海角大神

There seems to be a growing movement on the part of some groups to聽persuade Democratic members of Congress to skip the speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be giving to a Joint Session of Congress early next month:

At the same time, other Democrats seem likely to attend the speech even as they are critical of Boehner for scheduling it:

To some degree, of course, Democrats need to proceed carefully here because a full-on boycott of Netanyahu鈥檚 speech risks alienating an important constituency group in the Democratic Party, although it鈥檚 admittedly true that it鈥檚 unlikely that Jewish-Americans are going to start voting Republican any time soon. Indeed, it seems as though conservative religious Republicans are more emphatic in their support of Israel in general, and the right wing policies of Netanyahu鈥檚 government in particular, than Jewish-Americans in general tend to be, or at least that they are less willing to entertain dissent from the idea that Israel is 鈥渙ur most important ally鈥� and that we ought to be doing whatever it is that Netanyahu and his political supporters in Israel want us to do聽vis a vis聽Iran, the Palestinians, or the Middle East in general. The reality, of course, is that while the United States and Israel have many common interests, we also have areas where our interests do not necessarily converge, and one of those areas is the question of how to approach the issue of Iran鈥檚 nuclear program. Netanyahu has long adhered to the idea that a nuclear Iran would be an existential threat to Israel, notwithstanding Israel鈥檚 clear military superiority. Because of this, he has essentially taken the position that negotiations are not going to work and has been lobbying for war for several years now. No doubt, the Obama administration鈥檚 decision to continue with negotiations is a large cause of the tensions between him and President Obama.

As for this upcoming speech, as聽聽noted last week, it seems clear that the Republicans in Congress and Prime Minister Netanyahu are engaging in actions that are designed to unduly politicize the relationship between the US and Israel. It鈥檚 unfortunate that Democrats are considering boycotting the speech, but it鈥檚 also understandable under the circumstances given the fact that the only purpose for the speech will be to give Netanyahu, who is running for reelection, a political boost back home by allowing him to criticize the US president from the floor of the House. That鈥檚 inappropriate and it would be best if Boehner rescheduled the speech until some time after the Israeli elections.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.