Congress Sends an Invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu

The invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu from Speaker Johnson and Senator Schumer sets up a moment that could be even more dramatic even than Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in 2015. That made the Israeli leader only the second statesman to have addressed America’s legislature three times — the other being Winston Churchill. Mr. Netanyahu would be the only one to have addressed it four times.What a story he has to tell. The invitation comes in the face of President Biden’s plan for a ceasefire. That plan is best understood not as an effort to end the Gaza war but as an attempt to end the national unity government of Mr. Netanyahu. Its three-phases promises a “durable peace.” The first mandates a “complete ceasefire.” The second hopes for a “permanent end to hostilities.” Next, “reconstruction.” Nowhere is an end to Hamas required — or contemplated. The president is pitching this “comprehensive” proposal as authored at Jerusalem, but he also says that “there are those in Israel who will not agree with this plan and will call for the war to continue indefinitely. Some — some are even in the government coalition.” Some, we take it, like the prime minister. In a rare Shabbat statement — in English — Mr. Netanyahu insists that “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed.”These conditions, Mr. Netanyahu explains, are the “destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.” He adds that the “notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.” Mr. Biden’s plan, which imagines the “release of some hostages and some remains of hostages,” also mandates Israel’s withdrawal. Mr. Biden’s final phase comprises a “major reconstruction plan in Gaza,” but he appears to be doing everything in his power to preclude that possibility by staying Israel’s hand when it comes to the conquest of Rafah, Hamas’s last redoubt. Mr. Biden contends “at this point, Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.” Isn’t that, though, Israel’s decision to make? It is, after all, the Jewish state’s responsibility to preclude another massacre.A key to the incoherence could lie in the New York Times’s observation that “Mr. Biden’s remarks came at a pivotal moment in his re-election campaign.” The tepidness of his support for Israel has “alienated” his own supporters. The Times reckons that Mr. Biden’s “true agenda” is “an effort to pressure both Hamas and Israel to break out of a monthslong deadlock.” By keeping Hamas in power, it would only hasten the outbreak of the next one.The regime change Mr. Biden appears to seek is not the uprooting of Hamas, but fracturing of Mr. Netanyahu’s government. Mr. Biden made his remarks when Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were keeping Shabbat. They have since said that if Mr. Netanyahu takes the deal, they’d leave the government. The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, insists that Israel “cannot ignore” Mr. Biden’s “consequential speech” and that the deal “should be made.”This tension is precisely what Mr. Biden is trying to exploit. Barak Ravid of Axios reports that the White House informed Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Gallant of the plan at the same time details were sent to Mr. Netanyahu. That’s a strange breach of protocol. Mr. Ravid adds that the administration is “disappointed” by Mr. Gantz’s “initial reaction after receiving the update.” Nor did Mr. Gantz publish a statement.Mr. Biden’s plan to split the war cabinet may well be more successful than his failed Gaza pier. Mr. Gantz has already given Mr. Netanyahu a June 8 deadline on several points, absent which he’d leave the cabinet his centrist party joined after October 7. All this puts the disappointment on Mr. Gantz’s part in sharper relief. Whatever his differences with Mr. Netanyahu, does Mr. Gantz really want to stand for prime minister on Mr. Biden’s platform?Mr. Biden’s meddling ignores that Israeli voters are no dummies. Neither are America’s. They’ve both been watching Mr. Biden’s appeasement of Iran. They know Mr. Biden’s record of foreign policy weakness — from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. They know that Mr. Biden has set Israel up for a torrent of criticism if his plan fails. That appears to be the point. Which is why it would be great to hear Mr. Netanyahu speak to Congress.

Congress Sends an Invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu

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