We are in the midst of remembering the horrors of the Holocaust.  Last night, Schindler’s List played on TV uninterrupted by any commercials.  The Holocaust represents one of the darkest times in world.  It was a true example of the horror of human brutality.  More than 6 million members of the Jewish faith were exterminated as if they were vermin.  Many who were not Jewish were caught up in the slaughter, as the Nazis did not spend much time refining their selection of whom to murder. 

Never again. 

The Jewish State of Israel knows that there are many in the modern world who would, unimpeded, commit the same atrocities against the Jewish people.  The State of Israel has vowed to never let such a threat to their race, to their culture, or, to their homeland happen again.  Surrounded in the Middle East by Muslim states, many of whom harbor extremist terrorists, Israel must be always vigilant.

Now comes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress on the threat of Iranian efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.  A nuclear Iran is possibly the worst current threat against Israel.  The Mossad is engaged 24-7 with the task of tracking Iran’s progress.  Netanyahu wants to move the United States – and the rest of the Western world – to become more aggressive in our efforts to rein in the Iranian nuclear weapons development program.

For Israel, this is not some foreign policy effort amongst many other such diplomatic efforts.  This is life or death.  Iran is open about its intent to kill Jews and wipe out the State of Israel.  Netanyahu would be negligent if he did not go anywhere, at any time, to convince the world that the threat is real.

Barack Hussein Obama, however, wants Netanyahu to butt out of his “delicate negotiations,” which Obama claims have yielded real and tangible results.  For Obama, this is a clinical debate in a Harvard Law School classroom.  He is convinced that the weight of his charisma and his mastery of speech will win the day. 

Most of the Congress doubts Barack Obama’s strategy.  The Iranians are open and vocal in their rejection of Obama’s rhetoric.  They have not slowed one bit.  Obama has hung his hopes on empty Iranian commitments.  There is not a credible agency or international group or intelligence service anywhere that can reliably state that Obama’s negotiations have produced a whit of impact upon the Iranians as they press forward to develop the bomb. 

But Barack Obama says Netanyahu has “spit in his face” with his plan to address a joint session of Congress.  Make no mistake – this is about Barack Obama’s ego. 

For Netanyahu, it is about his people’s survival.