Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should use his Wednesday speech to a joint meeting of Congress to seek a renewal of bipartisan American support for Israel that began when the U.S. became the first nation to recognize the Jewish state’s independence in 1948.
Netanyahu, who is also scheduled to meet this week with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former president Trump, will need to use his visit to remind elected officials and the American people of the threats his nation has faced since its creation. These include the current war that Gaza Strip-based terrorist group Hamas launched against Israel on Oct. 7, along with attacks against Israel by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, who pose a far greater threat if full-scale war erupts.
Presidents and members of Congress from both parties have supported Israel with economic aid and arms sales to defend itself for decades. But unfortunately, support for the Jewish state has dropped in recent years among Democrats and some young people on the left, who have staged hate-filled anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses and elsewhere that have often degenerated into praise for terrorists.
Netanyahu’s challenge when he addresses Congress will be to counter lies leveled against Israel with facts in a compelling presentation.
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In the wake of an overwhelming vote July 17 by Israel’s parliament to oppose creation of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu should explain why the so-called "two-state solution" is no solution at all. He needs to say that Hamas and many Palestinians want a "one-state solution," replacing the Jewish state with a radical Islamic and anti-American state dedicated to Israel’s annihilation.
Even if a Palestinian state were controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which claims it would live in peace with Israel, the authority demands – without legal justification – that Israel give Palestinians the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, which is home to Judaism’s holiest sites and which no Israeli government could give up without falling.
And even if a Palestinian state consisted of only the West Bank and Gaza, it would leave Israel dangerously vulnerable to missiles, rockets, drones, artillery and invasion. Israel would be only nine miles wide at its narrowest point, allowing invading Palestinian forces to cut the nation in two. Missiles could hit any city in Israel in two minutes or less. The threats would worsen with the development of new military technologies.
The Israeli prime minister’s explanation of the dangers of a Palestinian state to Israel could serve as a rebuttal to the absurd and nonbinding decision by the International Court of Justice on Friday that Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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Netanyahu should say the claims that Israel is a colonial power of transplanted Europeans are absurd, given that Jews lived in and governed the land for thousands of years, until they were forced into exile. Condemning Jews as "occupiers" of their ancestral homeland makes as much sense as calling Native Americans "occupiers" of the United States.
In addition, Netanyahu should explain in his speech that like America, Israel is a thriving democracy that recognizes the rights of all of its citizens of every religion and ethnicity, including the 21% who are Arabs.
Netanyahu can recognize that Palestinians deserve the right to control their internal affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, and live in peace and prosperity alongside Israel – but not to a state that would become a launching pad for terrorism.
Understandably, the tragic suffering and deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the widespread destruction in the current Israel-Hamas war have distressed the world.
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But Israel did not start this war. Hamas launched it because it is more interested in killing Jews and wiping Israel off the map than in improving the lives of Gazans.
For years, Hamas has prioritized spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to build terror tunnels, amass armaments and fund its terrorist forces deployed against Israel, rather than creating a thriving economy and jobs, and building public works projects, industries and housing for its own people.
Netanyahu must make it clear that Hamas bears sole responsibility for what has happened in Gaza since it staged an unprovoked terrorist invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 and murdered about 1,200 people, including some Americans and other foreign nationals – most of them civilians. Even babies and the elderly were butchered, and women were brutally raped, tortured and killed.
Hamas also took about 240 Israelis, Americans and others hostage. It continues to hold about 120 hostages in Gaza, including an unknown number who have died, and refuses to release all of them in exchange for far more Palestinian terrorists and other criminals imprisoned by Israel.
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In addition, Hamas terrorists continue to hide in tunnels, hospitals, schools, mosques, apartment buildings and homes in Gaza, often making it impossible for Israel to strike terrorists without hitting civilians as well, despite Israel’s unprecedented precautions to limit civilian casualties.
Netanyahu will doubtless note in his speech that Hamas and Hezbollah are funded and armed by the fanatical regime that rules Iran, which is committed to the destruction of America as well as Israel as it works to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran and its terrorist proxy forces launched more than 300 missiles and drones against Israel in April, but nearly all were shot down by Israeli, U.S., British and Jordanian forces. Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are also backed by Iran, struck an apartment building in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Friday with a drone, killing a man and prompting Israel to retaliate with airstrikes against gas and oil depots and a power station at a port in Yemen.
Even more alarmingly, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that Iran will be able to produce enough nuclear material in as little as a week or two to build an atomic bomb.
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Netanyahu is likely to call on the U.S. and Arab nations to work in partnership with Israel in their mutual self-interest to contain Iran with crippling economic sanctions and a credible threat of a military response to Iranian use of force.
A Palestinian state would give Iran and its client terrorist groups an additional base to threaten not just Israel, but America’s Arab allies and U.S. forces in the Middle East, and would allow terrorists to add to the devastation they have inflicted on Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.
It is unfortunate that Israel gets less support from Americans today than it did in years past because of propaganda successfully spread by those who hate Israel and Jews. I realize Netanyahu can’t instantly reverse this with one speech, but I hope he can make a strong case for why both Democratic and Republican officials and the American people should stand in solidarity with Israel and in opposition to its terrorist enemies and Iran.\
A resurgent Hamas ruling Gaza would inevitably lead to more suffering and death on the part of Palestinians as well as Israelis. The group must not be allowed to return to power.
Rewarding Hamas, Hezbollah and others with the type of Palestinian state demanded by Palestinian leadership and hand-wringing diplomats at the United Nations and elsewhere would benefit no one except bloodthirsty terrorists who callously sacrifice Palestinian lives on the altar of their hatred for Jews and the Jewish state.
