In a joint press conference with United States President Barak Obama last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the President's recent proposal to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by having Israel return to its 1967 borders. Part of his explanation included a historical summary of the ongoing Middle East peace process.
Following the Israeli Prime Minister's extended refutation of Obama's proposal, pundits from across the political spectrum are castigating Netanyahu for "lecturing" the President on the of the Israel-Palestinian peace process, one whose protracted complications President Obama unnervingly brushed aside in calling on Israel to recede to its borders before the 1967 Six-Day War.
Criticism of the Israeli Prime Minister is short-sighted and presumptuous.
Netanyahu represents a nation swamped by political chaos threatening Israel's right to exist and undermining long-term stability in the Middle East. He has every right to explain not just the White House, but to remind the world what is at stake in Palestine, both for the Jews as well as Arabs.
Furthermore, regardless of one's religious and political affiliations, Israel is an important ally of the United States in our on-going war against terrorism. We should not be undermining that nation's right to defend itself. Moreover, calm and cogent advocacy for the Jewish state is more than a talking point for Republicans, conservatives, or like-minded Democrats, but is a crucial issue for anyone who supports the preservation of the one stable democracy in the Middle East.