Netanyahu's address to the Joint Houses of Congress, 25 July 2024, in context. Part 2
As the longest-serving Prime Minister of Israel, no fewer than sixteen years and counting, there is much that Benjamin Netanyahu could have accomplished that no other Prime Minister stood a chance at.

Editorial note: Since the publication of Part 1 three days ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reconciled with former President Donald Trump, met Vice-President Kamala Harris, and a 27 July Hezbollah rocket scored a direct jihad hit on Israeli kids playing football, killing twelve: 10-year-old Milad Muadad Alsha’ar; 11-year-old Alma Ayman Fakher Eldin; 11-year-old Naji Taher Halabi; 11-year-old Jifara Ibrahim; 11-year-old Vinees Adham Alsafadi; 12-year-old Yazan Nayeif Abu Saleh; 12-year-old Iseel Nasha’at Ayoub; 13-year-old Johnny Wadeea Ibrahim; 15-year-old Hazem Akram Abu Saleh; 16-year-old Ameer Rabeea Abu Saleh; 16-year-old Fajer Laith Abu Saleh; and 16-year-old Nathem Fakher Saeb, and failing to kill at least thirty-four others. They were all Druze. Well done, Muslims.
There was no need for Netanyahu to remind America that the regime in Tehran has wanted to annihilate them since the day it took power in 1979. Yet, it helped to remind the rest of us of what Americans have chosen to wipe from their own memories, the better to do a Neville Chamberlain with the Ayatollahs. They have made themselves complicit in Iran advancing towards "Death to Israel!", "Death to America!" and in exchange for what? An assumption that if they allow Iran to have the Middle East, then they will leave the rest of the world to the United States. Ye-es, Hitler and Stalin made a similar deal.
Iran’s regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power. In 1979, it stormed the American embassy, it held scores of Americans hostage for 444 days. Since then, Iran’s terrorist proxies have targeted America in the Middle East and beyond. In Beirut, they killed 241 U.S. servicemen. In Africa, they bombed American embassies. In Iraq, they supplied explosives to maim and kill thousands of American soldiers. In America, they actually sent death squads. They sent death squads here to murder a former secretary of state and a former national security adviser. And as we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump.
Indeed, Netanyahu is not here addressing the Biden Administration, but the Trump Administration be expects will soon be in power, and whose leader he was scheduled to visit at his home in Florida later during his visit. The address to Trump continued:
But Iran understands that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East. And for this it uses its many proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Iran’s way, is one proud pro-American democracy—my country, the State of Israel.
That’s why the mobs in Tehran chant “Death to Israel” before they chant “Death to America.” For Iran Israel is first, America is next. So, when Israel fights Hamas, we’re fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we’re fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis, we’re fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we’re fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.
And one more thing. When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city, every city that you come from, we’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you.
It is not clear whether Netanyahu is quite joining all the dots here, and perhaps deliberately so. Earlier in his own speech, he talked about Iran being behind the student riots at US universities. American society is an Iranian frontline on which Israel obviously cannot protect the United States. Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Russia, China and Western globalists, together, are well on their way to destroying the United States from within, with or without Iran's nuclear bomb. Since the 1950s, what George Orwell describes as "a combination of Fascisms" has been hard at work eroding the base of American, and Western, society like termites. Two generations of demoralisation (the KGB's word) to take them down. It is only a question of which Fascism is responsible for what part of the rot. Having said that, though, Netanyahu is correct that militarily, Israel is civilisation's frontline state.
And on that Middle Eastern front, Israel seems now to have adopted a more appropriate military posture, perhaps prompted by Netanyahu throwing down the gauntlet to Biden about three weeks ago regarding Rafah, boosted by Biden having just become a lame duck. If the Houthi attack on Tel Aviv was inevitable, then it could not have come at a more fortuitous time for Israel.
"On Saturday, I authorised a swift response to that attack," said Netanyahu, "All our enemies should know this. Those who attack Israel will pay a very heavy price." Well, actually, from 1973 till last Saturday, Israel gave those enemies every reason to doubt that they would ever pay "a very heavy price," hence the endless brazen attacks. To Arab Muslims driven to restoring "Muslim lands," 1948, 1967 and 1973 were heavy prices, but evidently not heavy enough to deter them from repeating the attacks. Their religion enjoins them to never make peace. Since then, a bizarre Israeli military strategy has factored in an acceptable number of her own population dying each year to not constitute an attack warranting exacting "a very heavy price," hence the infamous "mowing the lawn," while Netanyahu escalated from one trite soundbite to the next.
