Nuke row may lift Netanyahu election hopes
PM gambles by sparring with US just two weeks before Israel goes to polls
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a tough reelection fight in two weeks, US Congress has handed him an unprecedented boost with its effusive welcome to a message that resonates at home: Iran cannot be trusted as a threshold nuclear state.
Which way it goes for Mr Netanyahu hinges on if Israel is in some perceptible way punished by the White House for its leader’s extraordinary offensive against a US president.
If he is perceived as having bravely spoken truth to power and escaped consequences, the episode will likely help him at the polls.
But it could deeply affect the Middle East for years to come on issues far beyond Iran, most notably the Palestinian conflict, which some consider far more important than any future deal on Iran’s nuclear programme.
At home and abroad, Mr Netanyahu is seen as the main barrier to peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world.
Expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank causes fears Israel will never extricate itself from the territory.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Isaac Herzog favours a far more conciliatory position, genuine negotiations and limits on settlements.
For this and other reasons, Mr Netanyahu is increasingly at loggerheads with the country’s elites, from the security establishment to academics, and journalists to cultural and business figures.
This is compounded by scandals involving his expenses which provoked rage from middleclass Israelis who struggle to make ends meet and can no longer afford to buy homes.
Polls show Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party trails the Zionist Union, the main centre-left opposition. In the highly fractured political environment, it is plausible the union’s head, Isaac Herzog, will form a majority coalition in the 120-seat Knesset after the March 17 vote.
Against this backdrop, while Mr Netanyahu’s speech was delivered to the US Congress, his primary audience may have been Israel’s voters.
In his speech, Mr Netanyahu made no mention of the election, but deftly touched on Israeli fears and emotions with talking points from the core of his political playbook.
He condemned Iran as dangerously hostile, with tentacles stretching across the Middle East, connecting it to this week’s Jewish Purim holiday, where ancient Jews defeated a Persian enemy.
He presented Israel as peaceloving and progressive with deep bonds to the US, producing Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who waved as Mr Netanyahu intoned “Never Again”.
But his references to an emerging “bad deal” undermined the US administration’s foreign policy and challenged its insistence that no deal has yet been struck.
The White House made no secret of its unhappiness, ensuring Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden were absent and refusing to meet the Israeli leader while he was in town.
“Netanyahu remains alone and Israel remains isolated,’’ Mr Herzog said. “The speech therefore caused damage of the utmost severity in relations with the United States ... and will only widen the rift with our great friend and our only strategic ally.’’
Much now depends now on the White House response. If Mr Netanyahu is perceived as having unsettled US relations, it could boomerang. The White House has already stopped briefing Israel on details from the ongoing nuclear talks.