Attorney Marc Zell, Co-Chair of Republicans Abroad Israel, said Tuesday that the harsh statements by US President Barack Obama ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech before the two houses of Congress indicate that Obama is under pressure.
“I think that the negative reactions by the President and the White House to Netanyahu’s speech bear witness to the importance of this speech, otherwise the White House would not respond this way,” Zell opined. “The White House is afraid of what Netanyahu will say, because he will expose in his speech the big coverup in the agreement with Iran.”
Zell said that some elements in Israel wil do anything to sling mud at Netanyahu ahead of the speech: “Even Jeffrey Goldberg, who is close to Obama, said that Netanyahu has a case – and only here in Israel, because of the elections, there are some elements that seek to bring down Netanyahu and would do anything to achieve this – including sending delegates to AIPAC to delegitimize Netanyahu in front of an amazing audience of 16,000.”
The Congressmen who will boycott the speech are a minority, he added. “Most of them come from districts that do not support Israel anyway, so it is easy for them to boycott the speech – although I think they are making a mistake. On the other hand, there are Democratic congressmen and even senators who support Netanyahu.”
Zell expressed confidence that Netanyahu would be performing “an important service for the nation of Israel” later Tuesday – “just as a few years ago, he exposed the Iranian threat to the international community.”
“It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the White House,” he noted. “This is not a simple matter. The speech doesn’t help Netanyahu here in Israel – maybe the opposite is true. But I believe that Netanyahu believes in what he is trying to do and thinks the threat is real, and therefore he has no choice but to defend Israel.”
