GOP's King Blasts Obama's Israel Policies

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is planning to introduce a resolution next week defending Israel against criticism it has received over its handling of the Gaza flotilla incident.

The ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, King slammed the Obama administration's stance on the matter in comments first reported by the conservative blog “contentions” and The Hill.

According to Jennifer Rubin, a contentions blogger, “I asked whether he was surprised that the Obama team went along with a UN resolution on the flotilla, even a watered-down one, rather than vetoing it, as past administrations have done in similar situations to hold back the tide of Israel bashing. He replied bluntly, “No.”’

“This is basically what we have seen from day one – [the administration] putting distance between itself and Israel,” King told Rubin. He said he thinks that there is a conscious effort by Obama to deny Israel the “privileged status” it has enjoyed as a close, democratic ally of the United States.

King criticized what he called Obama’s “apology tour, how Netanyahu was treated, and [asserting] the moral equivalency between housing construction in Jerusalem and Iran constructing a nuclear weapon.”

King plans to send a “Dear Colleague” letter out on Monday, calling on all House members to join in a resolution that will be introduced in the next few days. The resolution will include “many paragraphs on Israel’s right to defend itself,” take issue with the critics of Israel, call for the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, and demand that the administration oppose any U.N. investigation of Israel, Rubin reported.