
Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that the U.S. should be wary of trusting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings on Iran, because Netanyahu had also backed the Iraq War. Kerry’s remarks were hypocritical, since he also supported the war. And they raise the disturbing suggestion, beloved of conspiracy theorists, that Israel is dragging the U.S. to war. Yet it is worth asking whether Kerry’s criticism has merit.
by Joel B. Pollak25 Feb 2015, 1:57 PM PST0

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned down an invitation to meet with Senate Democrats, according to Reuters, politely informing them that meeting with one party alone “could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit,” according to Reuters. It is a response that reprises Democrats’ complaints about the speech Netanyahu is to deliver before a joint session of Congress on March 3–and turns their own arguments against them.
by Joel B. Pollak24 Feb 2015, 9:48 PM PST0

Former Harvard Law School professor and renowned defense attorney Alan Dershowitz has slammed President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats over their efforts to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next week. In an op-ed to be published in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Dershowitz accuses “Obama of direct intrusion on the power of Congress and on the constitutional separation of powers” in his objections to the speech.
by Joel B. Pollak23 Feb 2015, 5:30 PM PST0

I lifted the .45 semi-automatic, charged it, and aimed at the base of his throat. I squeezed the trigger, and put a bullet through my mark as the Springfield XD kicked sharply.My next shot was left of center, above the right lung, as I struggled to recover my aim. My next shots, though, were right where I wanted them: above the hands, through the heart, between the eyes. At the signal, we retrieved our targets, perforated Hitler caricatures with the words “Never Again” in Gothic script.
by Joel B. Pollak13 Feb 2015, 5:30 AM PST0

The strong opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on March 3 is making an important speech even more so. The address, on the eve of a grim nuclear deal with Iran, and against overwhelming political pressure at home and abroad, may be the most important speech on geopolitical affairs since Ronald Reagan’s remarks at the Berlin Wall in 1987. It is also already a turning point in Jewish history.
by Joel B. Pollak10 Feb 2015, 6:49 AM PST0

New polls indicate that the surge enjoyed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in polls over the past two weeks may be ending. A survey of likely voters by the Times of Israel showed Netanyahu’s opposition, the Zionist Union, headed by opposition leader Isaac Herzog, now has a small but significant lead. In addition, among the roughly 1 in 4 voters still undecided before the Mar. 17 elections, more are leaning towards the opposition than Netanyahu’s Likud.
by Joel B. Pollak9 Feb 2015, 6:27 AM PST0

Secretary of State John Kerry held a surprise meeting Sunday with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, in Munich–the city made infamous for “appeasement” after the western powers granted Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that he intended to resist the deal that Kerry and Zarif were striking.
by Joel B. Pollak8 Feb 2015, 6:03 AM PST0

There are probably some friends of Israel who oppose Netanyahu’s speech out of a sincere concern that he might alienate the Obama administration. Some of those calling upon him to cancel, like Herzog, have personal political gain in mind. And some, like Rabbi Jacobs and the Democrats in Congress, seem more worried about the political embarrassment to President Barack Obama that might result from Netanyahu exposing the failure–and danger–of Obama’s Iran policy.
by Joel B. Pollak8 Feb 2015, 5:30 AM PST0

Despite a supposed White House policy against meeting foreign leaders facing elections, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry both met with Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog in Munich on Saturday. Herzog is the main rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Mar. 17 election, and his supporters played up the meeting as evidence that Herzog is more respected by the Obama administration and world leaders in general than Netanyahu.
by Joel B. Pollak8 Feb 2015, 1:46 AM PST0

Despite–or perhaps because of–the outrage of the Obama administration and left-wing Democrats in Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party continue to surge in Israeli polls, reaching their widest lead of the election thus far, according to a Jerusalem Post/Maariv Sof Hashavua poll. The poll, which shows Likud leading its closest rival by four seats in the 120-seat Knesset, is the widest lead that the Likud has enjoyed leading up to the Mar. 17 election.
by Joel B. Pollak6 Feb 2015, 6:13 AM PST0

The New York Times has continued its reflexive bias against Israeli Prime Minister with a story Friday alleging, falsely, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went behind President Barack Obama’s back in arranging a speech to Congress in March. In fact, Netanyahu only accepted Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation once the White House knew of the invitation. The story has since been corrected online, but the incorrect version will misinform print readers today.
by Joel B. Pollak30 Jan 2015, 1:00 PM PST0

The left hates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some hate him as they would hate any Israeli leader; they just hate Israel (and they may hate Jews, too). Some hate him because they love Obama, and Netanyahu stands up to Obama–which is why many Democrats who would otherwise love Bibi have chosen to hate him. But at the core, the left hates Netanyahu because just as Israel is a nation-state in a post-national world, Bibi is a modern man in a post-modern era.
by Joel B. Pollak30 Jan 2015, 5:19 AM PST0

The New York Times has launched a full-court press against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer over Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation by Speaker of the House John Boehner to address Congress on the subjects of Iran and radical Islam in March without coordinating with the White House.
by Joel B. Pollak29 Jan 2015, 5:36 AM PST0

The speech that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver to a special joint session of the US Congress in March will be the most important address by an Israeli leader in the history of the Jewish state.
by Joel B. Pollak28 Jan 2015, 3:10 PM PST0

For Goldberg, Obama can do no wrong when it comes to Israel–and only Israel. In his efforts to cover for Obama, he has fumbled away much of his credibility on the issue. There is not much for Netanyahu to fear from the habitual criticism of a pundit who has so clearly departed from reality. But as an example of how American Jewish liberals are tying themselves in knots trying to reconcile their partisan loyalties with the facts of Obama’s failures on Israel, there is no finer specimen.
by Joel B. Pollak28 Jan 2015, 7:12 AM PST0

Netanyahu has one basic responsibility: to protect the security of the State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people. That is why Ambassador Ron Dermer is correct to call Netanyahu’s speech to Congress a “sacred duty.”
by Joel B. Pollak27 Jan 2015, 6:47 AM PST0

On Friday, White House spokesperson said that President Barack Obama would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits Washington, D.C. in March due to a policy of not meeting with foreign leaders prior to their election campaigns, “to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country.” However, that excuse proves empty against the historical record, as Bill Clinton met then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 1996.
by Joel B. Pollak25 Jan 2015, 5:56 AM PST0

“I am not here to make the case for war. I am not even here to make the case for new sanctions. You know it well enough. On both sides of the aisle, you have leaders who can speak more powerfully than I about why more pressure is needed, after a year of fruitless talks. No—I am here to ask merely that America be what America is: the leader of the free world.”
by Joel B. Pollak23 Jan 2015, 9:02 AM PST0