Summary: What’s all the controversy over Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress? Is it so much to do about nothing or are the stakes much higher. We’ll tell you what’s really going on, on today’s edition of Politics & Religion. By Irvin Baxter Transcript Intro: Irvin: By now I’m sure that you have heard the news, the continual wrangling between the White House, and Congress, between Speaker John Boehner, and the Representatives of President Barack Obama, over the invite of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak on March 3, before joint session of Congress. There are all kinds of allegations flying around - one was that the White House has not been informed, this morning Boehner said, Oh yes they have been, I’ve contacted them the morning before I issued the invitation on that afternoon. So whatever the truth may be… now, in Israel the debate is hot. Many people think that this is a very slick maneuver to give Netanyahu a world stage to speak from, just two short weeks before the Israeli elections are to take place. And so they are crying, “Unfair”. One political leader in Israel actually suggested that it should be blacked out. That the people of Israel should not be allowed to see it. So there are a lot of things that are going on here. But the big question is, what is really going on? Is this just so much political wrangling, or is there something more important happening here? Well, I think there is something more important happening here that all of us should be acutely aware of right now. Now that’s what we are going to talk about today. First of all, this has everything to do with Iran’s influence. Speaker Boehner has invited Netanyahu to speak on a particular subject, on the Iranian threat. In the meantime, President Obama is due early February to resume talks with Iran, within the context of the six powers, the United States, the other five, the four powers of the United Nations Security Council and then in addition to that, Germany, they’ve been meeting with Iran over the last two or three years. Well now then they are supposed to meet again in February with a goal of concluding an agreement by March and having all the details fleshed out by June. Now these deadlines do not mean a thing because they’ve had deadline, after deadline, after deadline, and they keep putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off. Now Israel contends that Iran only wants to keep negotiating long enough to solidify their nuclear capability. They want to be positioned so that they have enough nuclear weapons, nuclear materials stockpiled so that if they have to make the decision to make the race toward having a nuclear bomb, they could do it very, very quickly. So Israel is saying they need to be the ability to make a nuclear bomb should be dismantled because Iran has repeatedly stated that its goal is the destruction of Israel. And the nation of Israel is a one-bomb state. One nuclear weapon on Tel Aviv and the entire state of Israel is destroyed. The nuclear fall out would be such that the entire nation would have to be evacuated. Now when you have an enemy that has said repeatedly that they want to destroy you and remove you from the face of the planet and they are trying to position themselves to get nuclear weapons, and you’re depending on talks and a piece of paper to make sure that you aren’t driven into extinction, these are high stakes. Now, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not agree with the accord that’s being struck right now between the five powers plus one and Iran. He doesn’t believe it’s going to do what is necessary. It does not dismantle their centrifuges, it does not get rid of their nuclear material, and it also does not allow the United Nations or any other International Organization to inspect every place in Iran without an appointment. So what does it really do? Well it’s built on a lot of really good faith. Okay now, that’s only the tip of the iceberg,
