Israeli Prime Minister sounded like he was speaking at the Republican National Convention Wednesday. Gripas Yuri/Zuma.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress as a partisan. He spoke less as a foreign leader, but, instead, as a man from Pennsylvania, a participant in United States domestic politics and a leader of the American right.
The Israeli Prime Minister, of course is most concerned with his home nation’s politics, but those politics are inseparable from US decisions. As President Joe Biden suggested, Netanyahu would likely lose power without the war in Gaza. And he cannot wage that campaign without US arms and money, which would not continue, string-free, without support from US lawmakers, and in particular Republicans.
Many foreign leaders rely on US support, but Netanyahu is unique because he often can, and does, go around the Secretary of State, the president, and even members of Congress to appeal directly to American voters. That’s what he did Wednesday in a made-for-TV, State of the Union-style speech, complete with family members of hostages and Israeli soldiers as props.
Netanyahu purported to address everyone. But he was primarily talking to his US constituency. That is not really US Jews anymore. It is conservatives. Netanyahu appealed to GOP voters likely to embrace his call for complete, preemptive US support for any of Israel’s actions—no matter how many civilians are killed—along with his contention that any criticism of the war is antisemitic, funded by Iran, or both.
Netanyahu and his far-right, explicitly racist, coalition is aligned with the American right. It has been for a while, but lawmakers have basically stopped pretending otherwise now.
The prime minister’s address included some standard platitudes and polite thanks to the outgoing President Biden for his decades as a “proud Irish-American Zionist.” But the bipartisan facade faded fast. Netanyahu revealed his preference by extensively praising “President Trump” for the Abraham Accords, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing the Golan Heights. Netanyahu did not mention Vice President Kamala Harris, who did not attend the speech.
Netanyahu said, with zero evidence, that “for all we know, Iran is funding the protests” that occurred outside the Capitol while he spoke. He said that demonstrators against Israel’s campaign in Gaza—which has killed around 40,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, without achieving its stated aims—“stand with Hamas.” And he insisted, with little evidence, that Israel’s war with Hamas is really a war with Iran, a conflict that he urged the United States to join.
Coverage of the speech has emphasized the partisan divisions over the address. Numerous Democrats, including Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not attend.
But Democrats declining to listen to Bibi is more of a recognition of the current state of affairs than a cause of it.
Netanyahu’s 2015 address to Congress assailing the Iran nuclear deal, in defiance of former President Barack Obama’s White House, and in particular the Israeli leader’s effort to drum up domestic US opposition to the deal, was a watershed moment—a significant entry by a foreign leader into US affairs. His vocal praise of Trump on the eve of the 2020 election was all but an endorsement.
In 2021, Trump denounced Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his victory. “Fuck him,” Trump told an interviewer. Trump, that is, was mad at Netanyahu for failing to be an election truther. The two leaders have since patched things up, but the spat demonstrated the degree of support the former president demands from Bibi. And Netanyahu, who is scheduled to meet Friday with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, appears eager to deliver.
Netanyahu’s increasingly overt alliance with the American right has been mirrored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has become one of the top sources channeling money from Republican donors to attack progressive Democrats in primaries.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s call in March for new leadership in Israel was an unprecedented dive by an American politician into Israel affairs. But it also seemed like a declaration of a new reality. Netanyahu and his far-right, explicitly racist coalition is aligned with the American right. It has been for a while, but lawmakers have just about stopped pretending otherwise.
The crescendo of Netanyahu’s speech Wednesday was an insistence that US and Israeli interests are wholly aligned. “Our enemies are your enemies,” he said. “Our fight is your fight. And our victory will be your victory.”
He didn’t mean it this way, but it was easy to imagine the enemies he had in mind included Democrats, and the victory he hoped for might come in November.
