By Debbie Schlussel

Anyone who applauds today’s speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress simply wasn’t listening and/or falls for cheap talk and has no critical thinking skills whatsoever.  Per usual, Netanyahu talks tough, but at the same time says he  is ready to make “painful” and “far-reaching compromises.”  That means he is willing to essentially return to the pre-1967 borders that Barack Obama urged, last week, with maybe a smidgen of irrelevant difference so he can say he didn’t return to the pre-1967 borders when he essentially did.  If you don’t get that, you don’t know Netanyahu and  you haven’t been paying attention to him or his record of constantly giving in to Muslim and American demands and attacking Jewish settlers in the so-called “West Bank,” as well as repeatedly freezing and restricting new housing even in suburban Jerusalem.

Netanyahu & Obama: Yup, They Agree on Israel’s Borders, Jews as “Occupiers”

Here is just a portion of Netanyahu’s speech (read the entire transcript), in which he compares Jews in Judea and Samaria–historically and always Jewish land–to “occupiers”:  to Belgian “occupiers” in the Congo and British “occupiers” in India.  He pretends he disagrees with the comparison, but he does agree with it, or he’d never have made it in a major speech to Congress. A world leader doesn’t insert two different noxious comparisons of his countrymen, just to say, “Hey, we’re not that.” A world leader mentions this before the U.S. Congress to say, “Yup, we’re that, but I can’t say it, so I’ll let you know by saying it, while disclaiming it.” Never before has an Israeli Prime Minister made such a disgusting public comparison of his own people–including a Jewish family murdered in cold blood while they slept on the Jewish Sabbath–to “occupiers.”

The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan are vital. But they’re not enough. We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Two years ago, I publicly committed to a solution of two states for two peoples: A Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility to lead my people to peace.

This is not easy for me. I recognize that in a genuine peace, we will be required to give up parts of the Jewish homeland. In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo.

PUH-LEEZE, if Netanyahu didn’t agree with this absurd comparison, why the heck did he make it? And if the Jews are not occupiers–and they aren’t, but that’s not how he sees it–then why is anyone “required to give up parts” of it? I’m sickened, and you should be, too.  Leaving these areas is exactly the pre-1967 borders that Obama seeks.  If  you don’t see that, try looking at a map.  If Obama had made this “non-comparison” comparison, we’d have been all over him. . . and we should be all over Netanyobama for making it before the U.S. Congress today.  More:

The status of the settlements will be decided only in negotiations. But we must also be honest. So I am saying today something that should be said publicly by anyone serious about peace. In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders. The precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated. We will be very generous on the size of a future Palestinian state. But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. Israel will not return to the indefensible lines of 1967.

We recognize that a Palestinian state must be big enough to be viable, independent and prosperous.

Translation: to save face, Netanyahu can’t admit he’s going to make Israel exactly the same is pre-1967 borders, but it’ll be pretty close and any difference will be a distinction without a difference.

Get a clue, people. That means all of you gushing over Netanyahu, today. All the tough talk today about the Muslim nations and their treatment of gays and others is nice PR, but it means nothing and is absolutely useless if Netanyahu–or as reader Jon Grant more aptly calls him, “Nothingyahu”–won’t refuse to give the Muslims more land.  And he’s already made many movements toward giving them exactly that.  If  you were mesmerized by today’s speech, you are naive and ignorant.  Instead, you should look to Netanyahu’s history.  Just as he betrayed three wives, he’s betrayed Israel multiple times, including with the Wye Accords, in which he was ready to give up almost everything, but Yasser Arafat wouldn’t take it.  Arafat’s replacements aren’t so stupid.  Netanyahu, though, hasn’t changed.  Same old guy, same old capitulator.

While I’m glad Netanyahu repeated the facts about how Israel treats Arabs, Muslim, gays, and others versus the way its Muslim neighbors and the rest of the Middle East treat them, that is useless if Netanyahu continues to give in to these people, and that is exactly what he will do.  He has a consistent track record.  Rah-rah stuff won’t mask the stench of the facts of what Netanyobama–which is essentially who Netanyahu is–has been doing.  On Passover, for instance, when two Jewish men were shot to death by Palestinian police as they visited Joseph’s tomb, a holy site in Judaism, Netanyahu instructed his government to PROSECUTE the surviving Jews for trespassing on what is Jewish land.  This is the Netanyahu present and it is the Netanyahu future.

Anyone hypnotized by Netanyahu’s oratory, including Rush Limbaugh–who said on his show today that Netanyahu is “showing the West how to win” (which he most certainly is not; he’s showing the West how to lose while giving tough speeches, kinda like what Bush did)–simply falls for rhetoric and hasn’t a clue about what Netanayahu is doing on the ground every single day in Israel.  It is still a struggle to get less than 2,000 housing units built.  And it is a struggle because of Netanyahu.  Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir repeatedly increased housing and development every time the Muslims–and the West–complained.  That’s how you win.  Not by giving speeches.  It’s nice that Rush slaps himself on the back for knowing “Bibi”–as is his nickname, but this isn’t about name-dropping.  It’s about the facts behind the image. Not whether you got invited–as Rush brags that he did–to smoke stogies with “Bibi” at the Essex House (which is incidentally owned by Israel-hating Gulf State sheiks, so why did Netanyobama stay there?).

This isn’t the first “tough” speech by Netanyahu to Congress, and not the first time he is simultaneously pandering to and assuaging Muslim demands back home.  It is simply par for the course. Some humans are terrific fertilizer factories.  But Israel doesn’t need more fertilizer, as the Jews already showed they know how to reclaim rocky, abandoned land and make it fertile without BS.

Speak softly but carry a big stick is the oft-cited advice of Teddy Roosevelt.  But Binyamin Netanyahu does the opposite.

He speaks loudly . . . and carries a toothpick. And he’s already let the Muslim world know–via his speech to the U.S. Congress–he’s willing to cut up the toothpick to the point it won’t even hold a piece of cheese.