Hezbollah's 27 July rocket attack on children playing football in Israel is the outcome of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in compliance with unenforced UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the brainchild of an Israeli diplomat, followed by mowing the lawn, while the IDF watched Hezbollah amass enough rockets to devastate the north of Israel and more. Joe Biden is not responsible for this. Now that Israel has given a militarily appropriate response to the Houthis, and, for once, not allowed herself to be sidetracked with concerns for proportionality, Israel's wavering Arab allies sat up, and suddenly the Abraham Accords are on again. That was all it took, just one real show of force.
A Houthi port still in flames when Netanyahu landed in Washington was a powerful rebuke to the Biden Administration, whose first acts in office included lifting the terrorist designation from the Houthis. This message, too, will not have been lost on Donald Trump: we have a huge mess to clean up here, all made while you were not the President.
Some commentators described Netanyahu's address as Churchillian. Yes, up to a point.
In World War II, as Britain fought on the frontlines of civilisation, Winston Churchill appealed to Americans with these famous words: “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.” Today, as Israel fights on the frontline of civilisation, I too appeal to America: “Give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster.”
Here I have a big gripe. It is one thing to invoke Churchill, and borrow his words, but it can wear thin, especially if you're not obviously compared to Churchill. It is true that both leaders came before Congress to beg. Both were steering their embattled nations through war against an enemy seeking to annihilate them. But that is where the similarity ends.
Churchill was forced into begging before Congress because an enemy had reduced his country to that condition by the war. Netanyahu is forced into begging before Congress not because an enemy had reduced his country to begging, but because the leaders of Israel had done it themselves, and long before the war. It was never British policy that the United Kingdom should be militarily dependent on anyone, the need for help in WWI notwithstanding. It has been Israeli policy since 1973 to be militarily dependent on the United States.
Churchill exhorted his nation to fight. They toiled day and night to produce all that they needed until they could produce no more. In 1941, Churchill delivered his famous covenant to Congress, "Give us the tools, and we will finish the job." The British Prime Minister never thumped the table with impotent maxims like "We will defend ourselves by ourselves," only to end up in Washington thumping the table with the even more impotent soundbite, "Give us the tools faster and we will finish the job faster." Netanyahu clearly did not see the humiliation contained in this.
Nonetheless, the Israeli Prime Minister did well, and once again demonstrated that he can be an astute diplomat, being careful to speak in terms that united Congress and split those inside Congress (the legal political process) from those burning the American and Israeli flags on the street (taking the law in their own hands). Right in the middle of all the standing ovations, he told the Democratic Party government exactly how much they have to make up for by listing each of the things the Trump Administration had done for Israel. It was bold. It was genius.
The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza can emerge. My vision for that day is of a demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.
Gaza should have a civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel. That’s not too much to ask. It’s a fundamental thing that we have a right to demand and to receive.
Yet, this part of the speech left me in a quandary. It is not clear whether Netanyahu is being extremely clever here, or is simply playing politics. He knows that there is no such thing as a "demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza" while there are Palestinians in it. In all his sixteen years as Prime Minister, he could neither demilitarise, nor deradicalise even the moribund Palestinian Authority. It gets worse:
A new generation of Palestinians must no longer be taught to hate Jews but rather to live in peace with us. Those twin words, demilitarisation and deradicalisation, those two concepts were applied to Germany and Japan after World War II, and that led to decades of peace, prosperity and security.
Following our victory, with the help of regional partners, the demilitarisation and deradicalisation of Gaza can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace. That’s my vision for Gaza.
Netanyahu has no such vision, because effectively he is describing a two-state solution. He knows very well that even if Palestinians will "no longer be taught to hate Jews," an impossibility, there is absolutely no way that they will "live in peace with us," for to do so would be to cease being Palestinian. A historian would point out that "decades of peace, prosperity and security" did not come to Germany and Japan after World War II purely on the strength of "those twin words, demilitarisation and deradicalisation." Far, far more important was the expunging from every level of the society the ideologies of Nazism and Kokka-Shinto, respectively.
If Netanyahu is serious about achieving in the Middle East what the Allies achieved in Germany and Japan after WWII, then he is going to have to expunge Islam from every level of Middle Eastern society. Such an objective is not as cuckoo as it might at first seem, but Netanyahu shows no indication of understanding this. Hence we hear:
Now, here’s my vision for the broader Middle East. It’s also shaped in part by what we saw in the aftermath of World War II. After that war, America forged a security alliance in Europe to counter the growing Soviet threat. Likewise, America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat.
In his opening remarks, Netanyahu declared, "It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life." In other words, it is a clash between Islam and Judaism. There. I said it. A clear, solid line runs between Islam and Judaism. And just because the line between Muslims and Jews is a little fuzzier on both sides and has the odd gap in it, does not make the line between Islam and Judaism any less clear, any less solid. It most certainly does not mean that Palestinian can be enticed with "a future of security, prosperity and peace." This is a conceit that Jewish leaders have flattered themselves with for a hundred years, and that Ze'ev Jabotinsky had warned against a hundred years ago.
