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Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was back in a very familiar building. Not only was he making his fourth address to a joint session of Congress — breaking Winston Churchill’s record for foreign leaders — he’s also been a presence in the building’s halls since serving as a diplomat in the early 1980s. Since he made his first speech to Congress in 1996, Netanyahu has been almost as much a fixture of politics in America as in Israel.
Things felt different today. It’s not just that Netanyahu is a controversial figure, one who drew thousands of protesters onto the streets of Washington. That’s not new; Netanyahu’s 2011 speech to Congress was interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester in the chamber. What is new is that he has become an increasingly marginalized one.
Even a few weeks ago, when Netanyahu’s speech was announced, it had the makings of a marquee political event. Today, it was overshadowed by President Joe Biden’s highly anticipated Wednesday night speech to address his decision to drop out of the presidential election. Dozens of lawmakers — around half of Congress’s Democrats — skipped Netanyahu’s speech altogether.
Soon-to-retire Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin’s presence behind Netanyahu on the rostrum attested to how much of a partisan figure Netanyahu has become. Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, one of whom would normally have been in that seat, all declined the role. Netanyahu, who has been Israel’s prime minister for 17 of the last 30 years, has done more than anyone to make support for the country an increasingly partisan issue in the United States, in part through actions like his speech to Congress in 2015. That time, he was invited by congressional Republicans to lobby against the Iran nuclear deal then being negotiated by the Obama administration in what was considered a remarkably partisan speech for a foreign leader.
In today’s address, by contrast, Netanyahu made little news. It was a speech that gave little indication of a plan to end the war in Gaza, and likely undermined diplomatic efforts underway to do so. It was a notably defensive speech for Netanyahu, devoted more to refuting criticism of Israel than to charting a way forward out of the morass it has found itself in. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”
What Netanyahu said — and what he’s doing
Netanyahu recounted the horrors of Hamas’s October 7 attacks and vowed to the families of hostages currently being held in Gaza that he “would not rest until all their loved ones are home.” Not all of those families may be inclined to take him at his word. Many of them are calling for the prime minister to accept a ceasefire deal to secure the hostages’ release, but today Netanyahu vowed that “Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home,” adding, “That’s what total victory means and we will settle for nothing less.”
Netanyahu also said, as he has in several previous remarks, that “[Israel] must retain overriding control [in Gaza] to ensure that Gaza never again poses a security threat to Israel” — a demand likely to be a nonstarter for any ceasefire deal.
Despite that, Netanyahu has said in recent days that a ceasefire deal may be near, and the deal currently being negotiated is likely to be the focus of the prime minister’s meeting at the White House with Biden on Thursday. The Biden administration has tended not to respond directly to Netanyahu’s public statements on the deal, and this time was no exception. Asked if Netanyahu’s remarks made that deal less likely, a senior US administration official told reporters on Wednesday afternoon, “We were in the Situation Room doing some other stuff, so I have not seen the speech.”
Netanyahu didn’t indicate any specific asks beyond continued US military support. “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster,” he said, riffing on a famous Churchill line from World War II. As he has in all three of his previous addresses, going back to the mid-1990s, Netanyahu kept the focus on Iran, which he mentioned before Hamas. He made the case that Israel’s fight against Iran-backed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah serves to “keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.”
He pushed back against criticism of Israel over civilian casualties and preventing food from entering Gaza. He ripped into anti-Israel protesters in the United States, accusing them of being “useful idiots” for Iran, criticized university presidents, and compared “gays for Gaza” to “chickens for KFC.” This was likely the first speech on Mideast policy that included a shout-out to the “fraternity brothers of the University of North Carolina.”
How to lose friends and influence
Netanyahu praised President Biden for his “half a century of friendship to Israel” and noted that the president describes himself as a “proud Zionist.” But that only served to highlight the shrinking number of Democratic politicians who would publicly describe themselves that way. Polls have consistently shown a deep partisan divide opening up over sympathy toward Israel.
He also thanked former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump for actions in support of Israel during his presidency, including recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu will be traveling to Florida to meet with Trump (and possibly celebrate the birthday of his son, who lives in Miami). Still, while Trump has not exactly turned on Israel, he has clearly soured somewhat on Netanyahu, who he is still angry at for congratulating Biden on his election victory in 2020. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Trump posted a friendly letter from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the day he announced the Netanyahu meeting.
From a purely visual standpoint, Netanyahu may have gotten what he wanted today: rapturous standing ovations, even if mainly from Republicans. But more than 70 percent of Israelis now say that Netanyahu should resign. His own defense establishment is turning on his handling of the war and he’s under fire over issues ranging from his long-running legal troubles to the controversial question of whether the ultra-Orthodox should serve in the country’s military.
In the past, Washington has served as a sort of relief valve for Netanyahu, a place he could count on strong support, even when his political position looked rocky at home. In that first speech back in 1996, after receiving a five-minute standing ovation from Congress, he quipped, “If I could only get the Knesset [Israel’s parliament] to vote like this.”
Today, though, “the magic is gone,” Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli foreign policy official who is now an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, told Vox. “The fellow that mastered verbal acrobatics to the point that different audiences could hear different messages in the same speech — that’s over. Those who were in awe of his verbal skills now take it with a grain of salt.”
In more than 40 years of coming to Washington, Netanyahu has surely grown used to being a controversial figure. He may have to get used to being an irrelevant one.
Correction, 7 pm ET: An earlier version of this story referred to Netanyahu as a former ambassador to the US. He was a deputy chief of mission.
