Tim Kaine Boycotted Netanyahu Speech, Backed Iran Deal

Democrats are touting Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Hillary Clinton’s new running mate, as a pro-Israel voice in Congress. The left-wing Forward ran a tribute exulting: “5 Reasons Tim Kaine Will Be the Jewiest Vice President Pick for Hillary Clinton.”

Yet Kaine joined anti-Israel radicals in Congress in boycotting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in March 2015 — the last plea of a beleaguered nation against an agreement that Iran is already violating with ballistic missile tests.

At the time, Kaine dismissed Netanyahu’s speech as purely an attempt to influence the upcoming Israel elections — on which the speech had virtually no effect — and complained that Republicans were trying to make support for Israel a partisan issue.

Bloomberg News at the time predicted that Kaine’s decision to boycott the speech “could resonate for years,” describing it as a sop to the party’s left-wing base.

Notably, Kaine is supported by J Street, the George Soros-funded radical left-wing organization widely regarded as anti-Israel for its opposition to every attempt by Israel to defend itself against terror.

When Israel needed to be defended from an Iran deal that the Obama administration had no intent of enforcing, and that the ayatollahs had no intent of keeping, Tim Kaine joined a walkout, putting politics above principle and sound foreign policy.

In that regard, Kaine represents the pro forma, dinner-and-fundraiser definition of “pro-Israel,” which offers Democrats cover, and allows donors to rub shoulders with politicians, but which means little in practice.

Like Hillary Clinton — who was the Secretary of State when negotiations with extremist Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began, and who supported the Iran deal to the hilt — Kaine was ultimately unwilling to heed the concerns of Israelis across the spectrum from left to right.

Kaine even joined the Democrats’ filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on the Iran deal at all. He co-authored the so-called “Corker bill,” then refused to allow the Congress exercise the barest oversight.

In a statement explaining his vote, he described himself as “a strong supporter of the nuclear agreement with Iran,” and called the Iran deal “a dramatic improvement over the status quo.”

Kaine’s “pro-Israel” claims are just talk. When it counted, he was fighting on the other side.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, will be published by Regnery on July 25 and is available for pre-order through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.