When Winston Churchill famously addressed the United States Congress in the 1940s, he said he found in America “An Olympian fortitude which, far from being based upon complacency, is only the mask of an inflexible purpose and the proof of a sure, well-grounded confidence in the final outcome.”
In today’s speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu evoked that same fortitude and confidence that Churchill evoked all those years ago, not in the face of an attack on Pearl Harbor, of course, but rather in the grave threat posed by a potentially nuclear-tipped Iran.
The emotion in the House chamber was palpable. Members of Congress in attendance love Israel and understand the threat this beloved nation faces.
Mr. Netanyahu, amid all the criticism and boycotts of his remarks by some members of Congress, showed Churchillian moral courage today, and an abiding intelligence about the stakes if the United States is not prepared to walk away from a negotiation with Iran, one of the supreme exporters of terror in our time.
To be clear, the PM’s speech was honoring of President Obama and the long-standing relationship between the two countries.
His address also brought home the serious threat of an agreement that puts Iran and its state sponsored terror on the path to nuclear weapons.
The Prime Minister was eloquent and prophetic, suggesting that “To defeat ISIS by giving nuclear weapons to Iran would be to win the battle but lose the war. The enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”
In closing, Israel’s leader summed up the challenge before us and concluded with a biblical charge to Congress, quoting from Deuteronomy 31:6, which were Moses’ final words to the Israelites:
“Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them.”
Fittingly, a sculpture of Moses was facing Mr. Netanyahu during his entire speech, a marble relief that has hung in the House chamber since 1950.
Please join me in “praying for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you” (Ps. 122:6).
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