Benjamin Netanyahu and American Presidents

Sept. 19 2023

Yesterday, the Israeli prime minister arrived in San Jose, California for a six-day visit to the U.S., which includes a meeting with Joe Biden at the United Nations on Wednesday. Biden is the seventh president in office since Benjamin Netanyahu came to work at the Israeli embassy in Washington in 1982. Drawing on Netanyahu’s recent autobiography, Tevi Troy dimensions his relations with these American leaders:

Vladimir Jabotinsky believed that making one’s case forcefully and persistently in a democratic society is the best way to bring about preferred policy outcomes. Bibi Netanyahu turned the idea into a reality.

During the Clinton administration, Netanyahu rose to prime minister after winning a 1996 election to replace acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres following the assassination of Yitzḥak Rabin. To say that Clinton and company were disappointed at the result is an understatement. Clinton actively tried to have Netanyahu defeated in the election, but, he later admitted, “I tried to do it in a way that didn’t overtly involve me.” Clinton hadn’t fooled anyone. When Netanyahu next came to the White House, Clinton remembered that Netanyahu “wanted me to know that he knew I wasn’t for him and he beat us anyway.”

In April 2002, [President George W.] Bush demanded that Israel withdraw its troops engaged in Jenin and Shechem/Nablus operations to stop the terrorist bombings of the second intifada. With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s blessing, Netanyahu flew to Washington and spoke to a bipartisan group of senators. “I am concerned that the imperative of defeating terror everywhere is being ignored when the main engine of Palestinian terror is allowed to remain intact,” he told them. Netanyahu’s words packed a punch in a Washington still focused on responding to 9/11 terror attacks. The Bush administration returned to its statements that Israel should be allowed to defend itself, which took the pressure off and gave Israel room to maneuver. Once again, Netanyahu had used the Jabotinsky method of developing public pressure to help lead to a desired policy outcome.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Second Intifada, U.S.-Israel relationship

The Democratic Party Is Losing Its Grip on Jews

Since the 1930s, Jews have been one of America’s most solidly Democratic ethnic groups. Although, true to form, a majority again voted for Kamala Harris, something clearly has shifted. John Podhoretz writes:

Over the course of the past thirteen months, Jews in America have been harassed, threatened, seen their ancestral homeland derided as a settler-colonial genocidal state. They have seen Jewish kids mistreated on college campuses. And they have seen the Biden administration kowtow to Muslim populations hostile to Jews and the Jewish state in Michigan. They have heard the criticisms of Israel’s efforts to defend itself, and have noted the silence from the administration when it came to anti-Semitic assaults and the refusal of college presidents to condemn the treatment of Jews and Jewish topics under their ambit.

And Jews have acted.

The initial evidence from last night’s election is that there has been a significant shift in the Jewish vote from previous elections, a delta of anywhere from 10 to 40 percent overall.

Read more at Commentary

More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Democrats, U.S. Politics