The prime minister of Israel gets more standing ovations than the president of the United States. Money quote:
Netanyahu's speech – and the thunderous bi-partisan response – was a clear challenge to the idea of using the 1967 boundaries – with or without “swaps” — as a basis for a peace deal. Netanyahu also got big ovations with hard-line statements on two other perennial sticking points to Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements: No right of return for Palestinian refugees, insisted, and “Jerusalem will never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united Capital of Israel.”
And with those conditions, he ensures no peace. Because, as Josh Marshall notes, he wants no peace. Just more expansion and more war. The US is, as he once said, "easy to push around." This conversation is worth remembering at a moment like this:
Netanyahu: The Arabs are currently focusing [on] a war of terror, and they think it will break us. The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one hit, so many painful hits that the price will be too heavy to be borne. The price is not too heavy to be borne now. A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority [will] … bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing.
Woman: They’re not afraid; they’re making fun of us. They shoot into our settlement and make fun of us.
Netanyahu: Fear that everything is collapsing – that’s what leads them to … (makes a hand motion).
Woman: Wait a moment, but then the world will say: “How come you’re conquering again?”
Netanyahu: The world won’t say a thing. The world will say we’re defending.
Woman: Aren’t you afraid of the world, Bibi?
Netanyahu: Especially today, with America – I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved; moved to the right … [direction].
Child: They say they’re for us, but, it’s like…
Netanyahu: They won’t get in our way. They won’t get in our way.
Well, Congress certainly won't.
The Dish 