Israels Netanyahu wraps U.S. visit dominated by calls for hostage deal

August 15, 2024

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first trip outside Israel since the attacks of Oct. 7 featured a packed and dramatic itinerary: meetings with President Biden and each of his most likely successors, a globally broadcast address to Congress, and the kinds of confrontations with protesters and the families of Israeli hostages he often tries to avoid at home.

Now he will return to see what effect — if any — his headline-grabbing swing will have on his many battles back home, including with angry voters, rebellious governing partners and frustrated military leaders.

It will take time, and polling, to tell. But political, diplomatic and security experts here say the results are likely to be mixed, boosting Netanyahu with his base while not significantly shifting his overall public standing.

The trip also ramped up pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip as talks reach a critical point, something he was pushed on by everyone from hostage parents to Biden to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

On Saturday, a rocket attack in northern Israel killed 11 people on a soccer pitch in Majdal Shams. The Israeli military blamed Hezbollah for the attack and Netanyahu, preparing to leave the United States, said the Lebanese militant group, which denied involvement, “will pay a heavy price.”

Domestic politics

The events in Washington and Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach resort, probably achieved what may have been Netanyahu’s main priority: reminding his core supporters that he can command the attention of presidents and the world.

“He got exactly what he wanted out of the trip,” said Anshel Pfeffer, a Netanyahu biographer and the Economist’s Israel correspondent. “He got a big show, the spectacle of being a statesman that he thrives on.”

The trip came as Israel’s standing has been battered for months by its military campaign in Gaza. More than 39,000 people have been killed there since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.

Netanyahu could face war crimes charges, after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced in May that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the prime minister for alleged atrocities in Gaza.

His appearances in Washington and Florida, while massive protests dogged his motorcades, were potent counter programming. He was welcomed at the White House, an honor that Biden, who has made no secret of his frustrations with Netanyahu, had denied him for more than a year and a half.

And his address to Congress, which aired in prime time in Israel and featured more than 50 standing ovations, may also stem some of the bleeding from his base, aiding his fight against brewing rebellions within his government and party.

“This was Netanyahu returning to his well-known role of making the Israeli case in a prestigious setting in articulate English,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “It’s going to be well-received by those people inclined to support him.”

But shoring up the base will not patch up Netanyahu’s cratering popularity among the broader electorate, Plesner said. Around two-thirds of Israelis consistently say they want the prime minister to step down over the failures that led to the Hamas attacks and for not negotiating a hostage release deal.

“Forty-five minutes of speech and applause won’t erase the one sad fact: the words ‘Deal Now!’ were absent from the prime minister’s address,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, an umbrella group, said after the event.

But in Israel’s fragmented parliamentary system, Netanyahu might be able to cling to power just by restoring his edge among the right-wing voters that give him a tiny, four-seat majority in the Knesset.

“He doesn’t need a groundswell of support to remain prime minister,” Pfeffer said. “He just needs to move various needles slightly rightward.”

Relations with Washington

An official close to the prime minister’s office, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, said his inner circle was largely satisfied with a trip that forced Netanyahu to confront a presidential race in turmoil.

Netanyahu had a meeting with Biden that was civil, at least publicly. He began mending his years-long rupture with Trump, who greeted the prime minister and his wife warmly and denied — contrary to several previous, sometimes profane, statements to the contrary — that the two had ever fallen out.

But the team was taken aback by Vice President Harris, who has solidified her position as the likely Democratic nominee, the Israeli official familiar with the discussions said. Her behavior and rhetoric signaled that a President Harris would be tougher on Netanyahu than her boss has been.

“Harris was a surprise,” said the official. “She was harsher than expected.”

Harris skipped Netanyahu’s congressional speech for a campaign trip. After a meeting with the prime minister Thursday, she gave public remarks that echoed Biden’s usual statements of support for Israel’s right to defend itself but also emphasized her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians,” and “images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety.”

“We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,” she said.

The remarks put Israelis on notice that a Harris victory might or might not bring a shift in U.S. relations, but it would probably change the tone.

“It was mostly the same message but the music was very, very different,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “She used this meeting to stake out her differences.”

The prospects for a cease-fire

Talks for a deal to end the fighting and release the hostages still held in Gaza were a constant backdrop to Netanyahu’s trip. Negotiations are scheduled to resume next week in Rome, and U.S. and Arab brokers say the chances of an agreement are as high as they’ve ever been.

The prime minister was beseeched to conclude an accord at every turn. Israeli protesters traveled overseas to chant “Seal the Deal!” sometimes standing not far from pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouting “Cease-fire Now!”

Biden brought eight American hostage families to the White House to plead with Netanyahu, as did rescued hostage Noa Argamani, who traveled on the prime minister’s plane. Trump, too, said the time was right.

“It was made very clear that everyone is pushing for a hostage deal,” the Israeli official said.

Netanyahu said he thought Israel’s recent military attacks have brought Hamas closer to accepting agreeable terms, although there are key differences that need to be ironed out.

But his political dilemma remains: If he allows for a cease-fire deal that ends the fighting in Gaza before “total victory” against Hamas, his most extremist coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government.

Hostage families hope Netanyahu’s Washington trip, and the possible boost it gives him with right-wing voters, will give him more maneuvering room. Or at least give him more confidence that he could survive new elections.

The prime minister’s travels also helped him run out the clock on the parliamentary session — lawmakers begin a three-month recess Monday — freezing any political machinations until closer to the end of the year.

Whether all those factors combine to finally bring about an end to the fighting won’t be known for days, or even weeks, when the process in Rome concludes.

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