Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Will John Boehner Now Spill the Beans on Bibi Speech Drama?

(JTA) — John Boehner, the Republican from Ohio who is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is quitting politics.

Now that he’s going, maybe Boehner may feel free to elaborate on his role in the secret that launched the ongoing U.S.-Israel crisis — and perhaps permanently changed the relationship between the two countries.

We know that Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer agreed to keep secret Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress — at the speaker’s request.

Boehner and Dermer have confirmed that the ambassador, who had consulted with Netanyahu, agreed to keep the secret, from the Obama administration, congressional Democrats and pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC. Boehner has said he asked for secrecy to keep Obama from nixing the speech.

But once you keep the secrets of one party in a two-party democracy, you become partisan — and in this case you do some damage to the decades-long tradition of bipartisan support for Israel.

Dermer’s “yes” meant Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, had to enter the trenches in the effort to push back Boehner’s effort to kill the deal — which was ultimately successful.

Going forward, his “yes” means Democrats on Capitol Hill are no longer so eager to return calls from the Israeli embassy.

It means there’s discussion on the Hill about whether the “Israel is GOP territory” tag will die when Netanyahu leaves office, or outlast him.

Given the echoes of Dermer’s “yes” in Washington’s halls of power, many would like to hear what it sounded like. And Boehner is one of the few people who knows.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.