Benjamin Netanyahu is about to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. “He’ll be the first foreign leader to have done so four times, more even than Winston Churchill. And nothing he says will matter,” Yair Rosenberg writes. [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)
“That’s not just because the speech is happening in the shadow of extraordinary electoral upheaval, days after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and hours before Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office. No, the Israeli premier’s speech will be forgotten for a more fundamental reason: Although Netanyahu is very good at delivering portentous pronouncements, his words tend to have few consequences beyond the immediate attention they attract.
“One would think that onlookers would have figured this out by now. After all, Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, to lobby against Barack Obama’s impending Iran nuclear deal. It was a masterful piece of political performance art. It also did not derail the nuclear deal. The prime minister’s speech generated weeks of political strife and breathless media coverage in the United States, but the deal went into effect in January 2016, after the Republican-controlled Congress failed to muster the necessary votes to obstruct it. Practically speaking, Netanyahu’s dramatic intervention achieved nothing, other than rallying Democrats around their president and his signature diplomatic achievement.
“In reality, Netanyahu never had the clout in Congress to seriously challenge the deal—the address was about him and [bolstering his standing](https://www.timesofisrael.com/campaign-ad-shows-netanyahu-speech-before-congress/) in Israel’s upcoming election, not about changing the course of U.S. diplomacy. Countless “important” Netanyahu addresses in Israel, America, and the United Nations for more than a decade have followed this pattern: The Israeli leader uses his speeches to burnish his brand as a statesman of stature, but his words are only tenuously connected to any real-world outcomes.”
Sure, what Netanyahu says won’t matter. But for once this is a case of actions speaking louder than words: Israel’s bombing of Yemen, in one day, struck a greater blow against the Houthis and Iran for Saudi, Egypt and other countries reliant of trade via the Suez Canal than the entire ‘western alliance’ has since last October.
The strike on Hodeidah alone will have crippled the Houthis ability to receive energy and weapons. Perhaps more important, about 80% of Yemen’s humanitarian aid, including ~8% of its food, went through the port. With no other port capable of handling similar shipment volumes in Houthi territory, this will now have to go through, and become *de facto* property of, the IRG. And with ~75% of the population, the Houthi-controlled area is set to be crippled by food shortage, a potentially insoluble problem for the regime, quite soon. Meanwhile the IRG will experience food-prosperity, and resulting population transfers may bolster the manpower it has available.
It’s disappointing that the ‘experts’ haven’t pointed this out…
Note that Israel is reported to have hit 25 Houthi targets in total; if any of remainder are even remotely as significant, the Houthis’ problems will be considerably bigger.
As Americans how do we want to be represented on the global stage? What do we stand for as a nation if we are inviting an accused war criminal to address a joint session of Congress as he inflicts collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children? Platforming a war criminal should not be our answer.
His visit is not for this speech. He visits in the midst of the candidate selection process for a reason.
The people who shout “Gays for Palestine” are not to be reasoned with.
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Benjamin Netanyahu is about to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. “He’ll be the first foreign leader to have done so four times, more even than Winston Churchill. And nothing he says will matter,” Yair Rosenberg writes. [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)
“That’s not just because the speech is happening in the shadow of extraordinary electoral upheaval, days after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and hours before Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office. No, the Israeli premier’s speech will be forgotten for a more fundamental reason: Although Netanyahu is very good at delivering portentous pronouncements, his words tend to have few consequences beyond the immediate attention they attract.
“One would think that onlookers would have figured this out by now. After all, Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, to lobby against Barack Obama’s impending Iran nuclear deal. It was a masterful piece of political performance art. It also did not derail the nuclear deal. The prime minister’s speech generated weeks of political strife and breathless media coverage in the United States, but the deal went into effect in January 2016, after the Republican-controlled Congress failed to muster the necessary votes to obstruct it. Practically speaking, Netanyahu’s dramatic intervention achieved nothing, other than rallying Democrats around their president and his signature diplomatic achievement.
“In reality, Netanyahu never had the clout in Congress to seriously challenge the deal—the address was about him and [bolstering his standing](https://www.timesofisrael.com/campaign-ad-shows-netanyahu-speech-before-congress/) in Israel’s upcoming election, not about changing the course of U.S. diplomacy. Countless “important” Netanyahu addresses in Israel, America, and the United Nations for more than a decade have followed this pattern: The Israeli leader uses his speeches to burnish his brand as a statesman of stature, but his words are only tenuously connected to any real-world outcomes.”
Read more: [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)
Sure, what Netanyahu says won’t matter. But for once this is a case of actions speaking louder than words: Israel’s bombing of Yemen, in one day, struck a greater blow against the Houthis and Iran for Saudi, Egypt and other countries reliant of trade via the Suez Canal than the entire ‘western alliance’ has since last October.
The strike on Hodeidah alone will have crippled the Houthis ability to receive energy and weapons. Perhaps more important, about 80% of Yemen’s humanitarian aid, including ~8% of its food, went through the port. With no other port capable of handling similar shipment volumes in Houthi territory, this will now have to go through, and become *de facto* property of, the IRG. And with ~75% of the population, the Houthi-controlled area is set to be crippled by food shortage, a potentially insoluble problem for the regime, quite soon. Meanwhile the IRG will experience food-prosperity, and resulting population transfers may bolster the manpower it has available.
It’s disappointing that the ‘experts’ haven’t pointed this out…
Note that Israel is reported to have hit 25 Houthi targets in total; if any of remainder are even remotely as significant, the Houthis’ problems will be considerably bigger.
As Americans how do we want to be represented on the global stage? What do we stand for as a nation if we are inviting an accused war criminal to address a joint session of Congress as he inflicts collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children? Platforming a war criminal should not be our answer.
His visit is not for this speech. He visits in the midst of the candidate selection process for a reason.
The people who shout “Gays for Palestine” are not to be reasoned with.