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There is a school of thought — one that must be taken seriously — that advises against highlighting the partisan divisions within the U.S. over issues related to Israel. The major parties’ coalitions shift over time, as do views on the Jewish state, and neither party has a monopoly on the presidency. Preserving the alliance between Israel and the United States compels responsible leaders in both countries to guard against the possibility of U.S.–Israel relations’ becoming just another political football.
That is a valuable cautionary note. But speaking the truth plainly and with conviction in times of crisis is also valuable. In his barn-burner address before a joint session of Congress, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu sounded a variety of notes that sounded like hyper-partisanship to American ears. Adherents to the notion that Israel must remain a neutral actor in American politics likely shuddered with trepidation over the effect of Netanyahu’s speech on Democratic views toward the Jewish state. But although they may fairly call Bibi imprudent, they cannot call him wrong.
“These protesters stand with them,” Netanyahu says of the anti-Israel demonstrators whose cause compels them to advance the interests of the “rapists and murderers” of October 7. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
“They refuse to make a distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians,” he continued. Citing intelligence produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Netanyahu noted that enemies of the United States in Iran have been implicated in providing the demonstrators with financial and material support. “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,” he declared.
He’s right. Iran has been accused by U.S. intelligence officials of supporting pro-terrorism protesters. The demonstrators do routinely elide the plain moral distinctions between terrorists who kill civilians and a professional military force accountable to civilian oversight tasked with defending Israeli lives. Many of the protesters are as anti-American as they are anti-Israel. If Democrats react defensively to these verities, they only have themselves to blame. Had the party not sought to mollify the protesters and reintegrate them into the Democratic coalition, these truths would offend no one.
After calling out the demonstrators’ adjacency to evil, Netanyahu focused his attention on the locus of that evil: Iran. He observed that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, its looming confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and its response to an attack on Tel Aviv by the Yemeni Houthis are all facets of the conflict with Iran. “When Israel fights Hamas, we’re fighting Iran,” he said. “For Iran, Israel is first, America is next. When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, we’re not only protecting ourselves, we’re protecting you.”
He’s right. Israel is one of America’s front-line partners in a war against a terroristic entity that has — as the prime minister noted — killed American servicemen and servicewomen by proxy, taken Americans hostage, hatched murder plots targeting U.S. officials, and even sent assassins to the United States. Again, these truths can only offend those who remain wedded to the failed Obama-era effort to bribe Iran into temporarily mothballing its nuclear-weapons program. But if the truth must become a casualty for that project to succeed, the project itself is anchored to a rotten foundation.
Netanyahu closed by rattling off a litany of equally harsh truths that surely irritated those who languish in their preferred fictions. “The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms, and returns the hostages,” he said. He’s right. He touted the success the Israel Defense Forces have enjoyed in clearing out Rafah of Hamas terrorists, citing the operation’s limited collateral damage. He’s right. He cited the work of scholars who have commended the IDF for going above and beyond to protect civilian life in Gaza. He’s right (as even Biden-administration officials have reluctantly acknowledged). “Give us the tools faster,” he asked of his American counterparts, “and we’ll finish the job faster.” He’s right.
Netanyahu went out of his way to thank former president Donald Trump for his diplomatic efforts in the region and President Joe Biden for his support in the war effort and for putting together the coalition that beat back a direct Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel. But Republicans in the room heard a speech that would have been at home at the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention — up to and including Bibi’s praise for the University of North Carolina students, who were fêted at the convention for defending the American flag against a rabble of anti-Israel protesters. About half the Democratic House and Senate conference didn’t hear the speech at all — they boycotted it in protest. Netanyahu didn’t create these divisions, and he is under no obligation to ignore them.
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