We’ve provided extensive coverage of the drama surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress—and now, the day has finally arrived.
We’ll be providing tweets and commentary below the fold.
Where will Obama be while Netanyahu is speaking? Huddled in the situation room:
Obama will hold a video conference at 11:30 a.m. to discuss Ukraine and other foreign policy issues with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and European Commission President Donald Tusk, according to an updated schedule released this morning.
Feed goes LIVE at 11 am:
(Video troubles? You can also watch HERE, via C-SPAN.)
Background:
Obama Launches Preemptive Interview on Bibi Speech
Netanyahu wins narrative at #AIPAC2015
Congressional Choice not Bibi v. Barack – but Western Civilization v. Iranian Mullahs
Netanyahu at #AIPAC2015 (Live)
Administration Attacks on Bibi Spur Bipartisan Support for Israel
UPDATES
Heh. Shots fired. (Not that everyone wasn’t already thinking it.)
Looks like that boycott really worked out. Thanks, Dems!
In fact, let’s just rub it in:
Vice President Joe Biden couldn’t be bothered to attend. It’s shameful, but I’d rather see Hatch up there than Biden’s goofy mug:
Observation: The US Congress doesn’t just support Netanyahu—they’re proud of him. All of a sudden, the loss of 40 odd Democrats doesn’t seem so scandalous. It’s no loss.
Netanyahu just called the US Congress the most important legislative body in the world—which is exactly why he’s here, and exactly why it was so important for him to not back down on this address. As he said at AIPAC yesterday, Israel has always been a bipartisan issue; and that issue is rooted not in political games, but in the preservation of an entire nation of people. Congress has a great deal of control over the “how” of that preservation.
“If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down…” Another Persian potentate is threatening the existence of the Jewish people. Not “Israel” or “Zionism,” but the Jewish people. This is something I heard refuted time and again at the Code Pink/pro-BDS protest I attended on Sunday, and it’s something anyone who cares about the security of the Jewish people needs to flog until people truly understand what’s happening in the Middle East.
When Netanyahu speaks, we listen.
(I wonder why…)
This morning, I spoke with WIBC Indy’s Tony Katz about the problem with trusting Iran, and now Netanyahu is laying the case against Obama’s Iran deal perfectly—it both leaves Iran with a vast nuclear program, and lifts restrictions on it in about a decade. Obama is banking on Iran keeping its promises—but we all know that Iran is notorious for doing the exact opposite.
What do we want? For Iran to act like a normal country!
Netanyahu has called out and destroyed Obama’s false dichotomy; this bad deal isn’t the only thing standing in between where we are now, and outright war. We also have another option–a better deal.
This is really the crux of the issue. Everything the Obama Administration has done thus far has been done with the express intent of maintaining their power over Israel’s fate. They’ve made Israel a political, partisan issue because they know for certain that they can’t win the narrative any other way. Obama would rather push a bad deal on the world than admit that his entire world view is fundamentally and fatally flawed.
Netanyahu knows this. It’s why he’s here—not to ask for reason, but to deliver a message:
Professor Jacobson curated these tweets throughout the speech…scroll through for a “best of!”
FYI…bipartisan:
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