On Wednesday, AIPAC organized a visit of a delegation of pro-Israel lawmakers with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. They called it a bipartisan delegation, but in reality, it was mostly Democrats, the old and familiar kind of Democrats, who may be disappearing from the face of the Earth.
Let’s see, there was Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Jim Costa (D-CA), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Valerie Foushee (D-NC), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA), Norma Torres (D-CA) and one Republican, Debbie Lesko from Arizona.
As a registered Democrat, I felt my eyes tearing up. I’m not voting for the Biden-Harris ticket in November, and as a New Yorker, in 2026 I’m not voting for Chuck Schumer, but if I lived in her district, I’d be voting for Debbie Wasserman Schultz three-four times every two years. But I’m not, on account of the alligators.
Also present were Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi, who were scheduled to visit the White House this week, but were pulled back because, you know, Biden knifed Israel in the back at the UN Security Council. You must have seen it, it was in all the papers.
Anyway, this is what the PM had to say to the foreign politicians who probably love him more than anyone else out there:
I’m delighted to see all of you. You’ve been long-time friends of Israel. You’re great supporters. It’s very important for us to maintain bipartisan support at all times, but especially in these trying times. I want to use this opportunity of our conversation to try to straighten out and also dispel some of the things that are being said about our bipartisan alliance and the importance of maintaining it.
I don’t know if you know this, but I think it was about a week ago or two weeks ago. Iran officially launched, along with Hezbollah, a campaign, which means Hamas, the Houthis, and so on, but the formal policy is to shift from an ideological position of destroying Israel to a practical, long-term plan to bring about the destruction of the state.
We have to win. There is no substitute for victory.
How do we achieve this victory? It doesn’t nullify the other needs: How to take care of Hezbollah, how to take care of Iran, how to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, which would make this threat a hundred times bigger, how to prevent these militias from firing into Israel rockets from Yemen or from Baghdad, precise rockets that could reach this room right now. How do we deal with that? These are big questions, but it starts with a necessary condition—and that condition is that those who launched this genocidal attack must be defeated.
How do you do that? What we’ve set out at the outset, with the support of President Biden and the administration – important support, which we appreciate deeply – was to say, the first thing: Our goal is to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas has to be eliminated. Not as in idea. Nazism wasn’t destroyed as an idea in World War Two, but Nazis do not govern Germany. There are still Neo-Nazis around, but you destroyed that organization.
The second thing was to get our hostages out. They are simultaneous goals, because the military action is what produces the pressure to release the hostages. We’ve released half. We intend to release all of them.
The third thing is to ensure that, indeed that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again.
While the Congressional delegation was visiting, news broke about the passing of former VP contender, Senator Joe Lieberman, another true friend of Israel. And I, being a mystical Jew and all, had to wonder if this was not one big, sad omen.
