The nation’s attention has been understandably focused on the political whirlwind of the past three weeks’ unprecedented events. From the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump to the chaos and ultimate end of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, there has been little oxygen for any other news story. And while Vice President Kamala Harris’s race toward becoming the new Democratic nominee will likely continue to drive the news, this week will also feature another major moment in Washington, D.C., that will put one of the biggest news stories of the year, the crisis in Gaza, back in the headlines.. On July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will once again visit Congress to speak to a joint session. He’ll do so with the likely result, if not the intention, of undermining the sitting president of the United States and the brand new candidacy of his vice president as she tries to succeed him.
The nation’s attention has been understandably focused on the political whirlwind of the past three weeks’ unprecedented events. From the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump to the chaos and ultimate end of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, there has been little oxygen for any other news story. And while Vice President Kamala Harris’s race toward becoming the new Democratic nominee will likely continue to drive the news, this week will also feature another major moment in Washington, D.C., that will put one of the biggest news stories of the year, the crisis in Gaza, back in the headlines.. On July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will once again visit Congress to speak to a joint session. He’ll do so with the likely result, if not the intention, of undermining the sitting president of the United States and the brand new candidacy of his vice president as she tries to succeed him.
With some Democrats already pledging to skip the speech in protest, the question remains: How will the majority of Democratic lawmakers navigate this moment? It’s worth taking a step back to realize just what is happening here—and why the stakes are so high.
This isn’t the first time that Netanyahu has dived headfirst into U.S. politics. Back in 2015, as then-President Barack Obama was rallying domestic and international support for the nuclear agreement that his administration—along with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China—had reached with Iran, Netanyahu came to Congress in a last-minute attempt to undermine the accord and damage the president.
Outrage was high at the time, and 58 members of Congress boycotted a speech that was seen by many as a blatant attempt to influence domestic U.S. politics and the result of Netanyahu’s long-standing personal disdain for Obama. The speech was ultimately a failure, as the nuclear agreement went into effect, but it did help lock in a level of Republican Party opposition that resulted in Trump later walking away from the deal and creating the very challenge that Biden now faces from an unconstrained Iranian nuclear program.
Thus, in the long run, Netanyahu got what he wanted and what was good for his personal politics, regardless of the fact that it was bad for U.S. national security and went against the clear wishes of people in the United States, according to opinion polling.
Now, nine years later, he’s trying to pull the same trick.
Today, the issue at hand is not Netanyahu’s opposition to a nuclear agreement, but his ongoing deadly war against Gaza. While this current crisis began with Hamas’s horrific attacks and taking of hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, the ensuing nine months have seen Netanyahu unleash a massive wave of death and destruction on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 38,000 Palestinians. Throughout the conflict, negotiations have ebbed and flowed over possible deals for a cease-fire and the release of hostages, breaking through for an initial deal in November last year and falling short multiple times since then, leaving the violence to rage on.
It’s important to note just how much trouble the Israeli prime minister is facing. Netanyahu’s government has been teetering on the brink of collapsing for months. Following years of an unprecedented electoral stalemate that saw Netanyahu alternate in and out of the prime minister’s chair as Israel’s political parties struggled to form a viable governing coalition, Netanyahu ultimately pieced together the farthest right government in Israeli history, empowering a handful of extremist parties and their leaders. Once back in office, he tried to use this right-wing coalition to jam through radical judicial reforms that appeared to many, first and foremost, to be designed to keep him from landing in jail as his yearslong corruption trial made its way to court. That effort resulted in months of some of the largest protests in Israel’s history.
And then came Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 attacks. The Israeli public—shocked and outraged by the killing of more than 1,200 people and the taking of roughly 250 hostages—largely halted the protests, and Netanyahu’s biggest rivals joined in a unity government, something that is not uncommon in times of war. Biden even accepted an invitation from Netanyahu to make a historic wartime visit to Israel mere weeks after the attack.
In the ensuing eight months, U.S. public support for Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza has significantly decreased as Netanyahu’s war machine unleashed an almost unimaginable scale of death and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza. The U.N. reports that since the start of the Israeli military’s war on Gaza, in addition to the more than 38,000 Palestinians who have been killed, more than twice as many have been injured. And for nearly everyone else in Gaza, most of whom have been displaced multiple times by fighting, Israeli government policy has resulted in famine or near-famine conditions as the supply of food and other basic necessities for living have been dramatically and severely reduced.
