Cleaning Up The Mess, Part 4

With the AIPAC annual convention in town, Republicans are lining up to attack an American president and defend a foreign country on US soil, the country in question of course Israel.

House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement Monday criticizing the Obama Administration's "escalated rhetoric" toward the Middle Eastern nation.

The attack came after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a list of demands to Israel in hopes of restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"The administration has demonstrated a repeated pattern since it took office: while it makes concessions to countries acting contrary to U.S. national interests," Boehner (R-Ohio) said in his statement. "It ignores or snubs the commitments, shared values and sacrifices of many of our country’s best allies."

Boehner argued that the President should be more concerned with the behavior of Iran rather than Israel.
 
Clinton took issue with Israel's announcement that it would expand a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, which was made during Vice President Joe Biden's visit last week.House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, the House's only Jewish Republican, echoed Boehner, saying "To say that I am deeply concerned with the irresponsible comments that the White House, Vice President, and the Secretary of State have made against Israel is an understatement."

Once again,  I ask readers "Can you name another foreign country that the Republicans would defend so loudly by attacking the President?"  The criticism of Israel here is fair.  They are building settlements just to take land away from Palestinians and ruining any chance of Obama being able to restart peace talks on purpose, then are acting like the injured party and waiting for the GOP to deliver their response.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the balance of power in this relationship.  Not the relationship itself, for Israel is an ally in the Middle East.  But Israel controls the whip hand against America, and this last week in US-Israel relations is yet more proof of that.

What the Republicans call irresponsible, the rest of the world calls "diplomacy".  Only the Republicans would consider the use of such to be wrong.  After all, the only diplomacy most of them believe in comes at the end of a barrel of a weapon.

Israel in the meanwhile has told the US to go screw themselves again.