Emet Condemns President Obama’s Increasingly Unhinged Campaign to Embarrass and Defeat the Prime Minister of Israel, the U.S.’s Closest Ally in the Middle East

EMET Condemns President Obama’s Increasingly Unhinged Campaign to Embarrass and Defeat the Prime Minister of Israel, the U.S.’s Closest Ally in the Middle East

(January 29, 2015, Washington, DC) Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) condemned the Obama administration’s increasingly unhinged campaign to embarrass and defeat the re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, who is the leader of our most dependable ally.

Recently, Speaker John Boehner honored Prime Minister Netanyahu by inviting him to address the U.S. Congress on the issues of the shared threat to the United States and Israel of a nuclear armed Iran and the rise of radical Islam. Besides being the Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu is a noted expert and author who has written extensively on both subjects. Netanyahu accepted the Speaker’s generous invitation and is scheduled to speak to Congress on March 3^rd, two weeks before the Israeli elections.

Unfortunately, President Obama has reacted to this invitation in an increasingly illogical manner. President Obama claimed that neither he nor Secretary of State John Kerry can meet with Netanyahu during his visit because “Our general policy is, we don’t meet with any world leader two weeks before their election.” Press Secretary Josh Ernest further explained, “This administration goes to great lengths to ensure that we don’t give even the appearance of interfering or attempting to influence the outcome” of democratic elections abroad.

However, neither of these statements can be true. SecretaryKerry met with the Nigerian presidential candidates January 26th prior to the Nigerian election scheduled for February 14th, and President Obama himself just spent three days with India’s Prime Minister Modi, stirring controversy just 10 days before the February 7th Indian elections.   Further, according to the Washington Free Beacon and other news reports, the administration is currently using taxpayer dollars from the State Department to promote an Israeli campaign run by Obama campaign aides to oust the Prime Minister.

Even more disturbingly, the Obama administration has also resorted to anonymous petty insults and threats against Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to Haaretz, Obama officials insulted Prime Minister Netanyahu, and then threatened him, saying that “Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.” This anonymous quote was a throwback to when The Atlantic magazine quoted another unnamed senior administration official calling Netanyahu a “chickenshit,” this past October.

“North Korea is fitting submarines with missile launchers, Russia is invading the Ukraine, Iran is speeding toward nuclear weaponry while calling for genocide, Al Qaeda and ISIS are beheading, raping, and conquering, but the only thing the President appears to be outraged about is that the Speaker of the House invited the Prime Minister of Israel – the leader of the U.S.’s greatest ally in the Middle East – to speak in front of Congress,” Sarah Stern, the founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth said.  She continued, “For President Obama to hypocritically claim that he can’t meet with the Prime Minister because it might interfere with the upcoming election campaign, even while President Obama uses American money to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu, is just unbelievable. And it is certainly not how one ally normally behaves towards another. Especially when the rest of the world is in chaos.”

Founded in 2005, EMET’s mission is to educate policymakers in Washington and the general public about the importance of Israel to the United States in their common struggle against radical Islam.  For more information, please visit www.emetonline.org.

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