Netanyahu's address to the Joint Houses of Congress, 25 July 2024, in context. Part 1
Netanyahu might have added that history shows, over and over again, that no sooner have totalitarians and fascists seized power, than they put their useful idiots up against a wall, and shoot them.
Just over a week ago, the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States, J.D. Vance, joked that Britain had become the first nuclear-armed Islamic state. Not only was it inaccurate, it was not at all a joke, and its timing could hardly have been worse. Within a week of Vance entertaining his audience at British expense, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a Joint Session of the United States Congress in Washington DC. At the same time, just a few blocks away, the American flag was being torn down, ripped to shreds, stamped on, spat on and set on fire. In its place was raised the Palestinian flag, while the black flag of jihad was openly waved in the nation's capital against a background of "Allahu-akbar!" echoing events in Britain a week earlier. J.D. Vance was not there to witness karma visited upon his thoughtless joke. He was, curiously, out of town when the leader of the country whose importance he spoke of with such eloquence, came on what was arguably the most critical visit in US-Israel relations.
Many will write about Netanyahu's boldness and forthrightness in reminding America of the greatness that her Founding Fathers had envisioned for her, long-since forgotten by those into whose custodianship that vision had been entrusted, the people, and long since usurped by a shadowy cast that seeks nothing less than the abolition of the United States, and its replacement with a totalitarian order. Two generations of Americans, hollowed-out like a Swiss cheese, plus a significant portion of US Jewry, are enthralled to this nihilist project.
This short series highlights key excerpts from Netanyahu's important, and in many ways, brilliant, address. It will, as normal, situate the speech within a wider context. And as can also be expected, it will draw attention to flaws or weaknesses that others might overlook. It was clear from Mr Netanyahu's opening remarks, that he was not about to do a Chaim Weizmann. Thank goodness for that. This is neither the time, nor the place, to be concerned about sensibilities. It is also neither the time, nor the place. to seek compromise, whether in word or in deed. It is definitely not the time for slowly-slowly. It never was.
We meet today at a crossroads of history. Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran’s axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilisations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilisation. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.
For the forces of civilisation to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens: we win; they lose.
And my friends, I came to assure you today of one thing: we will win.
"It’s a clash between barbarism and civilisation." If we do not wish for barbarism, then we have no alternative but to win, unconditionally. Nothing else warrants discussion. Thus was both the tone, and the bar, set.
The preliminaries out of the way, the first order of business was to restore to history that which had been expunged from it, the Simchat Torah massacre.
Ladies and gentlemen, like December 7th, 1941, and September 11th, 2001, October 7th is a day that will forever live in infamy.
It was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. It began as a perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky. Thousands of young Israelis were celebrating at an outdoor music festival. And suddenly, at 6:29 a.m., as children were still sleeping soundly in their beds in the towns and kibbutzim next to Gaza, suddenly Heaven turned into Hell. Three thousand Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel. They butchered 1,200 people from forty-one countries, including thirty-nine Americans. Proportionately, compared to our population size, that’s like twenty 9/11s in one day. And these monsters, they raped women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive, they killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents. They dragged 255 people, both living and dead, into the dark dungeons of Gaza.
It is estimated that 17 million people died in Nazi crimes against humanity, of whom 6 million were Jews. It is impossible to deny the murder of 17 million, or even 6 million, people. From time to time, we hear of someone trying to do just that, usually the genocide of 6 million Jews. It should therefore come as no surprise that from the very next day, 8 October, both Russia and the United Nations began erasing the Simchat Torah massacre from history, and by the next week, Muslims spokespersons were rebuking anyone who dared to bring up the horrors of 7 October with barks such as "Forget about last week!" US diplomats and government spokespersons have been no less guilty, their genuflecting transparent for what it was. It is most appropriate for the Prime Minister of Israel to take a particularly strong stance against this genocide-denial, pogrom-denial, massacre-denial by stages.
In 1977, South African black political leader, Steve Biko, was murdered in police custody. The Minister of Justice, Police and Prisons of the apartheid government famously remarked of Biko's death, "It leaves me cold." So too, those who are unmoved by the plight of the Israelis held in Gaza's dungeons, tunnels and attics. It leaves them cold. Those haters of Jews, and of Netanyahu especially, seething and scowling in the gallery, had their inhumanity held up to their faces during the Prime Minister's address.
Israel has already brought home 135 of these hostages, including seven who were freed in daring rescue operations. One of those freed hostages, Noa Argamani, is here in the gallery sitting near my wife Sara.
On the morning of October 7th, the entire world saw Noa’s look of desperation as she was violently abducted to Gaza on the back of a motorcycle. I met Noa’s mother, Liora, a few months ago. She was dying of cancer. She said to me, “Prime Minister, I have one final wish. I wish to hug my daughter, Noa, one last time before I die.”
Two months ago, I authorised a breathtaking commando rescue operation. Our Special Forces, including a heroic officer named Arnon Zmora, who fell in this battle, rescued Noa and three other hostages.
I think it’s one of the most moving things, when Noa was reunited with her mother, Liora, and her mother’s last wish came true.
Noa, we’re so thrilled to have you with us today. Thank you.
They felt nothing for the Israelis seized and abducted from their country as prisoners of war (sorry, Mr Netanyahu, they were not "hostages," but prisoners of war, as is anyone seized in jihad, the unending war that defines Muslim-kafir relations. Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are seen in exactly the same way, because the Palestinians are waging jihad against Israel. This is why Hamas, and its supporters in the Knesset, such as MK Ayman Odeh, talk about a "prisoner exchange"). Netanyahu has highlighted just how normal inhumanity towards Jews has once again become. Those who scream, "But what about the Palestinians," fail to realise that by doing so, they merely compound their Jew-hatred.
My first niggle with Netanyahu's otherwise excellent address was his reference to the Bibas family, still in Hamas captivity.
Many hostage families are also here with us today, including Eliyahu Bibas. Eliyahu Bibas is the grandfather of those two beautiful red-headed boys, the Bibas boys, toddlers. And they were taken hostage with their mother and Eliyahu’s son. The entire family was taken hostage. Two beautiful red-haired children taken hostage. What monsters.
Hamas are no more monsters for seizing "two beautiful red-haired children," than they are for seizing any other children. Besides, their monstrous credentials are well-established in the glee with which they butchered and raped their way across southern Israel, and, for that matter, in their Charter, in which they vow to kill every last Jew on earth. Far better, I would have thought, to acknowledge, on the floor of Congress, that Hamas's youngest prisoner of war, baby Kfir Bibas, had his first birthday on 18 January, in Hamas squalor somewhere.
Netanyahu took a number of direct shots at the Biden Administration, one of these was reminding Americans that their government thinks nothing of abandoning them overseas (whether to Hamas or the Taliban), and moreover, that he, Netanyahu, cares more for those abandoned Americans than their own government does. Yet, he was careful to balance these side swipes at the Administration with direct praise for President Biden.
To address the so-called genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu showed real chutzpah. He brought the soldiers so outrageously charged face-to-face with their accusers, so they would be in the presence of the exemplary human beings they demonise with such passion.
My friends, for more than nine months, Israel’s soldiers have shown boundless courage.
With us today is Lieutenant Avichail Reuven. Avichail is an officer in the Israeli paratroopers. His family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. In the early hours of October 7th, Avichail heard the news of Hamas’ bloody rampage. He put on his uniform, grabbed his rifle, but he didn’t have a car. So he ran eight miles to the frontlines of Gaza to defend his people. You heard that right. He ran eight miles, came to the frontlines, killed many terrorists and saved many, many lives. Avichail, we all honour your remarkable heroism.
Another Israeli is with us here today. He’s standing right next to Avichail. This is Master Sergeant Ashraf al-Bahiri. Ashraf is a Bedouin soldier from the Israeli Muslim community of Rahat. On October 7th, Ashraf, too, killed many terrorists. First, he defended his comrades in the military base, and he then rushed to defend the neighbouring communities, including the devastated community of Kibbutz Be’eri.
