The last time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the US Congress, he criticised the Obama administration’s flagship diplomatic project at the time, the Iran nuclear deal, straining his ties with the White House. Nine years later, Netanyahu must return to Capitol Hill, this time under even more tense circumstances.
Barbara Slavin, a Middle East and North Africa fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, said the timing could not have been worse. “Frankly, it will humiliate Biden by running without having agreed to a ceasefire agreement. It will not help his re-election chances. It will infuriate many, many Americans who are extremely angry about what is happening in the Middle East,” Slavin said.
“This is not the right time. If he had agreed to a ceasefire months ago and started a reconstruction process in Gaza, perhaps. It is an act of incredible audacity, of shamelessness on his part to show himself in Washington, DC,” the expert criticised.
Netanyahu wants to present “the truth about our just war”
The Biden administration is facing criticism at home and abroad for its struggle between supporting a key ally and allowing Netanyahu to carry out the war operations that have led to a severe humanitarian crisis and killed 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 7, 2023, when the radical Islamist group carried out a terrorist attack, killing more than 1,100 Israelis and taking 251 hostages. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by Israel, Germany and the United States, among other governments.
Responding to the invitation to speak in Congress, Netanyahu said he would seek to “present the truth about our just war against those who seek to destroy us, the representatives of the American people and the entire world.”
However, mass protests have already been planned around Netanyahu’s visit. Several Democratic lawmakers have indicated they will boycott his speech, notably members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of left-leaning lawmakers who have already voiced strong criticism of Israel in recent months.
But Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says Netanyahu doesn’t want to send a message just to Congress.
“He has two audiences in mind: One is the American audience, because he wants to build support for Israel in Congress. He is also thinking of an audience at home, because many Israelis are upset about how the war has played out. They are upset about the hostages,” Alterman said. “I think he wants to show that he has not destroyed U.S.-Israel relations, as some of his political critics claim. He is much less interested in what the Biden White House thinks.”
Souring Israel-US relations
Several key developments have deepened the rift between the US and Israeli leadership in recent months. For example, when the White House halted certain arms shipments out of concern over the Israeli offensive in Rafah. A video released by Netanyahu claiming the US was withholding even more support from Israel than it had made public also angered Washington.
The Israeli prime minister has also so far refused to accept the US-backed ceasefire agreement in exchange for the release of hostages.
Slavin said the invitation to Netanyahu, extended in May by the leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate, was likely made with the expectation that overall conditions would have improved by now, which was not the case.
“I think it was expected that by the end of July, with this war in its ninth month, there would have been a ceasefire, that there would be a plan for what would happen next,” Slavin said. “Instead, we see that Netanyahu is still in charge, and therefore solely dependent on a right-wing coalition that is not only carrying out this horrific war in Gaza, but is also gobbling up more and more territory in the West Bank to ensure that there can never be a Palestinian state.”
Concerns about an expansion of the war, which the United States has been very vocal in its opposition to, also loom large, especially as Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah exchange fire across the Israel-Lebanon border.
Pressure from Israel
Netanyahu’s upcoming trip to Washington has also been the subject of severe criticism within Israel. A letter from some 500 Israeli academics urged the US Congress to withdraw the invitation to Netanyahu, arguing that allowing him to speak “could reduce the growing public pressure on Netanyahu from the international community to accept the hostage deal that is on the table.”
In Israel, opposition figures also called in a Knesset debate for Netanyahu to announce his acceptance of the hostage deal in front of Congress, or not go to Washington at all.
Maya Roman, whose relatives remain held hostage by Hamas, does not think Netanyahu will accept such a deal, but she hopes he will. Keeping the hostage deal in the spotlight is what prompted her to travel to Washington for Netanyahu’s speech as well.
“He’s going to talk about the painful experiences that we’ve been through. And all of those things are true, and it’s important for people to remember them. But I feel like if he talks about those things without committing to an agreement, then he’s not doing us any favors,” Roman told DW.
“They are basically taking our pain and using it for profit and not for their purposes, not to bring our loved ones back. If someone is going to use our story and what we have been through since October 7, then they know that the terrible experience that the families have been through should serve to ensure that our loved ones are brought back.”
Netanyahu waits for his moment
Despite all the hype surrounding Netanyahu’s trip, CSIS’s Alterman said he has a very practical goal: delaying what threatens his leadership of Israel.
“The visit comes towards the end of the Knesset’s active period, at the beginning of the summer break, and then there is the break for the Jewish holidays in the fall,” he said. “The Knesset will be away from roughly the time Netanyahu’s visit ends until almost when the American elections take place. And for Netanyahu, who is worried about his political survival, it’s like saying, ‘OK, let’s wait until the American visit is over. ’ But then the Knesset will no longer be active, and then we will wait until after the American elections,” Alterman said. It would be very difficult to overthrow the government when the Knesset is not in session, he added.
Regardless of the reason for Netanyahu’s visit, there are signs that the long-established status quo anchoring the US-Israel relationship is changing.
The boycott of the speech by some Democratic lawmakers is representative of a breakdown in the bipartisanship that is traditionally taken for granted when it comes to U.S. support for Israel. And the college protests that have erupted across the country expressing opposition to the war are a harbinger of a generational and ideological shift in America’s perception of Israel.
“Young people have no memory of the small, brave Israel fighting for its existence. They only know an Israel that kills Palestinians. So they don’t see a democratic ally. They don’t see a country with which we share values,” Slavin said. “I think Israel is in real danger of losing a generation in the United States. We may not see the impact right away, but we will see it in five, ten, twenty years.”