Channel 2 on Tuesday invited the various party heads to a televised debate. Almost all answered the call, the viewers were told, except for the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How can that be? Is Netanyahu afraid- Almost simultaneously, Netanyahu announced that his decision to speak before the U.S. Congress -- to warn against the Obama administration signing a bad nuclear deal with Iran -- was final. Almost all the party leaders oppose the speech and believe the prime minister needs to come back down from the tall tree he climbed by accepting Republican House Speaker John Boehner's invitation. Netanyahu chose not to give in. From his perspective, he has a date with history on Capitol Hill in March. A nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, which justifies a clash -- another one -- with Obama. Netanyahu is going. How can that be, people in Israel are wondering? What, Netanyahu isn't afraid- Apparently in this world there are clashes for ratings (like televised debates), and there are clashes with history. Every person is free to choose the one he finds more important. On Monday, I returned from a quick visit to the U.S. In Israel, the media shines the spotlight on those who oppose the speech and the online initiative by J Street (not exactly Jabotinsky disciples) demanding that Netanyahu rescind his decision to speak before Congress, which they argue would damage Israel-U.S. relations. But I saw many Jews there, as well as politicians, who feel differently. They think Netanyahu needs to come and speak. I also saw many Jewish Democrats who voted for Obama, but do not agree with the president's foreign policy in the Middle East, which has been a failure from day one. Indeed, there are those who oppose the speech and those who support it. The main problem is that it has become political. It cannot be allowed to be political. What is needed against a nuclear Iran and its ayatollah regime is consensus, if not between the superpowers than at least in the West; and if not in the West then at least among the Israeli and American friends. There are those, of course, who would tell us Netanyahu scheduled his speech close to the elections. These are the same people who would criticize him for flying to the U.S. twice in a short period of time. When he saves the money, it's not good. When he doesn't save the money, it's even worse. The American administration is on its way to signing an awful deal with Iran. All signs point to Obama wanting a deal at almost all costs. The many concessions his administration has made since negotiations renewed in October 2009 are a testament to this. In Switzerland, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Iraq and Russia, we saw how more and more concessions were made toward the Iranians: Iran will keep its centrifuges, enriched uranium, and will even continue to enrich uranium at low levels. And this will be in left in the hands of Khamenei, not Mother Teresa. Then of course people will explain to us that Netanyahu is ruining Israel-U.S. relations. Have these relations truly reached an unprecedented low point? After all, we have butted heads in the past at crucial historical junctures. There is a great deal of hypocrisy in this story. British Prime Minister David Cameron was given the privilege of convincing members of the Congress not to vote in favor of new sanctions against Iran, while Netanyahu is forbidden. Perhaps this is because one of them has elections in March and the other in May. Our monotonous pundits tell us Netanyahu needs to be smart, not right, on the Iranian issue. But Netanyahu mostly needs to be right -- and not look to find favor in the eyes of Obama. If we elected leaders based on their subservience to the American administration, we can assume the political lives of Ben-Gurion and Begin would have been much shorter. Obama will not be forgiving, even if Netanyahu cancels his speech. What is more important, however, is that history is just as unlikely to forgive.
