by Jim Lobe
The JTA is reporting a move by more than 90 House members to invite Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to once again address a Joint Session of Congress when he comes to keynote AIPAC’s annual policy conference March 2-4. You’ll remember, of course, the last time this happened — [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
The JTA is reporting a move by more than 90 House members to invite Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to once again address a Joint Session of Congress when he comes to keynote AIPAC’s annual policy conference March 2-4. You’ll remember, of course, the last time this happened — in 2011 — when our lawmakers thoroughly embarrassed themselves by bouncing up and down in their seats with 29 standing ovations — far more than what Obama has ever gotten from the same audience — for the Israeli leader’s 50-minute address, or an average of more than once every two minutes. (A great version of the performance, with musical accompaniment, was featured on the Israeli on-line journal, +972 Magazine, and can be seen here.)
Thus far, according to the JTA report, 79 Republicans and only 17 Democrats have signed on to the letter that is being sent to the House leadership requesting the invitation at the apparent instigation of its two main sponsors, Reps. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) The fact that the signatories are overwhelmingly Republican naturally recalls what happened with the Kirk-Menendez bill when its primary sponsors, Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez, succeeded in rounding up only 16 of 55 Democratic senators once the administration, backed up by 10 Democratic committee chairs, made clear its opposition to the bill. Indeed, the increasingly partisan nature of Israel-related issues must be causing heartburn at AIPAC’s headquarters, which pulled the plug on Kirk-Menendez once it became clear that it could not get more Democrats to co-sponsor the bill. Now, it may be that Lamborn and Sherman can obtain many more Democratic signatories, but thus far this looks like a Republican initiative designed to embarrass and undercut the administration. Coming so soon after the Kirk-Menendez debacle, it seems doubtful that AIPAC is behind this. The question then becomes, besides Lamborn and Sherman, who is? Is it those groups, like the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) or the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) that publicly criticized AIPAC for making, in ECI’s words, “a fetish of bipartisanship?” Was Bibi’s new ambassador, Florida-raised Ron Dermer, involved? Did Bibi himself know? If so, and if so few Democrats were willing to sign, it would be highly embarrassing, not to say politically risky.
If Netanyahu were to appear before a Joint Session, it would be his third time, tying Winston Churchill for the record. (In addition to his appearance in 2011, Netanyahu also was given that honor when he last served as Prime Minister in 1996.) Of course, Churchill is regarded as a hero by Bibi, as he is by other neoconservatives (who extol Churchill’s imperialist and racist worldview, as well as his role in defeating Nazism), so he would no doubt be sorely tempted by an invitation, even at the risk of further alienating (if that were possible) the President of the United States. It’s worth noting that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has addressed a joint session of Congress eight times since 1941, while the Presidents and/or Prime Ministers of Israel, France, Mexico and Ireland are tied in second place at seven a piece. But Israeli leaders have appeared more frequently than those of any other country since Yitzhak Rabin became the first in 1976.
Lamborn represents the Colorado Springs area in Congress and clearly stands on the far right of the party. His Wikipedia entry appears not to have been written by admirers, and, aside from his alleged opposition to regulating dog-fighting, one thing that stands out in his profile given the current circumstances is his deliberate boycott of Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address to, in the words of his spokesperson, “send a clear message that he does not support the politics of Barck Obama, that they have hurt our country.” Here is his press release about his new initiative:
Congressman Lamborn Leads the Way on Inviting Israeli Prime Minister to Address Congress
Nearly 100 Members of Congress Want to Hear Netanyahu Speak
2/18/14
Nearly one hundred Members of Congress have signed a letter circulating in the US House of Representatives urging the House Leadership to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a Joint Session of Congress during his upcoming visit to Washington.
The bi-partisan letter, which was spearheaded by Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) and is addressed to Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, cites the importance of inviting the leader of “our closest ally in the Middle East” to speak to Congress at a time of widespread instability and turmoil in the region.
“Given the importance of our relationship with Israel we ask you to invite Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a Joint Session of Congress. Doing so would send a clear message of support for Israel,” the letter reads.
“The strong support we have received for this initiative shows our close relationship with the State of Israel which is based on deeply shared values, as well as moral, historical and security ties,” said Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05).
Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing a joint session of US Congress, May 24, 2011
]]>by Jim Lobe
Last weekend, I noted the increasingly vulnerable position in which AIPAC finds itself in after its defeat on the Kirk-Menendez bill (S. 1881), and less than three weeks before its annual conference, which this year is expected to attract a record 14,000 attendees, as well as keynoter Israeli [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Last weekend, I noted the increasingly vulnerable position in which AIPAC finds itself in after its defeat on the Kirk-Menendez bill (S. 1881), and less than three weeks before its annual conference, which this year is expected to attract a record 14,000 attendees, as well as keynoter Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Reporters who pay closer attention and have better contacts inside AIPAC than I do appear to share this view.
Particularly remarkable is an article entitled, “As Confab Nears, AIPAC Still Trying to Figure Out its Legislative Agenda,” by JTA’s Ron Kampeas. It describes how unprepared the group’s leadership appears to be:
“[J]ust three weeks before the [annual] conference, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is facing a dilemma: how to craft a legislative agenda after losing a bruising battle with the Obama administration over Iran sanctions and amid uncertainty stemming from regional turmoil and ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
An AIPAC official confirmed that the lobbying group has yet to choose a legislative initiative for the estimated 14,000 activists to support at the March 2-4 conference.
While AIPAC does not unveil the specifics of its favored legislative action until the eve of its conference, what’s unusual is that those close to the group and its Capitol Hill interlocutors say it’s not yet clear even behind closed doors what shape AIPAC’s lobbying will assume.”
A second widely noted article, “How AIPAC Botched Its Biggest Fight in Years,” appeared in the Daily Beast Tuesday morning. It recounts details surrounding last week’s debacle and offers a broader context in which it took place, particularly the apparent splits between AIPAC’s neoconservative/Republican wing and those within the group who hope to maintain its appeal to Democrats as well as, more interestingly, between the latter and the Netanyahu government as represented by its new ambassador here, Ron Dermer, who reportedly lobbied very aggressively for the passage of the bill even when it became clear that there was no way its proponents could get a veto-proof majority or Majority Leader Harry Reid to send it to the floor for an up-or-down vote. (Unlike his predecessor, Michael Oren, Dermer, who grew up in Florida, is said by knowledgeable sources to consider himself a Republican with little interest in or patience for Democrats.) According to Lake’s account, Dermer told Republican Sen. Bob Corker outright that AIPAC and the Israeli government were not on the same page. Lake recounts where the group ended up:
Somehow, on the issue arguably of most importance to both the Israeli government and America’s pro-Israel community—Iran and its nuclear ambitions—AIPAC didn’t merely fail to deliver. It alienated its most ardent supporters, and helped turn what was a bipartisan effort to keep Iran in check into just another political squabble. The lobby that everybody in Washington publicly backs somehow managed to piss off just about everyone.
Now, I wouldn’t call AIPAC’s management or mismanagement of the bill a “botch” as the Daily Beast’s headline writer did. I think there is something much more fundamental — and possibly existential — about what is happening to the group. Its neoconservative/ECI/Republican wing, which no doubt includes important donors, is pressing it to abandon its bipartisanship, which is a very, very risky strategy when one considers that a strong majority of the Jewish community remains firmly in the Democratic camp. And, as many polls have shown, Democrats are becoming ever more disenchanted with the policies — not just with respect to Iran — being pursued by Netanyahu’s right-wing politics. This puts AIPAC in an extremely delicate position, and one that it has never before confronted. In that respect, Netanyahu’s keynote speech could be a very important moment in the group’s history.
Jennifer Rubin, a hard-line neocon whose sympathies definitely lie with Republicans, appears to agree with Lake. In an echo of ECI’s attack on AIPAC last Friday, she also wrote Tuesday:
All this plays out while the most prominent pro-Israel group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is going through its rockiest period in decades. The administration’s attacks on sanctions advocates as “war mongers” and ability to rebuff sanctions showed AIPAC’s declining influence on the left, a trend accelerated under an administration with the worst relationship with Israel since George H.W. Bush. In awkwardly abandoning the current sanctions battle, AIPAC was accused by the right of bending over backward to accommodate Democrats who aren’t supportive of sanctions. When AIPAC attempted damage control last Friday by issuing a letter from its president saying AIPAC was in fact still in favor of sanctions, the reaction on Capitol Hill ranged from confusion to contempt. At the time its role is most critical, AIPAC is least effective.
