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Rep. John Yarmuth says Republican House Speaker John Boehner inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to the House of Representatives is “close to subversion.”

Speaking with the Stephanie Miller Show on Friday, the Kentucky Democrat added some Congress members’ strong support for Israel “had to do with fundraising.”

“I am totally outraged at Speaker Boehner for doing it, I think it’s, it was deliberately

designed to undermine the president — that’s close to subversion,” said Yarmuth of Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress.

“I mean, the president is supposed to be conducting foreign policy, not the Speaker of the House.”

Yarmuth then said a lot of the strong support for Israel has to with fundraising and pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“And you know, a lot of it has to do with fundraising — I’m sure some of it is sincere support for Israel,” Yarmuth said.

“You know, I’m a Jewish member of Congress, I’m a strong supporter of Israel, but my first obligation is to the Constitution of the United States, not to the Constitution of Israel. And unfortunately, I think, some of the demands that are made of members by AIPAC and some strong Jewish supporters are that we pay more attention — I guess we defer — to Israel more than we defer to the United States.”

“And that’s another thing, because if he’s going to come over here and say ‘well, my intelligence shows this’ — you know, there’s an implicit, I guess, admission — or not admission, I guess concession — that Israeli intelligence is superior to American intelligence. I’m not ready to sit there and endorse that kind of proposition, and I suspect he will, basically, talk about things like that — you know, try to match their assessment of the situation against ours. And I’m not willing to believe theirs is superior.”

via Democratic Congressman: A Lot Of Strong GOP Support For Israel “Has To Do With Fundraising” – BuzzFeed News.