Bibi Netanyahu, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Israel, addressed a joint session of the US Senate and the House of Representatives for the fourth time, breaking Winston Churchill’s record of speaking there three times.
The only thing new in his speech was condemnation of the thousands of protestors outside Capitol Hill. He called them supporters of Hamas and Iran’s “useful idiots.”
The rest of his speech was the perfidy he has been uttering for 10 months now. Israel was fighting a war of self-defence, and reports of civilian casualties were greatly exaggerated. Food was not getting through because Hamas was stealing it even though several observers have noted that the main barrier is Netanyahu’s military operations. Lack of sanitation, healthy food and displacement of millions is causing epidemics to spread, making life unliveable for the 2.3 million residents of Gaza.
The whole world has seen through his veil of lies, as Israel has destroyed more than half of the buildings in Gaza, including hospitals, schools, shops and apartment buildings during the past 10 months.
As he addressed the Joint Session, Bibi must have noticed that nearly half of the elected representatives of the Democratic Party had boycotted his speech. A Republican representative from Kentucky, Thomas Massie, also boycotted the speech, saying he didn’t want to be a “prop” for Netanyahu and his nefarious policies.
Bibi must have seen Rashida Tlaib, a representative from Michigan, holding a two-sided sign in her hands. On one side, it read: “War Criminal.” On the other side, it read: “Guilty of Genocide.”
Bibi must have noticed that senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, who describes himself as the highest ranking Jew in Congress, and who had chastised him in a prior, hour-long speech to the Senate, did not shake his hands, and stood stiffly as he passed by.
He must have read what Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, posted on X: “Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”
He must have known that the night before several Jewish Americans had courted arrest by occupying the main entrance to the Congressional building. He was tongue-tied, unable to label them antisemitic.
Someone must have shown him what the youngest Jewish member of the House, Sara Jacobs, had written: “For 10 months, the Israeli military, under the prime minister’s direction, has conducted intense bombardments on Gaza. Yet Hamas hasn’t been eliminated, and Israel isn’t any safer. From my work at the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, I know that civilian casualties fuel recruitment, radicalization and support of terrorism. Every civilian casualty that results from the Israeli government’s strategy provides an opportunity for Hamas and other extremist groups to prey on.”
Jacobs said what many Israelis have been saying for months. In fact, just prior to Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington, DC, several distinguished Israeli citizens, including a scientist who won the Nobel Prize and former prime minister Ehud Barak, wrote a scathing evaluation of Bibi’s performance in an op-ed in the New York Times. They asked the US Congress to disinvite him.
Much has changed since the last time that Netanyahu spoke to the US Congress in 2015. If Kamala Harris is elected president in November, we may well see significant changes in US policy toward Israel
Of course, what could not have been lost on him was a prior speech by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Jew, who said that Netanyahu should not be welcome in Washington. He said it will be the first time in American history that a war criminal will be given the honour of speaking to a Joint Session of Congress.
He must have heard that Senator Chris van Hollen of Maryland had spoken eloquently on why it was a big mistake for the US Congress to invite Netanyahu and why he was going to boycott his speech.
Netanyahu’s cruel and barbaric operation in Gaza has cost him the almost universal support that Israel had always received in the US during its prior wars against the Palestinians.
Of course, the most noticeable absence in the Joint Session was that of Vice President Kamala Harris, who would normally have stood in the table behind him. The person who would have stood in her place had also chosen not to be there. A third-ranking person was in that spot. What made Kamala Harris’ absence even more noticeable was that she is the likely candidate of the Democratic Party, now that Joe Biden has withdrawn his candidacy.
She is likely to get the Arab American and Muslim American vote that Biden had lost. She is also likely to get the vote from young Americans aged 18-34. According to Axios, she is likely to get 60% of their vote, versus 40% for Trump.
Netanyahu’s fourth presentation represented a steep decline in the influence that he carries in the US Congress. The last time he spoke there was in 2015. That speech was an outright affront to the policies that President Obama was pursuing vis-à-vis Israel, the Palestinians and Iran.
Much has changed since then. If Kamala Harris is elected president in November, we may well see significant changes in US policy toward Israel.
In December, when she spoke in Dubai, she expressed serious concerns about the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza. Later, she insisted that Israel should respect international humanitarian law. In March, she was the first US official to call for an immediate ceasefire and put the spotlight on the “inhumane conditions” in Gaza: “our common humanity compels us to act,” and called on Netanyahu to “do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses.”
Her remarks about Israel’s conduct of the war differ dramatically from Biden’s and engender hope that a ceasefire will go into effect before all of Gaza has been destroyed.
Hope springs eternal.