[Dissociated Press – Washington,  DC – March 3, 2015] 

Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel today startled the U.S. Congress by demanding that it pass a strong carbon tax to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions that lead to global scorching.

"The State of Israel faces an extreme threat to its existence,” he said, “much more dangerous to us than Iran or the Palestinians. And only the United States can prevent this disaster. ”

“Our best scientists have told me that if the world continues with business as usual in pouring CO2 into our air, the added heat will expand the size of the Negev Desert so that it will swallow up most of Israel.  And sea levels of the Mediterranean will rise to put much of Tel Aviv under water.”

 “I am sad to say that much of the present CO2 comes from unchecked fossil-fuel burning by American companies. Only a strong US carbon tax can end this. On behalf of the people of Israel and of the entire Jewish people, I implore you –- I urge you –- even I would say I demand of you –-  that you take this step as soon as possible.

Senators and Members of the House of Representatives were thrown into a buzzing uproar  by Mr. Netanyahu’s speech. Speaker Boehner was seen to hit his hand against his head three times in what looked like frustration.

 Until Mr. Netanyahu began to speak, it was widely expected he would call for Congress to impose even more draconic sanctions against Iran than now exist. 

There were sharp divisions in American politics over having the speech at all.

On the one hand, the House Republican leadership had arranged it without informing the President or the Democratic Congressional leadership -- an unheard-of procedure for inviting a foreign leader. The Republican leadership also invited several major supporters and donors to sit in seats of honor in the gallery.

One of these was Sheldon Adelson, multibillionaire head of a casino empire who has been one of Mr. Netanyahu’s strongest political supporters and donors in Israeli politics, and who has also been a major contributor to Republican candidates for President.

From his seat, as the speech took its unexpected turn, he began shouting, “No, No,  NO.”  When forced to leave by the Capitol police, he came down outside the Capitol, roaring, “For this I paid the whole cost of the newspaper I invented to support him? What will I say to my friends Charles and David Koch?  Did some Greenpeacer poison his coffee this morning?”

On the other hand, the White House had sharply criticized the invitation, and many critics had gathered outside the Capitol to protest what they had expected Mr. Netanyahu to say.  They had argued that his policy would undermine President Obama’s diplomatic work to pull Iran away from nuclear weapons, would instead push Iran toward making them, and thus would likely lead to a disastrous war.

 One of the protesters, Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center, is also a leader in urging the American Jewish community to work against the fossil-fuel burning that brings on climate chaos.

 Our reporter asked Rabbi Waskow what he thought of the speech. ”I am astounded,” he said. “A reminder that even bellicose, short-sighted politicians can still open themselves to the deepest truth, and amaze everyone –-  maybe even themselves .”

“In Jewish spiritual life we call it tshuvah – literally, turning in a new direction, toward the God Who breathes all life.  We pray, ‘You Who are the Breath of Life, May Your sacred winds of change turn us in a new direction – and then we will turn!’

 “All I can say this afternoon is, Amen to that!”

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 [The Dissociated Press is an investigative/ prophetic journalism project of The Shalom Center. The Dissociated Press seeks to report not the “actual facts” but the deeper “counter-factual” truth. Sometimes that “truth” is datelined from a hidden place beneath the surface of the facts, sometimes from the future  — see graphic above.  Often this kind of “truth” will read like satire. In this case, it is satire.]