Frederick Krantz
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarkable Churchillian speech to the joint session of the U.S. Congress yesterday, July 24, needs to be placed in its immediate U.S. and Israeli contexts. This superb address struck precisely the right political balance, without a false note, noting both President Biden’s and former President Trump’s strong support for Israel, exposing Hamas’ “barbaric” viciousness and pillorying the ignorant street-thugs (“useful idiots”) demonstrating outside the Capitol as he spoke.
He eloquently made a case for having to deal with the Iranian enablers of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis and underlined democratic Jewish Israel’s indispensability in the Middle East to the U.S. Whatever his faults, however, a post-Gaza inquiry into the causes of October 7 may turn out, “Bibi” remains for now the indispensable Israeli leader.
In revealing her pro-Palestinian leftism, Vice-President Kamala Harris chose to address a sorority convention in Indiana instead of chairing the Congressional session. This behaviour was not, as the Italians put it, una bella figura, “a pretty picture,” and the Republicans, from House Speaker Mike Johnson on down, are already making political hay from the evident political faux pas (Nancy Pelosi joined Harris and about thirty other leftist progressive-woke Democrats).
In a national address from the Oval Office, Biden finally gave signs of life Wednesday evening, announcing his intention to complete his term as President. (He didn’t explain how to remain President when he cannot function as a candidate). This decision will weaken Harris, who would otherwise have entered the August Convention in Chicago as the sitting President. (It also pertains to a New York Post report that Obama has not endorsed her because he doesn’t think she can win the election).
In any case, domestically, the U.S. is facing a dangerous interregnum, a period stretching to January 20, 2025, with an impotent President Biden in office and an inexperienced and, on her record, an inept leftist candidate in the wings while pressure mounts in Ukraine, Taiwan-South China Sea, Middle East-Iran [Hezbollah/Houthis], and even Korea, where the ongoing crises could put us on the brink of a nuclear-threatening World War III.
(And this darkening foreign policy horizon is complicated domestically by the hundreds of proven terrorists infiltrating into the U.S. with millions of unrestricted illegals and gotaways pouring in over the broken southern border, which was, recall, explicitly, Kamala Harris’ responsibility).
As Bibi spoke, Israel faces multiple Iran-coordinated attacks on seven different yet related fronts: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah on the north Lebanon border, a restive West Bank where Hamas seeks to replace a weak and corrupt Palestinian Authority, the Houthis in Yemen dominating Red Sea commerce and effectively closing down the Suez Canal, Iranian IRGC and pro-Iranian militias in Syria, and pro-Teheran militias in Iraq.
While Hamas is evidently on its last legs in Rafah/Gaza, some 120 hostages, including five Americans, as Netanyahu noted, remain in captivity, and the northern Lebanese front, where Hezbollah missiles, rockets, and drones rain down unceasingly, is increasingly dangerous. While supporting diplomatic efforts there, Bibi indicated that they will not tolerate a situation in which 80,000 Israelis are refugees from their homes on the Lebanese border.
As matters now stand, the U.S. will have an imposed Democratic Presidential candidate unless Fate intervenes and delegates block Harris at the Convention, for whom no one has voted and who –true to her California Democratic-liberal background–now seems close to the antisemitic pro-Hamas left-progressives increasingly running the Party. (Rumor has it that she is replacing Blinken as Secretary of State with a pro-Iran figure from the NIAC Iran lobby).
Netanyahu invoked the Providential saving of Donald Trump’s life–had the assassin’s bullet struck home; we might well have been plunged into civil strife—a threat, one fears, that is not over. The Democrats, an increasingly Soviet-style leftist-authoritarian party seeking monolithic domination, knowing that Trump’s election means their demise, may well stop at little to prevent his ascension.
Rough days may lie ahead. Still, we must always recall that polls indicate 70-80% of American people support Israel, that Harris—who cannot evade joint responsibility for the Biden Administration’s disastrous domestic and foreign policies—is a mediocre figure who polls even worse than Biden, and that Trump is a much stronger and more experienced candidate than he was in either 2016 or 2020. A shift in the heavily liberal Jewish vote, according to recent polling, seems real, and along with upticks in black, Hispanic, youth, and undecided votes, should help get Trump over the top.
Barring some unforeseeable catastrophe, a resounding defeat on November 5 could lead to a restructuring of the Democratic Party, the marginalization-expulsion of radical left-woke insanity, and restoration of a stable two-party electoral system.
At the end of his forceful speech, interrupted again and again by thunderous applause, Israel’s Prime Minister invoked the Jewish People’s unbendable commitment to flourishing in its Promised Land and its vow of “Never again!”. He concluded by citing the plea of Winston Churchill (whose record of three addresses to Congress Bibi had just broken) to America as Britain in 1941 confronted the Nazi juggernaut: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job”: “Give us the tools, America, and we will finish the job!”.
(Prof. Frederick Krantz is Director Emeritus of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research)