Today, as the flags fly at half-staff over the United States Capitol, Benjamin Netanyahu sits in the pews of Washington’s National Cathedral, paying his respects to the late Senator Lindsey Graham. The irony is as suffocating as the incense: the man who spent decades lobbying for American blood to be spilled in Israel’s name has finally met his maker, and the very beneficiary of his zeal is present to honour him.

Let no one mistake this funeral for a moment of national mourning. This is a gathering of the war party, a reunion of those who have spent a generation remaking the Middle East in the image of Israeli power, and Lindsey Graham was its most devoted, most zealous, most unapologetic soldier.

Let no one mistake this funeral for a moment of national mourning. This is a gathering of the war party, a reunion of those who have spent a generation remaking the Middle East in the image of Israeli power, and Lindsey Graham was its most devoted, most zealous, most unapologetic soldier.

The documentary footage that surfaced in the days before his death — Lindsey’s Game — has stripped away the final pretence. There he is, on the phone with Netanyahu in March of last year, cheerfully offering to lobby Donald Trump to join Israel’s bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. He was planning to fly to Florida to press the president to commit American military forces to yet another Middle Eastern war. 

In the same footage, he tells Netanyahu that the years-long push for war against Iran was “the best thing I’ve ever done.” He laughs. He jokes. He describes Trump as “a great wartime president” who “loves blowing stuff up.” He compares Trump and Netanyahu to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

This is not a statesman. This is a ghoul. Graham had been advocating for military conflict with Iran since the Obama........

© Middle East Monitor