This brings us to the question Netanyahu’s speech forces upon us. Does the U.S. control Israel or does Israel control the U.S.? Is the apartheid state another of Washington’s client regimes, albeit — let’s borrow a little from the Chinese — a client with Zionist characteristics? Or is Israel a case — rare, if not unique — of a distant outpost that dictates to the imperial center? The periphery exercises power over the metropole, this to say: This would have to be something new under the sun, surely. 

The immediate answer, perhaps obvious, is the terrorist at the podium. It cannot be lost on anyone paying attention that more or less every member of Congress in attendance — and good on the 100 or so members who boycotted — has in the past taken and continues to take money from the Israel lobby, notably but not only the profoundly antidemocratic American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the infamous AIPAC.

Netanyahu knew this. He spoke to some people who genuinely believe in the Zionist cause and some people concerned with the imperium’s geopolitical position in the Middle East. Some and some, O.K. But everybody he addressed, allowing for exceptions, was on the take from AIPAC. Thomas Massie, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky and one of the exceptions, told us just how AIPAC works — a combination of bribes, threats, and coercion — in quite unbelievable detail when Tucker Carlson interviewed him on these subjects a couple of months ago.  

Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait