Ted Cruz has a new showboat to swim around in, pretend to be concerned about people other than himself while causing as much damage to the functioning of our government as he can. No, he’s not going to shut down the government (and blame it on President Obama) again. This time, he plans to block all State Department nominees, regardless of the world crises happening, until his “questions” about the Obama administration’s ban on flights to Israel are answered. Sean Hannity seemed to think it’s a terrific idea. UPDATED

In Cruz’ attention-seeking mind, the Obama administration banned flights to Israel as some kind of anti-Israel plot. And making sure that’s not the case is more important to Cruz than making sure Americans and American airliners are safe.

In the first five and a half minutes of Cruz’ lengthy interview on Hannity last night, he revived his phony compassion over the immigrant children flooding our border. But at about 5:40 into the video below, Cruz got on his Israel soapbox.

The Obama administration is the most anti-Israel administration this government has ever had. Yesterday, we saw the FAA make an unprecedented decision to ban all air travel to the nation of Israel and I’ve asked today the very simple question: Did President Obama just unilaterally launch economic boycott on the nation of Israel?

Or did the FAA make a decision to keep Americans safe in the wake of the Malaysian airliner shootdown and in the wake of a rocket falling about a mile from Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv? 

Cruz nonetheless insisted:

This decision by the FAA raises serious questions. Was this a political decision? Was this driven by the White House? Was it driven by the State Department? If it was based on airline safety, as they said, why did they single out Israel? Why not ban travel to Pakistan or Yemen or Ukraine, where a commercial airliner was just shot down, but instead they targeted Israel. 

Interestingly, this is the exact same – and exactly same false – argument that Megyn Kelly made on her show in the previous hour. What a coincidence!

But as The Washington Post reported, the FAA has banned travel not just to Israel but also to Ukraine, Ethiopia, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Somalia, too. Israel has hardly been singled out.

Hannity, of course, gave the falsehood a pass.

But speaking of coincidences, conspiracy-theorist Cruz suggested that the timing of Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to the region, “to strong arm Israel into stopping their efforts to shut down Hamas’ rockets and tunnels” was further evidence that the travel ban was some kind of effort to blackmail Israel.

With great self-approval, Cruz declared:

I announce today that in response to that refusal to answer from the State Department, I intend to hold all State Department nominees until they answer these questions. …Was this politics from the White House or was this an airline safety decision and I think the facts strongly suggest it was politics in an effort to strong arm the nation of Israel.

Let’s pause here to consider the implications. At a time when there are so many world crises, Cruz wants to obstruct the State Department and impede our country’s international work because he’s worried about economic harm to Israel over a flight ban? Even if you agree with Cruz’ support for Israel and disagree with the Obama administration's Israel policy, what kind of U.S. Senator takes Israel’s side over his own country’s?

Answer: A Fox News conservative.

“Great American” Hannity responded: "Good for you."

And then Hannity all but asked Cruz to attack his fellow Americans who happen to be liberals by bringing up the recent True Blood episode that showed some kind of bloodbath at a Cruz fundraiser. As if Hannity didn’t know that Cruz had already used the episode to score political points on social media.

But on Fox, you can never malign the left too often or too much. So Cruz “quipped,” “Well, I guess I may have lost the vampire vote but I find it interesting and amusing that HBO is suggesting that the far left are bloodsucking fiends.”

“There might be something there, Senator,” Hannity replied. He chuckled as he closed the segment.

By the way, this is not Cruz' first act of obstructionism since his government shutdown. A quick Google search found he threatened to block the debt-ceiling hike in February, called for blocking immigration reform in December, working to block the latest border-security/child-immigrant handling funding and is on at least his second round of threatening to block State Department nominees.

Watch the America-hating cloaked in patriotism below.

UPDATE: The U.S. has now lifted the ban on flying into Israel. I guess Cruz will have to find a new excuse for obstruction.