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Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Alan Dershowitz: The Appalling Talk of Boycotting Netanyahu

The Appalling Talk of Boycotting Netanyahu
Congress has every right, and even an obligation, to hear the Israeli leader
speak about the Iranian threat.
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
The Wall Street Journal Feb. 23, 2015 6:33 p.m. ET
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alan-m-dershowitz-the-appalling-talk-of-boycotting-netanyahu-1424734380

As a liberal Democrat who twice campaigned for President Barack Obama , I am
appalled that some Democratic members of Congress are planning to boycott
the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3 to a
joint session of Congress. At bottom, this controversy is not mainly about
protocol and politics—it is about the constitutional system of checks and
balances and the separation of powers.

Under the Constitution, the executive and legislative branches share
responsibility for making and implementing important foreign-policy
decisions. Congress has a critical role to play in scrutinizing the
decisions of the president when these decisions involve national security,
relationships with allies and the threat of nuclear proliferation.

Congress has every right to invite, even over the president’s strong
objection, any world leader or international expert who can assist its
members in formulating appropriate responses to the current deal being
considered with Iran regarding its nuclear-weapons program. Indeed, it is
the responsibility of every member of Congress to listen to Prime Minister
Netanyahu, who probably knows more about this issue than any world leader,
because it threatens the very existence of the nation state of the Jewish
people.

Congress has the right to disagree with the prime minister, but the idea
that some members of Congress will not give him the courtesy of listening
violates protocol and basic decency to a far greater extent than anything
Mr. Netanyahu is accused of doing for having accepted an invitation from
Congress.

Recall that President Obama sent British Prime Minister David Cameron to
lobby Congress with phone calls last month against conditionally imposing
new sanctions on Iran if the deal were to fail. What the president objects
to is not that Mr. Netanyahu will speak to Congress, but the content of what
he intends to say. This constitutes a direct intrusion on the power of
Congress and on the constitutional separation of powers.

Not only should all members of Congress attend Mr. Netanyahu’s speech, but
President Obama—as a constitutional scholar—should urge members of Congress
to do their constitutional duty of listening to opposing views in order to
check and balance the policies of the administration.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Speaker John Boehner ’s decision to
invite Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to accept, no legal scholar
can dispute that Congress has the power to act independently of the
president in matters of foreign policy. Whether any deal with Iran would
technically constitute a treaty requiring Senate confirmation, it is
certainly treaty-like in its impact. Moreover, the president can’t implement
the deal without some action or inaction by Congress.

Congress also has a role in implementing the president’s promise—made on
behalf of our nation as a whole—that Iran will never be allowed to develop
nuclear weapons. That promise seems to be in the process of being broken, as
reports in the media and Congress circulate that the deal on the table
contains a sunset provision that would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons
after a certain number of years.

Once it became clear that Iran will eventually be permitted to become a
nuclear-weapon power, it has already become such a power for practical
purposes. The Saudis and the Arab emirates will not wait until Iran turns
the last screw on its nuclear bomb. As soon as this deal is struck, with its
sunset provision, these countries would begin to develop their own
nuclear-weapon programs, as would other countries in the region. If Congress
thinks this is a bad deal, it has the responsibility to act.

Another reason members of Congress should not boycott Mr. Netanyahu’s speech
is that support for Israel has always been a bipartisan issue. The decision
by some members to boycott Israel’s prime minister endangers this bipartisan
support. This will not only hurt Israel but will also endanger support for
Democrats among pro-Israel voters. I certainly would never vote for or
support a member of Congress who walked out on Israel’s prime minister.

One should walk out on tyrants, bigots and radical extremists, as the United
States did when Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and called
for Israel’s destruction at the United Nations. To use such an extreme
tactic against our closest ally, and the Middle East’s only vibrant
democracy, is not only to insult Israel’s prime minister but to put Israel
in a category in which it does not belong.

So let members of Congress who disagree with the prime minister’s decision
to accept Speaker Boehner’s invitation express that disagreement privately
and even publicly, but let them not walk out on a speech from which they may
learn a great deal and which may help them prevent the president from making
a disastrous foreign-policy mistake. Inviting a prime minister of an ally to
educate Congress about a pressing foreign-policy decision is in the highest
tradition of our democratic system of separation of powers and checks and
balances.
=====================
Mr. Dershowitz is a professor of law emeritus at Harvard Law School and the
author of “Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel’s Just War Against Hamas”
(Rosetta Books, 2014).

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