Pitiful President

I almost (almost) feel sorry for Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. Here he remarks

I ean, whatever your views on the conflict may be- and reasonable people can hold very reasonable differences- what happened next was not about policy. It wan't about geopolitics. It was about blame and the blame- as it so often does- was placed at the feet of -who else- the Jews. For some, they pointed fingers at the Israelis who- they claimed- whispered a few many times in President Trump's ear. 

For the senior senator from Maryland- a state with one of the most large, most active, most observant Jewish populations in America,, he blames AIPAC, whom he slandered as un-American. Then there is the U.S congressman who says he stands against the quote neo-conservatives who led the U.S. into the current war and instead- his word- he's proud to stand with Hasan Piker, one of the most outspoken, toxic, virulent anti-Semitic influencers in the world, who the congressman described as one of the representatives of "a new moral order." Again, his words.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tells 2026 Never is Now conference that it's "anti-Semitic" to blame Israel for the war on Iran that Israel started.

He accuses Sen. Chris Van Hollen of anti-Semitism for blaming "AIPAC" and slams Rep. Ro Khanna for blaming "neocons" and saying he's… pic.twitter.com/3MpTxFiSwE

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) March 17, 2026

Hasan Piker is despicable and loathsome and Representative Ro Khanna of California. And Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen is wrong when he contends "AIPAC may call itself pro-American. They may call themselves pro-Israel. But they are neither."  They're an American lobby which advocates in the federal government for policies which it believes will benefit Israel. That's why it's called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

However, Greenblatt complained also that some individuals "pointed fingers at the israelis who- they claimed- whispered a few many times in President Trump's ear. His memory may be faulty At a news conference on March 2, Rubio was asked whether there had been an "imminent threat" from Iran and whether he had told lawmakers that there was an imminent threat. He responded

There absolutely was an imminent threat and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked- and we believe they would be attacked- that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked- and by someone else,Israel attacked them, they hit us first and we waited for them to hit us- we would suffer more csualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them for inflicting higher damage. had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.

The crux of Rubio's defense was that the Administration believed that Iran imminently would be attacked and that Tehran then would "immediately come after us." Or more simply: Israel was going to hit Iran and the latter promptly would attack the USA.

This does not fit the definition of "imminent," a term of special importance in the War Powers Resolution, enacted in 1973.  An attack against the USA is not imminent if there is another event which must occur, such as an Israeli offense against Iran. That is especially the case given that an Iranian attack upon the USA absent an American attack upon Iran was speculative. 

Greenblatt maintains that critics of Israel are wrong to believe that the USA attacked Iran because the Israelis "whispered a few many times in President Trump's ear."  But if Rubio's comments were accurate  the President's behavior was worse than if Trump had been persuaded by AIPAC lobbyists. (Rubio tried to clean up his words a few days later when he realized that what he earlier had said was politically toxic.)

Any President should be open to persuasion. However, that is not what Little Marco was suggesting. Instead, he was suggesting that the USA was powerless to persuade Israel not to launch an attack.  On March 17, Donald J. Trump tweeted/Truth Socialed 

... because of the fact that we have had such MILITARY SUCCESS, we no longer "need," or desire, the NATO countries assisistance- WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!

We are by far the most powerful country anywhere in the world, yet we allowed Israel's actions to dictate our own. We do not need the help of anyone- yet, we're powerless to make a major policy decision on our own terms.

A confident and secure President, as contrasted to one merely projecting that image, would have told a much smaller country, an ally, that the timing wasn't right for us. If that nation chose to forge ahead nonetheless, we would not interfere, but would recconsider our relationship to it.

Greenblatt would have been more accurate had he defended Israel against the charge that it was responsible for President Trump's action.  It wasn't Israel's fault, rather the character flaws and bad judgement of the President of the USA. 

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