The new alliance I envision would be a natural extension of the groundbreaking Abraham Accords. Those Accords saw peace forged between Israel and four Arab countries, and they were supported by Republican and Democrats alike.
I have a name for this new alliance. I think we should call it: The Abraham Alliance.
Then the gloves come off, and Benjamin Netanyahu lets his hosts know exactly what he thinks of their Middle East policies over the last four years, as well as delivered a special gift to the friend he was also there to make up with.
I want to thank President Trump for his leadership in brokering the historic Abraham Accords. Like Americans, Israelis were relieved that President Trump emerged safe and sound from that dastardly attack on him, dastardly attack on American democracy. There is no room for political violence in democracies.
I also want to thank President Trump for all the things he did for Israel, from recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, to confronting Iran’s aggression, to recognising Jerusalem as our capital and moving the American embassy there. That’s Jerusalem, our eternal capital never to be divided again.
Yes, there were corny moments in the speech, and cringy ones, too, but all-in-all, Benjamin Netanyahu has done very well, especially using the platform to speak not to the US government, but to the American people, and especially to Donald Trump, directly. But most importantly, to rebuke the Biden Administration for preventing Israel from extricating herself from the death spiral that the US and Israeli traitors have conspired to drive the country into.
That former President Donald Trump is one of the best friends that Israel has, is beyond question. At a rally in Charlotte, Trump expressed a frustration: "It amazes me how Jewish people will vote for the Democrats when they're being treated so disrespectfully and badly. It amazes me. It’s shocking." The Democrats disrespect and mistreat them, and they vote Democrat. The Palestinians live to kill them, and they want to make peace with the Palestinians. Their enemies attack them, and all they want is to defend themselves.
With the Democrats, Jews establish the presumption that disrespect and mistreatment is the proper conduct towards Jews. With the Palestinians, Jews establish the presumption that never-ending attempts to kill Jews is the proper way to peace with them. With their enemies, the Jews establish the presumption that Jews have no right to live in peace; only to defend themselves when attacked. No one imposed these presumptions upon the Jews; they imposed them upon themselves. I cannot but agree with Israel's best friend: Jews disrespect themselves so much that even their best friend has to work hard just to remain their best friend.
For the entire duration of his Presidency, Joe Biden has treated Israel, the Jews and Benjamin Netanyahu the way Muslims treat dogs. Yet even Netanyahu, the old fighting bull of Israel, has to watch his ps and qs, and flatter this most despicable of specimens. As the longest-serving Prime Minister of Israel, no fewer than sixteen years and counting, there is much that Benjamin Netanyahu could have accomplished that no other Prime Minister stood a chance at.
The obvious neglect that comes to mind is allowing Iran to become the threat it has become. But there are others, most notably: not asserting and securing the power of the Knesset over the Supreme Court; not rendering the Left, and especially its post-'73 leaders, harmless; not moving with great force to put an end to Palestinian encroachments into Area-C, and with even greater force against those IDF leaders who frustrated such action. But one that is seldom mentioned, at least in the Anglosphere, is doing nothing to change Israel's vassal relationship with the United States. Certainly, these are all difficult things to achieve, but Netanyahu likes thumping tables, he likes emphatic diction; only he is strong enough to keep Israel safe. It does not take a strong leader to push a lawnmower, even for sixteen years.
As I watched the speech, I was in two minds about the freed Hamas woman captive, the family member and the two IDF soldiers, one Ethiopian, the other Muslim, whom Netanyahu had brought along to Congress. My initial response was that this was yet more hasbara, or even worse, pandering to wokeness, and maybe it was. But it is also true that Americans had forgotten about the Simchat Torah massacre of 7 October, testament to the effectiveness of Palestinian propaganda and Israel's unwillingness to even countenance entering that space, ("That's not the kind of people we are"). Perhaps this was the only way.
It is tragic that Netanyahu should have to resort to what could be seen as a Victorian freak show, because hasbara had so demonstrably failed. The Americans had to be reminded that Israelis are real people, people who hurt, people who bleed, who lose limbs and who die. It was necessary for Netanyahu to remind Americans that Israelis are not only human, but the very best of humans, exemplified in the young woman's survival under the tender mercies of real barbarians, and the extraordinary commitment and heroism of the three soldiers. These are not people who commit genocide, but people who prevent it.
Picture credits:
https://a7.org/files/pictures/781x439/1161730.jpg
RoeeMos - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79737867
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