The Cantor Contoversy

Congressman Eric Cantor, soon to be the highest-ranking Jewish Congressman in history, recently met with Israeli P.M. Binyamin Netanyahu. Following the meeting, Cantor’s office issued a press release summarizing it:

Eric has a long standing friendship with Prime Minister Netanyahu and appreciated the opportunity to catch up last evening. The discussion lasted over an hour and covered a range of topics that included Iran, the United Nations, and the recent U.S. election which saw the Republicans win the majority in the House.

On Iran:

Eric made clear that he believes that it is time for the administration to fully and aggressively implement the Iran Sanctions Act passed by Congress earlier this year. Further delay is not an option, and unless the Administration continues to ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian regime, the progress made by the sanctions already implemented will unravel. Now is not the time to ease off the pressure.On the UN:

Eric reiterated his belief that compromise between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties. A unilaterally declared Palestinian state will only create more distrust between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and move the process further away from peace. He believes that unilateral action by the Palestinians at the United Nations is a diversion and should be considered a nonstarter by all serious parties. The Administration should make it absolutely clear that the U.S. will veto any effort by the Palestinians to act in such a manner. If the Palestinians truly want to achieve a peace agreement they must return to the negotiating table and deal directly with Israel.

On the U.S. Election:

Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington. He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.

It’s the final paragraph that has become controversial. A reasonable interpretation of this is, as Prof. Jacobson writes, that the release is simply cataloging topics discussed. “So Cantor said that the GOP would serve as a check on Obama; there is nothing remarkable about that, it is the GOP position. Cantor also stated that the GOP understands the special relationship with Israel; again nothing new there.”

But even if you settle on the alternative interpretation, that Cantor was saying that the GOP would serve as a check on Obama’s Mideast policy, what Cantor said was that the GOP would protect the “special relationship between the U.S. and Israel,” to protect countries’ mutual, interdependent security needs.

This is a far cry from Cantor vowing “that he and his GOP colleagues would protect and defend Israeli interests against his own Government,” as Glenn Greenwald put it. This claim has the double dubious distinction of being dishonest and implying that the House of Representatives is not a part of the U.S. government, at least with regard to foreign affairs.

Unfortunately, Ron Kampeas of the JTA, who later acknowledged that he was “parsing,” [i.e., extrapolating based on his own hunch without evidene] helped stoke this particular fire by writing, “I can’t remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president.” Except of course, even accepting an uncharitable interpretation of a press release summary written by an aide (as opposed to an actual transcript of what was said) as gospel, Cantor never said that. How does “serving as a check” on the Administration when needed to “preserve the special relationship” become “siding as a matter of policy with Netanyahu against Obama?”

Jacobson rounds up additional tendentious, foolish, and dishonest accounts of the press release here.

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