Congress’s Black Caucus firmly against Netanyahu, Newsweek says

African-American lawmakers from the US Congressional Black Caucus are said to be livid with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his election day remark about Arab voters, with a number of aides on Capitol Hill telling Newsweek Friday that he’s lost their support.

Early on the afternoon of election day, March 17, Netanyahu took to the Internet to rally right-wing supporters to the polls, insisting that Arabs were “voting in droves” and that foreign-funded NGOs were busing them to the polls. The comment prompted outrage at home and abroad, and resonated particularly poorly with a US racial minority that has faced a history of institutional discrimination. Netanyahu subsequently apologized for the remark.

Hostility to Netanyahu from the Black Caucus could undermine efforts to build bipartisan support among members of Congress to vote on key legislation blocking the imminent nuclear deal with Iran, which is backed by President Barack Obama and bitterly opposed by Netanyahu.

“The Congressional Black Caucus is gone,” a Democratic aide told Newsweek, speaking of the group’s support for Israel under Netanyahu.

Relations between Netanyahu and Obama are widely perceived as very poor, and they were aggravated by his decision to speak to Congress on March 3 against the Iran deal.

The Black Caucus, made up of 46 members, largely boycotted Netanyahu’s speech, with some suggesting that racism was at play in the undermining of the president in an appearance that was not coordinated with the White House. In a closed door meeting with Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Representative James Clyburn (Democrat-South Carolina) told the Likud MK that he regarded the prime minister’s speech as an “affront to America’s first black president.”

Speaking with DeWayne Wickham, an African-American op-ed writer for USA Today, Clyburn further insinuated that Netanyahu’s willingness to overstep the White House was, among other things, racist. “This is a real in-your-face slap at the president, and black folks know it… [Netanyahu] wouldn’t have done it to any other president.”

When Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat and highest-ranking African-American in the House, was asked why the prime minister would disrespect Obama, he responded: “You know why.”

Two bipartisan bills on Iran are currently being mulled in the Senate.

The first, introduced by Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois and Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, would levy a host of additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic if no nuclear agreement is reached by the end of March. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is due to vote on a second Iran bill in April that would mandate the president to gain congressional approval for a nuclear agreement.

Obama has promised to veto both bills if necessary; a two-third majority — 67 votes in the Senate and 287 in the House of Representatives — is needed to overturn the president’s veto.

“Bibi,” a congressional aide told the magazine, using Netanyahu’s nickname, “ensured there will be no veto-proof majority in the House.”

Secretary of State John Kerry and other foreign ministers from the P5+1 countries were in Lausanne Saturday seeking to finalize the deal with Iran. An Israeli television report on Friday night said that the deal will leave Tehran with 6,100 centrifuges spinning and will involve a phased lifting of economic sanctions.

As Iran hailed “massive progress” in the talks, an Israeli official described the terms of the looming agreement as “incomprehensibly” bad and rejected the Obama administration’s contention that it would keep the regime a year away from accumulating enough fissile material for a bomb.

Estimating that a framework deal would indeed be signed soon, and that a full agreement would follow in June, the official lamented the US-led negotiators’ apparent readiness to remove sanctions without Iran being required to halt its global terrorist activities, and listed a host of areas in which Tehran was working against American, Israeli and moderate Arab interests without being made to pay a price.

His comments underlined immense Israeli opposition to the emerging deal across the spectrum of Israeli politics.

Charged with forming a new government on Wednesday after winning the March 17 elections, Netanyahu vowed to patch up ties with the US, but insisted Israel would do everything to thwart the emerging Iranian nuclear deal, which he said was “an agreement that endangers us, our neighbors and the world.”

Regardless of Netanyahu’s efforts, it appears the Israeli prime minister’s gambit may have further polarized the already fractured US Congress as Democrats are increasingly divided over how to support Obama’s endeavors without coming across as non-supportive of Israel in front of a generally pro-Israel electorate.

According to the Newsweek report, Netanyahu can more or less guarantee that the Black Caucus will not assist him in his effort to thwart Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. “It’s going to be very difficult to bring them back,” one Democratic aide remarked.