Special to WorldTribune.com
Israel will fight Iran alone, if it must. That is the striking message Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered to a joint session of Congress, garnering thunderous applause and numerous standing ovations.
The historic speech rebukes the appeasement foreign policy of President Obama. It recalls the battle of Chamberlain versus Churchill in the 1930s, with the appeaser quickly being overtaken by world events.
In a similar vein, in the blink of an eye, leadership of the Free World passed out of Obama’s hands and into the capable and commanding grip of Netanyahu.
The speech was delivered following a weekend banner headline featured on the Drudge Report citing a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets in 2014 if they attacked Iranian nuclear facilities. Netanyahu was forced to cancel the planned military strike in light of these threats, according to the report, “Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike.”
The White House has denied the report which unfortunately doesn’t prove it isn’t accurate. But one can only imagine the dread and horror Israeli leaders felt if they were forced to ponder the once unthinkable: America, our most stalwart ally, stands in the way of our ability to defend ourselves from our mortal enemy.
Faced with the growing possibility that Obama will strike a deal with Iran that will allow that rogue nation to come dangerously close to obtaining nuclear weapons — weapons that could obliterate the Jewish homeland — Netanyahu had only one last hand to play to save his people. He came to America to drive a public wedge between Congress and the president.
The speech was carefully designed to show Obama and the world that Israel will launch a military strike against Iran rather than allow the mullahs to obtain nuclear weapons. In a stinging slap in the face to Obama, Netanyahu showed him that Congress — backed by American public opinion — would stand with Israel if the beleaguered nation has to bomb the Islamic Republic. “Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand,” he said.
The message of the entire speech, never uttered but clearly delivered, was simply this: You dare threaten to shoot us down? Israel will defy your twisted foreign policy, and I, not you, have the American people on my side.
Netanyahu skillfully referenced the historic partnership of Jews and Christians resisting evil forces. He brilliantly contrasted America’s founding documents, full of hope and light, with the stated objectives of the murderous Iranian Islamofascist regime that wants to “export the revolution throughout the world” and promises “death, tyranny and the pursuit of jihad.” He praised the longstanding bipartisan alliance—carried on by both Democrats and Republicans—to protect Israel over decades, an alliance “above politics.” And more than this, Netanyahu provided a sweeping arc: From ancient to modern times, the Jews have been threatened and persecuted. Each time, they have survived and triumphed. And they will do so again — especially, since they are stronger than ever before.
Netanyahu encouraged Congress to continue to impose sanctions on Iran, some of which have been temporarily lifted as the deal is negotiated. He pointed out that Obama is being outmaneuvered: Iran will dupe the United Nations inspectors and become a nuclear threshold state in defiance of the restrictions in the current deal — or, they will abide by the deal and become a formidable nuclear power in ten years, at the end of the sunset clause.
Either way, the deal Obama is negotiating is bad and must be replaced with a better one, he said.
More important still, Netanyahu chronicled Iran’s aggression in the region and asked an important question: Why is Obama attempting to reward an aggressor with a “deal”? Iran has a track record of backing global terror and dominating its neighbors. It does not deserve such a courtesy.
“So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations,” he said, “Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.”
In addition, why is Obama negotiating with known liars and deceivers?
Netanyahu spoke as a realist, confronting both a regional and global threat with clarity of vision and backed by the courage to take decisive action: “We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror,” he said.
This speech, by a foreign leader in our Congress, is the most important speech of our lifetime.
An American president should have delivered an address like this, rallying the world against Islamic militants. Instead, the leader of a historically persecuted and tiny nation in the Middle East has assumed the mantle of leadership against global jihad.
“But Iran’s regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem,” Netanyahu said. “The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War II. So, too, Iran’s regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world.”
For years, Obama has been praised as a great speechmaker. Yet, all of his words amount to an anthill in contrast to this one simple and straightforward address by Netanyahu.
“The greatest dangers facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons,” he said. “To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen.”
Netanyahu is right. Obama has been disgraced and undressed on the world stage by a leader who has shown the magnitude of the threat we face. And the Israeli prime minister has demonstrated the resolve it will take to defeat these mortal foes.
It is now not America that stands between freedom and tyranny, but Israel. That nation has become “the city upon a hill” — the chosen people willing to resist not appease evil and upon which the fate of Western civilization ultimately rests.
[Related: Text of Netanyahu speech to Congress: ‘Very bad deal . . . paves Iran’s path to bomb’]
Grace Vuoto is the Editor of Politics and Culture at World Tribune, host of American Heartland with Dr. Grace on WTSB Radio and is the founder of the Edmund Burke Institute for American Renewal.
New leader of Free World: Netanyahu gives the speech an American president should have made added by World Tribune on
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