What does it mean to be a friend of Israel?
Some within the Republican Party have turned the Middle East conflict into a focal point of an internal political dispute.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to a joint session of Congress on March 3 is already provoking numerous reactions against his use of American politics to promote himself in the runup to the March 17 Knesset election.
His supporters, on the other hand, claim that in the struggle against a nuclear Iran, which they claim threatens Israel’s very existence, the end justifies the means, even when the means are a direct confrontation with the US president. They believe that a leader who believes that his small country is fighting for its life not only has the right to use all the tools at his disposal to avert a disaster, but is duty bound to do so. It is only fitting that every US politician who views himself as a “friend of Israel” should also step up and stand by Israel in its hour of need.
But does the conduct of the Republican leadership toward Israel in general and the speech in particular make it worthy of this friendship? Also, is the US House of Representatives, irrespective of party, religion and gender, really a friend of Israel? Who is worthy of this title, and who simply claims to deserve it?
Let’s start with House Speaker John Boehner, the man who cooked up the scheme for Netanyahu to give his speech behind President Barack Obama’s back. It will take some considerable effort to locate an objective expert on US-Israel relations who will find in Boehner’s move even an iota of a contribution to the ties between the two countries.
