Natan Sachs on Bibi's Visit to Washington
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a controversial address to a joint session of Congress over US President Barack Obama's objections. The speech, repeatedly interrupted by thunderous applause focused heavily on the nature of the developing nuclear accord between the P5+1 and Iran, and insisted a better deal was possible. The speech was also heavily colored by its proximity to the upcoming Israeli elections, with many Israel watchers wondering whether it was meant to play more to Israel voters than to Congress.
Just after Netanyahu's address, we invited Brookings Fellow Natan Sachs into the Lawfare studios to unpack the speech, including what it means for the US-Israeli relationship, the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, and Bibi's chances in the upcoming election.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.0 | The danger for Israel and its supporters is that if this is strengthened, |
| 0:37.0 | and Israel becomes a Republican issue, they're going to lose a lot of the support they have |
| 0:41.0 | from very important democratic legislators. |
| 0:44.0 | And the Democratic Party, if you look at demographics, is not on the decent, |
| 0:48.0 | it's maybe on the ascent. And so for Israel, this is a very risky move. |
| 0:52.0 | I think of it partly as a general generational issue. |
| 0:56.0 | The Democrats, many of the senior Democrats now, who are so angry at Israel, |
| 1:00.0 | when some of them saying public things that they really haven't said, perhaps ever about Israeli leadership. |
| 1:04.0 | They're not the problem for Israel. They by and large have squeaky clean Israel records, |
| 1:10.0 | and they're going to vote for most of the things. |
| 1:12.0 | And I'm thinking about the people who are 10 years younger, or slightly more, |
| 1:15.0 | who are senior aides to these people. |
| 1:17.0 | And they probably have mixed opinions about Israel, like about anything anyway. |
| 1:21.0 | And they're now seeing cues from their leadership, |
| 1:23.0 | and Nancy Pelosi, but not just her, from people in the center of the Democratic Party too, |
| 1:27.0 | speaking very differently about Israel than they did just 10 years ago. |
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