What Netanyahu will celebrate this week will be a personal and political victory: Ten months after the October 7 debacle, which will forever tarnish his legacy, he will get a renewed sense of public legitimacy during his U.S. visit.
Amir Tibon
U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he will step aside from the 2024 election and allow another Democrat to run in his place came at a bad time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Until the moment Biden took over the headlines with his selfless act of patriotism, Netanyahu’s visit to Washington was supposed to be the biggest story of the week in Israel – but it will now be eclipsed by the U.S. political drama. Still, even when that is taken into account, Netanyahu’s very arrival in the American capital is a quite unbelievable turn of events.
Almost ten months after Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, the Israeli prime minister this week will finally get the “total victory” he has been promising his supporters since the early stages of the war in Gaza.
It won’t be a “total victory” over Israel’s enemies, don’t hold your breath. Hamas will continue to hold 120 Israeli hostages captive in unimaginable conditions in the tunnels under Gaza. Hezbollah will continue to fire dozens of rockets and drones at northern Israel, an area that has been empty and abandoned ever since October 8, and has no hope for recovery any time soon. Iran will continue to get closer and closer to nuclear weapons, and the Houthis in Yemen – even after this weekend’s impressive Israeli strike against them – will continue to strangle the port of Eilat, Israel’s most important maritime gateway.
No, it won’t be a victory for Israel that Netanyahu will celebrate this week, while citizens kidnapped under his watch will suffocate in the tunnels and entire regions of his country will remain a de facto no man’s land.
What Netanyahu will celebrate this week will be a personal and political victory: Ten months after the October 7 debacle, which will forever tarnish his legacy, he will get a renewed sense of public legitimacy. The man that fed Hamas for years with Qatari money, until the monster he fostered turned on his own country, will be received in the corridors of the White House as a supposedly legitimate state leader. This, at a time when record highs of Israelis want a new election in light of his catastrophic failures.
Three politicians, all of them Democrats, bear responsibility for this astonishing turn of events: Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, two weak, cowardly “leaders” who are too lazy to try and understand what Israelis actually think about the invitation they sent to Netanyahu; and Biden, a good man with outdated views of the U.S.-Israel relationship, who has refused to adapt to changing realities – and will pay a political price for it.