When a joint session of the U.S. Congress gave Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu 29 standing ovations — four more than President Barack Obama received for his last State of the Union message — there was little doubt that Israel is an integral part of the American body politic.
It was a hardline speech by an Israeli on the right of the Israeli spectrum that firmly rejected Obama's proposal for Middle East peace: the pre-1967 war frontier with minor land swaps for both sides.
It was also a demonstration of why the United States cannot continue to pose as a "valid interlocutor" between Israelis and Palestinians