This naturally must intensify the heartburn at AIPAC headquarters.
Meanwhile, opponents of more sanctions appear to have gone somewhat on the offensive in the House, especially in light of persistent reports that Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer were cooking up an AIPAC-backed non-binding resolution designed to define what would or would not be acceptable in a final deal worked out between Iran and the 6 world powers known as the P5+1. A total so far of 104 House members have signed a letter demanding that Congress “give diplomacy a chance.” The letter, which was organised by Reps. David Price (D-NC) and Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and gained the signatures of four Republicans, adds that any “bill or resolution that risks fracturing our international coalition or, worse yet, undermining our credibility in future negotiations and jeopardizing hard-won progress toward a verifiable final agreement, must be avoided.”
I understand that in a meeting with top AIPAC board members Tuesday, House Democrats made clear that there was no support in their caucus for any Iran resolution — binding or non-binding and that Wednesday’s release of the Price-Doggett letter was designed to underline the lack of appetite for any more legislative battles on Iran until diplomacy plays out. And while the White House announced Wednesday that Obama and Netanyahu will meet Mar. 3 at the White House, there still has been no word as to whom the administration intends to send to address the AIPAC conference that will be going on at the time.
]]>Ehud Barak is retiring from Israeli politics in 2013, after two decades. Or so he says.
A career officer in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) before entering politics, Barak’s first mention in the US press appears to have been on May 22, 1993, when the New York Times‘ Clyde [...]]]>
Ehud Barak is retiring from Israeli politics in 2013, after two decades. Or so he says.
A career officer in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) before entering politics, Barak’s first mention in the US press appears to have been on May 22, 1993, when the New York Times‘ Clyde Haberman noted, “Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, army chief of staff during the 1967 war, relies heavily on the military and political advice of the current chief, Lieut. Gen. Ehud Barak”. Although still IDF Chief of Staff at the time, he was “reportedly being groomed by Mr. Rabin for future Labor Party leadership.”
Born in 1942, Barak was part of a new wave of native born military retirees who entered Israeli politics in the 1990s, finally replacing Israel’s pre-state gerontocracy on both the left and the right. (That gerontocracy persists in the person of 89-year-old President Shimon Peres, whose 66-year political career has spanned 11 US presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barak Obama.) When Barak retired from the IDF, Rabin named him to the cabinet post of Interior Minister. Even then Barak was cultivating American contacts. According to Haberman, when Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Israel in February, General Barak was on hand almost everywhere the American went.” Apparently Barak cultivated close ties with Leon Panetta, President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff. Now Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration, Panetta responded to the announcement of Barak’s intended departure from Israel’s political scene by presenting Barak with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
When Barak retired from the IDF, Rabin named him to the cabinet post of Interior Minister. After Rabin’s assassination on Nov. 4, 1995, Acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres gave Barak the post of Foreign Minister, which Peres himself had held under Rabin. Barak was elected a Labor Party member of Israel’s Knesset in 1996, where he served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. That same year, in Israel’s first direct (non-parliamentary) election for Prime Minister, Peres lost the premiership to Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak subsequently replaced Peres as leader of the Labor Party.
Barak defeated Netanyahu in the 1999 election. In 2000 he ended Israel’s 17 year occupation of southern Lebanon, ordering the overnight withdrawal of all IDF troops, a controversial decision considered long overdue by some Israelis, criticized as too hasty by others. Marketing himself as a peacemaker in Yitzhak Rabin’s image, Barak curried American favor by meeting with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under Clinton’s mediating auspices in 2000 at Camp David. The talks ended in failure. Barak’s stated efforts to reach a peace agreement between Israel and Syria also failed.
After Ariel Sharon’s ceremonious and provocative visit to the Temple Mount with half a dozen members of the Likud opposition in September 2000 precipitated Palestinian outrage that turned violent (now known as the Second Intifada), Barak was forced to call for new elections. As attacks on Israeli civilians became more widespread, Labor was trounced by Likud, making Sharon Prime Minister in Barak’s stead.