The world has responded with outrage. The International Court of Justice has twice made rulings urging Israel to change its behavior in Gaza, allow in more aid, and, most recently, halt its offensive in Rafah. Netanyahu’s government has refused to comply, according to human rights groups. Even more severely, the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested that arrest warrants be issued for both Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their role in alleged war crimes in Gaza. (He also requested similar warrants for Hamas’s leadership.) And at the United Nations itself, the United States has found itself a very lonely defender of Netanyahu’s government, which has faced overwhelming condemnation of Israel’s war by both the General Assembly and the Security Council.
Now, as Netanyahu prepares to once again come to Washington, Biden has made it clear that there is a deal to be had—one that would halt the fighting, release the hostages, and create a realistic pathway to a sustainable peace. That path forward isn’t necessarily easy, but it is possible. Which begs the question: Why, of all moments, is the Israeli prime minister coming to Congress now?
The answer is clear: politics. First and foremost, there’s the politics of Republican U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who has seemingly made it his nearly singular goal in running the House to try to divide Democrats over Israel. He’s forced members to take multiple votes on legislation that has zero chance of becoming law, but every chance of highlighting the divisions within the Democratic caucus. By unilaterally announcing his invitation to Netanyahu, Johnson successfully trapped Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who bewilderingly agreed to co-sign the invitation after only weeks earlier publicly calling for new elections in Israel. With Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell already on board, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries ultimately added his name to the invitation, too.
If Schumer and Jeffries were simply falling victim to Johnson’s political ploy to embarrass Democrats, it would be bad enough, but the reality is far worse. Republicans and Democrats are constantly forcing one another into compromising political positions, and while this kind of trap should have been avoided by the Democratic leaders, these kinds of things do happen. What’s more maddening here is that the clear drivers of this whole incident seem more likely to be the personal politics of Netanyahu, his desperate attempt to cling to power, and his likely desire to see a Trump victory in November.
Meanwhile, U.S. support for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, a policy opposed by Netanyahu, is overwhelming and bipartisan. Looking deeper at the views of Democratic voters, the view is even starker; a majority believe that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza and oppose sending Israel any more military aid. All of this has led to historic demonstrations of opposition to continued unconditional support for Israel by congressional Democrats.
If his government’s policies are unpopular on the global stage and in the United States, in Israel, Netanyahu himself is increasingly personally unpopular. After an initial, common rally-round-the-flag surge, Israeli public opinion has turned once again decidedly against the prime minister, with his approval rating hitting a mere 32 percent in May. Families of the hostages held by Hamas have joined protests condemning the possibility that Netanyahu’s war appears to have killed more hostages than it has rescued. (Axios reported in mid-June that some Democrats are working to organize an event with families of those taken hostage to “counter-program” Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.)
Israeli political leaders on both Netanyahu’s left and right have routinely threatened to bring down his government. And all the while, he remains actively on trial for corruption—the very indictments that he sought to avoid through his radical judicial changes that spurred massive protests last year.
If Israel held elections today, it is highly unlikely that Netanyahu would remain prime minister.
So, with Netanyahu deeply unpopular at home and opposed around the world, why is he being afforded one of the highest privileges that the United States has to offer—a speech to a joint session of Congress? He is desperately fighting for his political survival, which he likely views as his path to avoiding both domestic and international criminal accountability. Biden himself recently pointed out that there is “every reason” to believe that Netanyahu is actively prolonging the war for that exact reason.
Rank and file Democrats must make a choice on whether they will reward Netanyahu’s craven self-promotion or instead build on the message that many of them sent nine years ago by once again skipping his speech.
The public’s eyes have largely shifted away from the horrors in Gaza over the past few weeks. As Netanyahu steps to the Capitol’s rostrum, that will likely change, at least for a moment. At a moment of political turmoil, congressional Democrats have an opportunity to show their constituents’ widespread revulsion at Netanyahu’s appalling record. Let’s hope that they use that moment to remind everyone watching that saving countless lives is more important than saving one man’s political future.
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