Josh Marshall: A Step Too Far [View all]

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A Step Too Far

By Josh Marshall
Published January 25, 2015, 10:12 AM EST 492 views


There seems to be a growing backlash to the Netanyahu-Boehner speech stunt, both in the United States and Israel. As you can see from our current feature story, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren has said the speech threatens a rift with the US and should be canceled. I want to say more about Oren's remarks and their context. But before getting to that, a few other developments.

There is a must-read column by Chemi Shalev in Haaretz which you can read in English. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) gave a statement to Haaretz roundly trashing Netanyahu's visit - both for the breach of diplomatic protocol and for the substance of what Netanyahu is trying to do: blow up US diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement with Iran.

"Inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu without consulting the administration is clearly a breach of protocol and an unwelcome injection of partisan politics into our foreign policy. It puts the United States in the middle of Israel’s election, which is highly inappropriate ... I also believe imposing additional sanctions on Iran in the midst of negotiations — which is what Netanyahu will reportedly discuss — would collapse the negotiations and ruin a historic diplomatic opportunity. Imposing sanctions now is reckless and dangerous.”

Feinstein's willingness to speak so aggressively is a good measure of the damage caused by Netanyahu's actions. But just as notable in Shalev's reporting is that the speech debacle appears to be weakening Democratic support for the Menendez-Kirk bill to push forward a new round of sanctions on Iran - the bill President Obama has promised to veto. At least in the context of US politics and politicking around Iran, Netanyahu's move appears to be backfiring.

If that holds up, it's an astounding development. It means Netanyahu's norm-breaking behavior and decision to subordinate Israel-US ties to his reelection campaign have managed to overcome - at least in certain cases - Democratic senators' usual unwillingness to get outflanked to the right on security issues tied to Israel. The level of affront is almost unprecedented: we now know that Israeli Ambassador Dermer - a primary architect of the effort to align Israel around the GOP and himself a former Republican political operative - met with Secretary Kerry for several hours the day before the Netanyahu speech was announced and never mentioned it to Kerry. In almost any other case, such bad faith and duplicity would lead a host country to ask that an ambassador be withdrawn.

The Israeli press is also reporting more and more examples of the negative reaction to Netanyahu's move in the US. Most Israeli dailies have items reporting the fact that even Fox News has trashed the visit, with Chris Wallace calling the move "wicked." Even Fox News, etc.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-step-too-far--2