You may remember the ridiculous doomsday prophecies and outrageous fear-mongering that defined the Republican campaign against President Obama’s nuclear peace deal with Iran. The motivation behind their unwise and ultimately ineffective resistance to the President’s diplomatic agenda has finally come to light. A new report from the Wall Street Journal reveals that NSA wiretaps found that the the Israeli Prime Minister and other officials of the Israeli governments attempted to, and most likely succeeded, to bribe American legislators in exchange for their support against the deal.

“A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the intercepts said Israel’s pitch to undecided lawmakers often included such questions as: “How can we get your vote? What’s it going to take? Mr. Netanyahu and some of his allies voiced confidence they could win enough votes.” The answers to Israeli proposals have yet to be fully revealed, but it is clear that favors were offered – bribes were proposed – and from the subsequent behavior of Republican lawmakers, we can only infer that our legislators accepted those bribes, from a foreign government in exchange for opposing the diplomatic efforts of the Obama Administration. At the very least, the very discussion itself indicates that they conspired with a foreign government to undermine the foreign policy agenda of their elected Commander-in-Chief, which certainly amounts to treason.

Given the fact that Republican politicians are notorious for the amount of money they accept from special interests within the United States, what makes anyone think they wouldn’t accept them from a foreign government? The fact that forty-seven Republican Senators sent a letter to the Iranian government without consulting the administration in a direct attempt to undermine the President’s policies is only further evidence of their treachery, putting their ill-gotten rewards above the effectiveness of our foreign policy and consequently the good of our nation and the security of the voters they claim to represent.

It’s painfully ironic that the Republican Party is a major supporter of the NSA’s rampant spying on American citizens without warrants, but as soon as the tables are turned, they are suddenly die-hard supporters of privacy and free speech – which only further implicates them for treasonous activities, strongly implying that they have something to hide. While the Israeli government shrugged off the revelations that they had been spied upon (“Everyone listens to everyone else all the time”), the Republicans in Congress and the right-wing echo machine is working overtime to paint President Obama as the bad guy and accusing him of committing some kind of enormous diplomatic sin, while having laughed off the complaints of our allies when our intelligence organizations targeted Germany and the United Kingdom.

Their incredibly hypocrisy only confirms just how deeply the Republican Party is beholden to Israeli lobbying groups like AIPAC and to the government of Israel itself. This is just more evidence that they having been actively working to undermine American foreign policy to the detriment of our international prestige and overseas influence, even as they disparage our President for being “feckless” and “weak.” Their efforts look even more foolish now that it is clear the peace deal is being fully implemented by Iran, who just turned over their stockpile of enriched uranium to the Russians this week in accordance with the deal. These traitors have no business interfering with the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts, and certainly no business conspiring with the officials of foreign governments against our elected government.