Senior Democrats Consider Boycott of Netanyahu Address to Congress
Addresses by foreign leaders should be few and far between because congress should be doing the work of our nation and addressing the concerns of Americans and not those of others first. When there are addresses the occasion should have an exceptional cause, and not be predicated by an upcoming election in the foreign leader’s country or ours.
Enough is enough - this will become Netanyahu’s 3rd address to congress, and do we really need to hear him again?
High-ranking Democrats are weighing a boycott of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress next month, complaining that it’s a politicized event meant to embarrass President Obama and boost Netanyahu back home before a March 17 election.
The group, including long-standing backers of Israel such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is outraged that House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) maneuvered to invite Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress without consulting Obama, White House officials or Secretary of State John F. Kerry. It’s part of a bid by Republicans to apply political pressure on the administration as senior officials, led by Kerry, engage in sensitive talks with Iran over a possible deal to surrender its efforts to gain nuclear power.
“My concern is that it’s obviously political, and it uses the backdrop of the United States House of Representatives, and the Senate and the House, two weeks before a political campaign, and violates all the protocol that’s always existed in terms of working this out with the president,” Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday.
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