Like Ashraf, the Muslim soldiers of the IDF fought alongside their Jewish, Druze, Christian and other comrades-in-arms with tremendous bravery.
A third hero, Lieutenant Asa Sofer is also here with us. Asa fought as an officer in the tank corps, and he was wounded in battle. He was wounded in battle while protecting his fellow soldiers from a grenade. He lost his right arm and the vision in his left eye. He’s recovering, and incredibly, within a short time, Asa will soon return to active duty as a commander of a tank company.
I just learned there’s a fourth hero here – Lieutenant Yonatan, Jonathan Ben Hamo who lost a leg in Gaza and continued to fight.
My friends, these are the soldiers of Israel—unbowed, undaunted, unafraid.
Unfortunately, thanks to Israel wasting her time with hasbara, this noble effort will bear no fruit. The Palestinians have long ago won the propaganda war against the IDF. There is nothing that Prime Minister Netanyahu or Colonel Richard Kemp or anyone else can say now that will redeem the IDF in the eyes of a demoralised world. Nonetheless, there is still a war to be won, and it is still a war for civilisation.
We recently learned from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, that Iran is funding and promoting anti-Israel protests in America. They want to disrupt America. So these protesters burned American flags even on the 4th of July. And I wish to salute the Fraternity Brothers at the University of North Carolina who protected the American flag, protected the American flag against these anti-Israel protesters.
For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building—not that many, but they’re there—and throughout the city. Well, I have a message for these protesters: When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.
Netanyahu might have added that history shows, over and over again, that no sooner have totalitarians and fascists seized power, than they put their useful idiots up against a wall, and shoot them. In 1979, after the Islamic regime in Tehran seized power with the aid of the Communists, these useful idiots were all killed. Good luck, Queers for Palestine; good luck Jews who want a "two-state solution". Netanyahu took a broad swipe at wokeism, the ideology of those Democratic seethers and scowlers still present. And, of course, anti-Semitism had to be tackled head-on.
Now, just as malicious lies were levelled for centuries at the Jewish people, malicious lies are now being levelled at the Jewish state. No, no. Don’t applaud. Listen. The outrageous slanders that paint Israel as racist and genocidal are meant to delegitimise Israel, to demonise the Jewish State and to demonise Jews everywhere. And no wonder, no wonder we’ve witnessed an appalling rise of anti-Semitism in America and around the world.
Whenever and wherever we see the scourge of antisemitism, we must unequivocally condemn it and resolutely fight it, without exception.
No explaining. No trembling knees. Just fighting talk. And there is more.
And don’t be fooled when the blood libels against the Jewish State come from people who wear fancy silk robes and speak in lofty tones about law and Justice.
Here’s a case in point: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter complete nonsense. It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That’s half a million tons of food, and that’s more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.
OK, I spoke too soon. This is hasbara, and there was much more to come. No one gives a toss for proofs and arguments of what good people Jews are. Hatred is not amenable to reason. This is my second gripe in an otherwise excellent address. But when Netanyahu returns to reminding America of the greatness that providence expects of them, he again rises to his best.
In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism, all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the killing. And that should come as no surprise. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, “We will export our revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the entire world.” Now, ask yourself, which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran’s maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It’s America, the guardian of Western civilisation and the world’s greatest power. That’s why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy.
Last month, I heard a revealing comment, ostensibly about the war in Gaza, but about something else. It came from the foreign minister of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, and he said this: “This is not a war with Israel. Israel,” he said, “is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America.”
From that point on, Netanyahu's facts and figures are not to prove what good people Jews are, an enterprise doomed to failure, but to remind the United States of her historic responsibility. It can also be seen as urging on the presumptive next President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Part 2/...
Picture credits:
https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1816174435289714725
Screenshot from Dajobnik video
Comments:
On 27 July at 10:40, Ben Dor A. wrote:
Dear Anjuli Pandavar
Thank you.
Shared on Quora.
Best Regards
Ben Dor A