I did, and it was more or less an expected exchange between Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. There was no real reason to assume that would not be a prerequisite for handling a speech to Congress. In my opinion the left has far more room to complain about Netanyahu and Congress, than Netanyahu and AIPAC. That part of the debate almost does not matter to me. I would be more concerned if AIPAC spoke out against the speech to Congress.
Our larger issue is the implications of our relations with Israel being what it was to date perhaps becoming a partisan political issue going forward. Before it could be argued well that Israel had a strong influence on US politics, regardless of party in charge. They spoke, we jumped. They were in need, we supplied. They needed us to speak out for them, we did so. All without question seemingly. Our concern now is that becoming a Republican issue, placing that condition of "unwavering" support for Israel in their exclusive political corner. Thus becoming politically adversarial to Democrats, who perhaps may look at this differently going forward. If that really happens then this has real implications for handling Israel at the UN level. And we already see a number of nations around the globe, including several nations across Europe, that are starting to give consideration to Israel's other major problem. The Palestinians.
I am unsure if Netanyahu, his supporters at home, and his supporters here understand that level of complexity if all of this does end up in the US political spectrum. Maybe they are gunning for it, trying to take advantage of today's US political climate as it applies to handling Iran. But, I would be concerned about down the road. Given the traditional movement of our political pendulum, there is a strong chance Democrats could take power again for the 115th or perhaps the 116th Congress, and our next President very well could be another Democrat. Depends on who ends up running of course. But for this conversation, in my opinion there are way too many question marks here at home politically for Netanyahu to risk support for Israel becoming a Republican owned hallmark.
Think about that going forward, I think we all should. As someone who leans Libertarian on these sort of issues, I have been questioning our relations with Israel for years now. Just as I have been questioning our general hypocritical and confusing foreign policy for years now. Are Liberals picking up on that same line of questioning? If so, what does that leave for core Republicans? Does AIPAC end up becoming another CPAC in standard for the Republican Party, where the target is political opposition here?
