Leid Stories - 03.06.15

Mutually Assured Deception: Why Netanyahu’s Nuclear Arsenal Is Not Up for Debate in Congress

50 Years Later, Edmund Pettus Bridge Still Spans Two Americas, Separate and Unequal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in effect delivered a warning to the United States in his diplomacy-wrecking speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday: End all talks with Iran on its nuclear program, or don’t blame Israel for taking whatever measures it deems necessary to defend itself peremptorily against Iran’s “existential threat.”

Curiously, Israel’s nuclear program never has come up for discussion or debate in Congress.

Our guest, Grant Smith, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy and author of several books on Israeli spying and lobbying, explains why, whether members of Congress approved on did not approve of Netanyahu’s speech, no one raises questions about Israel’s nuclear arsenal or Netanyahu’s role in building it.

 

On Sunday, March 4, 2007, then-presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama had a great photo op; he joined marchers commemorating “Bloody Sunday” by crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. (On March 7, 1965, about 600 protesters were about to start a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., the state’s capital, to demand voting rights. State troopers and local police met them at the bridge and violently attacked them.)

Obama will join thousands planning to converge at the bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

Leid Stories in a commentary discusses the symbolism of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the irony of Obama’s senator-to-president historical trek across it.