[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 4, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1572-H1573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     PRIME MINISTER BINYAMIN NETANYAHU'S RECENT ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, 23 hours ago, in this Chamber, Israeli 
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was given a large megaphone to 
undercut American diplomatic attempts at restraining Iran's nuclear 
ambitions. One has to go back to the days of Gen. Douglas MacArthur 
being fired by President Truman, who was then invited to Congress by 
the Republican leadership to a rapturous audience.
  Yet history has shown that General MacArthur and the Republican 
leadership were wrong, Truman was right, and is, deemed one of our best 
Presidents for the hard, difficult decisions he made to much political 
criticism. And history has not been so kind to the career and 
personality of General MacArthur and the message he delivered to that 
Congress.
  I suspect that history will not be kind to yesterday's speech and the 
decision to stage it.
  The Prime Minister delivered no alternative vision other than an 
impossible set of demands that would ensure negotiations by America, 
our allies, and the Russians fail. He seemed to doom Americans and 
Iranians to be permanent enemies, even though the Iranian people, 
distinct from the ayatollahs and their minions, by all accounts, are 
the only country in the region, other than Israel, that has a positive 
view towards America. Think about that.
  But the flaws in Netanyahu's speech were more fundamental. He had no 
alternative vision, no outline of a plan that would do anything other 
than lead to war.

                              {time}  1030

  His remarks continued a series of dire predictions that I have heard 
from him since I first came to Congress in 1995. He had the same 
certitude when he testified before Congress about what a positive, 
transformational event it would be for the United States to go to war 
with Iraq.
  It was good politics at the time, probably even for most American 
politicians, and I am sure it was good politics in Israel. But he 
demonstrated spectacularly bad political judgment, cheerleading the 
United States into the worst foreign policy disaster in our history, 
costing us trillions of dollars with no end in sight, costing hundreds 
of thousands of lives, and casting the Middle East in turmoil.
  Indeed, Iran's ayatollahs were the only winners in the wake of that 
tragic war urged on by Netanyahu. It allowed Iran to have an outsized 
influence in the very countries that Netanyahu mentioned. The Middle 
East is in crisis, on the defensive with ISIS forces that are only 
slightly larger than the authorized strength of the California National 
Guard.
  Mr. Netanyahu produced a vision that is bound to fail, and at what 
cost to the American-Israeli leadership? Making Israel a partisan issue 
harms Israel, according to a good friend of

[[Page H1573]]

mine who worked for AIPAC for years. More troubling, Mr. Speaker, the 
Prime Minister did not offer one word about his failure to produce a 
peaceful, two-state solution. Now, I would have welcomed even a word 
about the pending humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I am not talking about 
war with the militants. I am talking about 1.7 million people in a land 
where 95 percent of the water is already unfit to drink, and by next 
year it will be the case with all domestic water. If no action is 
taken, by 2020, that damage will be irreversible.
  But I was encouraged by the AIPAC conference. While I don't 
necessarily agree with all of their policy prescriptions dealing with 
Iran, I was heartened to see that they had two well-attended panel 
discussions featuring Gidon Bromberg, an Israeli expert, that 
highlighted why it was in both the interest of Israel and Gaza to solve 
the pending water and sanitation crisis and that solution is easily 
within the power of Israel, the United States, and other donor nations.
  I saw that as a bright spot in a troubling day. If we concentrate on 
simple, commonsense steps where we can work together to save lives and 
improve the future, I think there is a lot more on the horizon that we 
can accomplish.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand with Israel. That is why I chose not to undercut 
our diplomats in the midst of negotiating by attending that joint 
session. Netanyahu offers one perspective--certainly not mine. But 
challenging his ideas is not anti-Israeli any more than challenging the 
ideas of President Obama is anti-American.
  I will welcome a feasible alternative to a bad deal, but I have yet 
to hear one, especially from the Prime Minister. Until then, I will 
stand with Israel by empowering our negotiators and not undercutting 
them.

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