Luis Arcadio De Jesus R.'s List: Israel

• He was invited because the new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives wanted to demonstrate, loudly and clearly, that Congress will not support President Barak Obama in the event that he tries to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
• Netanyahu today essentially returned to the policies that Israel pursued before Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat agreed on mutual recognition and the joint pursuit of peace.
• And the worst part is not the appalling things Netanyahu said, but how Congress received them.
• The message it sent to the Middle East today, to the whole world, in fact, was that Palestinians cannot count on the United States to ever play the role of "honest broker" between Israel and the Palestinians. Even if President Obama was inclined to, Congress would stop him.
• And that is why Palestinians have no choice but to unilaterally declare a state in the fall.
• And they can send a signal to our allies that although the United States cannot openly oppose Bibi's policies because of Congress - and AIPAC's control of it - the allies can.
• And so we can look forward to a unilateral declaration of statehood in September.

5 more annotations...