Barak spent six years in “the private sector,” rebranding himself as a businessman involved in various energy and security projects, but nonetheless plotting his return to politics. He advocated military action by the US to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from power. “President Bush’s policy of ousting Saddam Hussein creates an extraordinary standard of strategic and moral clarity,” he wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times. None too pleased with “the in-depth, genuine — and so typically American — public debate that is developing before our eyes about Iraq” that might “dilute this clarity” Barak even laid out the necessary military strategy for Bush: “a surgical operation to hit the core of the regime,” and, just in case that didn’t finish the job, a ready-to go “a full-scale operation to include major airborne and ground forces, perhaps 300,000 soldiers.”
Barak returned to politics in 2005, after four years in “the private sector” a/k/a Ehud Barak Ltd. After Ehud Olmert became acting Prime Minister when Sharon went into a coma following a stroke in early 2006, Barak joined Olmert’s cabinet, becoming Minister of Defense. Barak strategized and oversaw the three week IDF operation to counter rocket fire from the Gaza Strip known as “Operation Cast Lead.” Although many Israelis at the time considered Cast Lead to have been justified, necessary, and well executed, outside the country, Israel was criticized for what was seen as excessive and disproportionate use of force inside the densely populated Gaza Strip.
After polls revealed his personal unpopularity with voters, Barak did not seek leadership of the Labor party leader in 2005, but he regained control of the party in June 2007. Deborah Sontag of the New York Times described Barak as “a kind of hawkish dove” who “casts himself in the image of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schroder — as the leader of a political movement that is finding its way from left to center.”
But the inglorious outcome of the 2009 election, necessitated by Ehud Olmert’s downfall amid accusations of corruption, reduced the Labor party — once proud political standard-bearer of the statism of Israel’s founders — to a puny party that placed fourth in the election. Barak was blamed for the loss, and he was increasingly regarded as an opportunist and political chameleon, particularly when he joined Netanyah’s Likud-led government in exchange for the keeping the defense portfolio
Facing the increasing unlikelihood that he will hold onto the post of Defense Minister in the next Netanyahu government — widely regarded as a shoo-in when Israeli elections take place in January 2013 — and lacking the personal popularity that might someday make him Prime Minister again, Barak seems to have chosen to give up on Israeli politics altogether.
Barak’s political obituaries in the Israeli media are mostly muted by dislike for him as a person and a politician. But he wins points from some Israeli journalists for his military acumen. Yoel Marcus writes in Haaretz:
His record as defense minister is excellent – even his rivals admit that, though they add it’s a shame he’s not a mensch. His loyal aides when he was prime minister left angry and bitter. His secretaries dubbed him “Napo,” short for Napoleon. As prime minister he failed, but as a strategist and leader he was considered a genius, even abroad.
During his not quite four years in Netanyahu’s government, Barak has been sending mixed signals on his views of Iran’s nuclear program and how Israel should deal with it. In November 2011, as my Lobe Log colleague Jasmin Ramsey reported, Barak told Charlie Rose that if he were Iran, he would “probably want nuclear weapons.” But this recent Haaretz editorial argues that “Netanyahu considered Barak a close adviser and partner in the formulation of policy toward Iran”, and Larry Derfner of +972 Mag points out that during Barak’s tenure at the helm of the Netanyahu government’s Defense ministry, “he has probably been best known for serving as Netanyahu’s partner in the drive for an attack on Iran.”
In the weeks before his announced retirement, Barak seemed to be situating himself as the Israeli political leader far better equipped to maintain good relations with the US than Netanyahu. Isabel Kershner reported in the New York Times on Oct. 3 that a rift was growing between Barak and Netanyahu, citing Shmuel Sandler, a politics and foreign policy expert at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University (and at one time my next door neighbor). With the Israel elections coming, Sandler suggested that Barak wants to separate himself from Netanyahu. “What is his claim to fame? That he has good relations with Washington,” said Sandler to the Times.
If so, this raises interesting questions about Panetta’s presentation of a Distinguished Service medal to Barak three days after his announced withdrawal from politics. It certainly bolsters Barak’s pro-American image, but was the award presentation planned before Panetta knew Barak would be retiring? Is it an American plea for Barak not to leave the Israeli political scene? Or is it a harbinger that Barak will maintain his close ties with the Obama administration — and perhaps forge evens stronger ties — once he is unencumbered by his role as an Israeli politician?
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