“Standing up to Iran is not easy. Standing up to dark and murderous regimes never is,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint session of the U.S. Congress, resulting in one of many standing ovations. “We must always remember, the greatest dangers facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu was at his best: persuasive, inspiring and brilliant. It’s hard to imagine anyone making a stronger case to combat the gravest threat to Israel and the U.S. today, the evil and murderous regime of Iran.
The date of that speech was March 3, 2015, when Netanyahu argued against the Iran nuclear deal.
His speech yesterday in the same august hall was equally brilliant and equally focused on the moral imperative of calling out evil.
“In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism, all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the killing,” he said. “And that should come as no surprise. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, ‘We will export our revolution to the entire world.’”
Netanyahu’s words, as in 2015, received countless ovations. They were powerful, truthful and supremely relevant to his audience and to America.
“When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city, every city that you come from, we’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you,” he said.
Netanyahu made a compelling case to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza, and he put Hamas sympathizers who burn Israeli and American flags in their rightful place as “useful idiots” of Iran. He also reminded his audience that the violent turmoil that has inflamed the region in recent years, and especially since Oct. 7, traces back to Iran’s ultimate goal of taking down the Great Satan:
“Iran understands that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East. And for this it uses its many proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas.”
His money shot drew another ovation: “Yet in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Iran’s way, is one proud pro-American democracy—my country, the State of Israel.”
The speech had this rousing spirit, a clarion call for the forces of civilization to combat evil. But it also reminded me that since his last rousing speech in Congress nine years ago ringing the same alarm bells, things have gotten significantly worse, with Iran virtually weeks from nuclear breakout. It almost made me wish that Netanyahu himself was the leader of the free world, so he could better translate his words into action.
But Netanyahu is the leader of Israel, and Israelis were most interested in what he would do for them, including combatting Iran. As far as the current leader of the free world, President Joe Biden, his best offer for dealing with Iran is an alliance between the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel, all sharing a common mission to counter the predatory Iranian regime sworn to Israel’s destruction.
The Saudis have already shown a high level of interest. But to get Congress to approve the alliance as a formal treaty, Biden needs Israel to join. Of course, expanding the Sunni-based Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, is hardly a new idea. Every Israeli leader sees it as winning the lottery.
One can argue, in fact, that forging such an alliance, backed by the most powerful army in the world, should be the top strategic priority for the Jewish state. It is widely accepted that one of the reasons for the Oct. 7 massacre was to sabotage any possible deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which was brewing at the time. Reviving such an alliance today would crush the soul of sworn enemies of Israel like Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention the genocidal mullahs in Iran.
Netanyahu knows that the alliance would make history and may even help rescue his legacy as Mr. Security, which has taken a huge beating since the worst attack in Israel’s history happened under his watch.
So what’s holding Netanyahu back from this win-win-win? Put simply, there is a political price he would have to pay, which would jeopardize the survival of his coalition.
First, he would need to agree, without equivocation or new conditions, to the ceasefire-hostage deal tentatively reached by U.S., Israeli, Qatari, Egyptian and Hamas negotiators. This deal entails a six-week pause in the fighting in Gaza and the return of 33 Israeli hostages in return for several hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The problem is that the very notion of a “ceasefire” is unacceptable to his far-right partners, even though the deal is supported by the majority of the Israeli public and the defense establishment, and wouldn’t preclude operations against Hamas in the future.
The second price demanded by the Saudis would be for Israel to show a willingness to negotiate with the Palestinians, another sharp red line for his partners. But throughout his career, Netanyahu has had a brilliant response to this request, which became a kind of Bibi mantra: “Israel is ready to negotiate without any preconditions anytime and anywhere.”
On my recent trip to Israel, I spoke with an expert who told me, somewhat cynically, that this was a low-price concession because the Palestinians will never agree to any deal, and given the benefit of a Saudi alliance, certainly not a prohibitive price.
In any case, Netanyahu is surely aware of the strategic value of a U.S.–Saudi-Israel alliance. He even brought up the idea of such an alliance in his speech, but without specifying the steps needed to get there, let alone any steps that would entail a political risk.
Netanyahu is also aware that a ceasefire with Hamas would pave the way not just for a release of hostages but for a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, enabling tens of thousands of Israeli refugees to return to their homes in the north. These issues were top of mind for Israelis listening to his speech.
Like Netanyahu said in his speech, he went to MIT— so he knows all about cost-benefit analyses and assessing worth. He also knows that there’s a decided difference between rhetoric and action.
His speech overflowed with extraordinary rhetoric. But at the end, all I wanted to know was: How close are we to a security alliance with Saudi Arabia to help Israel combat the biggest and most urgent threat to its existence? How close are we to a deal that will return the hostages and pave the way for a Saudi alliance that will crush the soul of Hamas?
For his next speech, then, maybe Netanyahu can utter the words that will finally make such an alliance happen. And if his far-right partners complain, he can tell them the truth in the most eloquent way possible: it’s in their country’s interest.
Indeed, Mr. Prime Minister, standing up to Iran is not easy.
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