On his third day in Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu finally got the attention he so desperately wanted in the US capital.
Republicans and their guests in the House chamber stamped their feet and whistled as a joint session was gaveled into order, while the Democrat lawmakers who chose not to boycott someone whom colleagues had called a “war criminal” looked on in sullen silence. In a 56-minute speech punctuated with 50 rounds of applause, the Israeli prime minister dashed hopes of a quick end to the war in Gaza and dispensed red meat to the Republican faithful, blasting anti-war protest culture and vowing to fight until “total victory”.
For two days, Netanyahu had mostly been ignored at the Watergate hotel, passed over for the spectacle of a US political cycle averaging a West Wing season finale a week. Joe Biden had dropped out of the presidential race amid rumours of his cognitive decline, endorsing the vice-president, Kamala Harris, weeks before the convention and reinvigorating the Democratic party overnight. A bullet had grazed Donald Trump’s ear in an assassination attempt just 11 days ago, sparking comparisons to the resurrection of Lazarus and Jesus Christ. America has been living decades in just weeks; was there even room on the cable TV schedule for Netanyahu to deliver another incendiary speech?
But the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, had put Netanyahu on the schedule on 24 July and neither the US political tumult nor Biden’s bout of Covid-19, nor a requested international criminal court warrant accusing him of “crimes against humanity” would deter Israel’s prime minister from coming to Washington to make his case before Congress for a record fourth time (once more than Winston Churchill).
So when he had his moment, Netanyahu stood up to give a speech filled with verve but absolutely devoid of details: when and how Israel’s war in Gaza would come to an end and the 120 remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October would be brought home.
There was a vague reference to a “civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel” after his “total victory”, a “vision for Gaza” that said the strip of land would be “demilitarised and deradicalised”. But Netanyahu gave no vision of how to get there, besides more of the same, which has already left an estimated 39,000 Palestinians dead on top of the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on 7 October.
This was not a speech declaring a ceasefire, a word that was not uttered once by Netanyahu, despite weeks of negotiations with Hamas and the Biden administration’s insistence that a “framework” had already been agreed. Shortly after the speech, a senior administration official conceded there may still be some “very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved”.
On the streets outside the Capitol, police deployed teargas and pepper spray as protests descended into melees so confused that anti-Netanyahu protesters from different factions ended up clashing angrily with one another.
Despite the violence, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters voiced frustration with the Israeli prime minister and a war that had killed thousands with no resolution in sight.
Jessica Pliska, a pro-Palestinian protester who carried a sign calling Netanyahu “Satanyahu”, said she drove 11 hours from Michigan to demonstrate against his address. “I feel disappointed in our government. The fact that the person perpetrating these war crimes is invited to our Congress is insidious.
“I think it’s wonderful that people are boycotting,” she said. “I think it shows a moral imperative among the masses to come out and protest, not only here in the streets but in Congress as well.”
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Several blocks away, Brad Young, a dual US-Israeli citizen from North Carolina, said he was “very much in favour of the Israeli right to exist but [I] believe that the government in place right now is corrupt and not acting in the best interests of Israel or of anyone in the region. It’s outrageous that Bibi [Netanyahu] is here and speaking to Congress when he should be focused on sealing the deal and bringing the hostages home.”
When he finally took the rostrum on Thursday, Netanyahu quickly waded knee-deep into the American culture wars that have divided the US ahead of the presidential elections. At times it can feel that US politics has become the world’s politics, particularly when foreign leaders curry favour with Donald Trump and parrot his politics before the vote.
Netanyahu used his hour to lambast woke culture and the pro-Palestinian protest movement, echoing the Republican talking points of the moment. Somewhere between calling protesters “Iran’s useful idiots” and saying those holding signs reading “gays for Gaza” might as well call themselves “chickens for KFC”, the Israeli prime minister brought up the North Carolina frat boys who surrounded the US flag during a pro-Palestinian protest at the campus of Chapel Hill UNC.
“USA! USA! USA!” his backers in the hall chanted, their shouts echoing off the walls. Netanyahu would be at home at a football match or a stump speech, but his remarks in Congress on Wednesday gave little sign that this war is any closer to coming to an end.
