A SPEECH FOR PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

RECOMMENDED TO BE MADE TO THE CONGRESS OF THE USA

In the year 1624 A.D. the legendary English poet John Donne authored a book entitled "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions," and he writes in his most famous Meditation XVII,

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind. And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee."

(pause)

"It tolls for thee."

(pause again)

These words of John Donne (who in his youth fought alongside Sir Walter Raleigh and later became famous as a cleric and poet) ring as truly today as they did in his time and one may say they ring truly for all time.

There are Americans, who still regard the New World as an island of itself; and there are British, who still regard Britain as an island of itself; indeed, there are
Israelis, who regard Israel as an island of itself, albeit a social island surrounded by a sea of hostility.  The island nature is real enough.  And the potential threats islands may face are real enough.  The threats become greater, when they are ignored or explained away or not fully appreciated for the threats that they are.

So what is the threat today, and how may that threat be appreciated, that it may be faced with eyes wide open?  That threat is Iran, and while that threat is felt most acutely and immediately in Israel, it is a threat that is no less potent in it's import with respect to the larger Middle East, India, Europe, Britain, and America.

The militant nature of Iran is a matter of present historical record.  Ever since the regime of the Mullahs has ruled Iran, Iran has been the greatest single source of terrorism in the world.  And now Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear threat.  Nuclear power in and of itself is a powerful tool that may be used for good or evil.  How it is used depends on the hands that wield it.

The Iranian regime of the Mullahs has repeatedly stated as a matter of policy that it would wipe Israel from the face of the Earth, and this regime has already established a militant record for decades against Israel by manning, training, supporting, and supplying terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

It was Hezbollah that bombed the Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing eighty-five persons and injuring hundreds; it was two Hezbollah suicide bombers, who attacked the American and French barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing the two-suicide bombers, killing six civilians, injuring seventy-five persons, and killing two-hundred-and-ninty-nine American and French soldiers.

Iran has labelled Israel "Little Satan."  Iran has labelled the USA "Big Satan."

One may infer that Iran regards Britain and Europe as the "Medium Satan".

This type of language, by which Iran describes you and I, is not the speech of diplomacy; rather, it is the speech of megalomania -- megalomania with the potential to hold nuclear power in it's hands.  In every manner of thought, speech, and action the Iranian regime of the Mullahs has already shown it's face and it's arms to the world.  If the world fails to stay the course of Iran's present regime, then the consequences become inevitable; and, those consequences are not beyond imagination; those consequences are: increase of Iranian totalitarianism, increase of Iranian born terrorism, and increase of nuclear proliferation.

Iran must be constrained militarily and financially, as it is already awash in black market money, despite existing sanctions.  This is why greater sanctions must be enacted and enforced against Iran.  And we must ask, whether or not ISIS or Al-Quaeda or Fatah are funded by Iran, just as Hamas is funded by Iran.

Much is made of the hatred between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims.  Perhaps too much is made of this rift.  The Mullahs perceive themselves to be an apocryphal regime, and former Iranian President Ahmadinijad regards himself as The Mahdi -- the Messiah of Islam destined to reconcile and reunite all Islam.

All of the fundamentalist Muslim regimes, be they Shia or Sunni, regard themselves as apocryphal.  And Pakistan, the one Muslim regime that is already a nuclear power, is only questionably stable and is riddled with Taliban.

The issue at hand is the timeliness of additional sanctions against Iran in appreciation of the reality of the Iranian threat.

So, I am here in Washington today to say one thing and one thing only:

(pause)

"... the bell tolls for thee."