watched the speech, “God bless America.”
And “God bless the Republican Party,” always the party of freedom for its whole life.
As to Mr. Obama, who knows where his anger comes from? Envy of Mr. Netanyahu’s family background ? Envy of Bibi’s raw courage? Envy of the Jewish people? Guilty conscience because he knows he’s selling out Israel to the Iranian mass murderers?
In my own mind, it comes largely from his Bill Ayers/Bernardine Dohrn/Herbert Marcuse New Left mentors. The New Left was a running sewer of Jew-hatred and especially Israel-hatred. The New Left after all was the captive of the Kremlin, and the Kremlin hated Israel for balking its clients in the Mideast over and over again.
That’s a thought.
But Mr. Obama was rude, surly, contemptuous, vicious to Israel and to Mr. Netanyahu on more than one occasion. To have kept him waiting in a lobby for hours. To have called him “a chickens–t coward.” These were signs of rage. The recent speech was just the latest incident.
Just for myself, and I am not a doctor, I see Mr. Obama as a pathologically angry man, along with Eric Holder and John Kerry. Family background. Race. Envy. Who knows. But Obama, “no drama Obama,” cannot have had a family like his without emerging plenty angry.
So, enough on that. It was an inspiring speech. I learned much I did not know about the expiration of the pact, about how Iran can just walk away from it at any time, about how Iran has pledged to kill every Jew on earth (and, yes, I take that seriously). It was a brilliant, informative, transfiguring speech. If Mr. Obama someone managed to not watch it and yet know it had nothing new, he’s a mind reader. But it had plenty new and deserved to be heard.
As to those Representatives and Senators who missed the key expert witness offering evidence on the greatest issue of our time, especially my dear friend Al Franken, who I thought was far beyond this kind of party goon tactics, I was crushed. Dereliction of duty.
Mr. Netanyahu was gracious to Mr Obama. Mr Obama took a big dump on Netanyahu’s head. Mr. Netanyahu was complimentary to Nancy Pelosi. She pissed all over him, calling his brilliant speech “insulting.” I assume she was not feeling well.
The most dismaying part of the day was when one of the news networks started identifying the people commenting on the speech as Jews or non-Jews. When has that happened before? When has the TV news started calling out Jews? This is Mr. Obama’s and his goons’ doing. The new racism. The New Left. The new anti-Semitism. It is all there, pouring out of the troubled soul of Mr. Barack Obama, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think he even knows what he’s doing.
Oh, Nixon, where are you when we need you?
Later, much later, I watched the new Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, talk about the crisis of sequestration and how it’s killing defense readiness. Here, Mr. Obama is totally right. The sequester has got to end. An adequate defense is incomparably more vital than the sequester. I give credit to Mr. Obama for knowing that. I give credit especially to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, for his extremely astute comments on defense. Thoroughly impressive.
The real superstars, though, were Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, a super-smart woman whom we need, and flying miles above the rest, the great Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. This man made it perfectly clear: The greatest danger in the whole world today is Iran having The Bomb. Not North Korea. Not Pakistan. Iran. What could possibly be worse?
I give huge kudos for him for wrestling Ash Carter into admitting that. But shame, shame, shame on Secretary Carter for saying he didn’t watch Bibi’s speech. A disgrace if he’s lying and a disgrace if he’s telling the truth. (I owe John Coyne for these insights about lies on who watched the speech.)
Lindsey Graham: That man should be President. He is the brightest star in the GOP firmament by a long way.
I love that guy.
Then on C-Span a speech by Hillary. I was stunned. It was a great speech. Powerful, emotional, full of facts (many of them wrong), hitting just the right notes for her audience of wealthy leftist women (EMILY’s List). She has some fabulous speechwriter and she is a killer campaigner. She will be our next President, I should say, without much question, although I will work like a dog for Lindsey Graham.
Oh, and one final question. There is only one nation threatened with imminent destruction and annihilation and it’s the only Jewish state. Terrifying, which is a word that so often comes up in the life and death of the Jews.
