Bennett more American than Netanyahu as prime minister? – why it matters

Israel has had only 13 prime ministers in its 73-year history.

Only three of them – Golda Meir, Netanyahu and Bennett – had lived in the US for extensive periods, including children.

Both Mir and Netanyahu graduated from American high schools and obtained higher baccalaureate degrees in the US. Meir and Bennett had US citizenship and then relinquished. All three had experience working there.

It is a history that allowed for linguistic and cultural fluency, which gave all three an immediate advantage when dealing with Israel’s major ally.

MIT graduate Netanyahu combined tremendous oratory skills that made him the county’s best-known advocate dating back to the 1980s, when he was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, through his tenure as prime minister in the 1990s. continued to.

It was a skill that Netanyahu nailed down this year during his 12-year tenure as premier and on which he campaigned, leaving behind the notion that his absence would create a deep void in Israel-US relations – especially In particular, his strong ties with American politicians, including US President Joe Biden, whom he has known for nearly four decades.

Netanyahu’s mythical vision is that of a prime minister who can stand firm in defending Israel’s core survival and policy interests, as well as woo American politicians.

It was made more powerful by Netanyahu’s ability to use the language of American democracy to defend the policies of right-wing Israel.

The dance was considered so magical that no other Israeli leader could be expected to follow.

However, early indications suggest that Bennett, whose parents are from California’s Golden State, may outnumber Netanyahu in this one specific area.

During his short time in office, Bennett has already dismissed Netanyahu’s warnings that he may not stand firm against Washington.

Bennett has come face-to-face with the Biden administration over the issue of house breaking. He demolished the home of a Palestinian-American terrorist accused of killing 19-year-old Yehuda Guetta, ignoring a direct US request not to take such punitive measures.

Even after the State Department attacked him for this, Bennett did not back down from this position. Over the objections of the Biden administration, he has continued the policy of demolishing illegally constructed Palestinian structures in Area C of the West Bank and has agreed to legalize the Aviatar outpost.

These West Bank moves are an extension of his earlier policies and in keeping with the policies of Bennett, who is under Netanyahu’s authority.

But Bennett balanced those negatives with something positive. He was careful to lean towards the Biden administration by taking steps toward regional peace, with a series of gestures aimed at improving Israel’s ties with Jordan, which had cooled under Netanyahu.

He agreed to execute two major deals: one to nearly double the amount of water sold by Israel to the Hashemi Empire and another to increase Jordan’s ability to trade with Palestinians in the West Bank by expanding export limits. to increase.

The Biden administration immediately expressed its gratitude.

Over the past two weeks, Bennett has not only shown the White House that he will take steps for peace: He also told Biden and the American public that his history was his history and that his values ​​were his values.

Bennett is the first Israeli prime minister to have American parents and an American-American family that is more than a century old.

When he spoke at the US Embassy’s US Independence Day event last week, he made sure to mention that his family came to California during the Gold Rush.

Nor was his family ignorant of 20th century American history. Bennett also dropped the story of how his father Jim was arrested during a civil rights protest after he participated in a sit-in at a California hotel that refused to hire African-Americans. Had given. It was a story he held dear not only to Biden but also to left-wing Americans, including American Jews. In Israel, he may be on the right, but in American territory, he is one of them.

It wasn’t just the story that painted this picture.

Bennett underscored his value of diversity, noting that his alliance consisted of both Jews and Arabs. Finally, he emphasized the importance of maintaining bipartisan support for Israel, indicating that he was a prime minister who wanted to work with all the American public, not just a few of them.

It was the kind of speech that Netanyahu could not and did not need to, when former US President Donald Trump was in office, when those issues were on the backburner.

Netanyahu’s strong ties with Trump had huge consequences for Israel, especially the right-wing. Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognized the city as Israel’s capital. He legalized settlement activity and published a peace plan that placed those communities within Israel’s final borders. During Trump’s tenure, the US scrapped the Iran deal and imposed severe sanctions on Iran in an attempt to halt its campaign to build nuclear weapons.

Most significantly, Trump brokered the Abrahamic Agreement, by which four Arab nations agreed to normalize relations with the Jewish state.

These incredible achievements were due in large part to Netanyahu’s diplomatic skills.

However, they came at the cost of weak ties between American Jews and Israel, many of whom felt Netanyahu had tilted Trump on the issue of anti-right wing.

The US-Israel bond also worsened, as Israel was seen as a partisan issue rather than bipartisan, with Trump accusing American Jews who supported the Democratic Party of being loyal to Israel and the Jewish people. did.

This classic Netanyahu was meant to dismiss not only those issues, but to turn the personal chemistry between him and Trump into the larger narrative of how he and he alone, with any US president, is a unique addition to the state of Israel. will be property.

In fact the reality was quite the opposite. Eight of his 12 consecutive years – two-thirds – were marked by tensions between him and former US President Barack Obama. Even former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who had never lived in the US, had a better understanding of how to speak with Obama than Netanyahu.

Netanyahu never prompted Obama to drop his objection to compromise activity or pre-1967 support. Nor did he explain to her the dangers of the Iran deal.

There was a time when he insulted America with the proclamation of a Jewish building in East Jerusalem during Biden’s visit to Israel, when he was the US Vice President. Netanyahu then appealed to the US Congress to defy President Obama’s will by opposing the Iran deal, an act that left him personified in the White House.

Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency instead of Trump in 2016, Netanyahu’s track record with regard to the US would have been quite different, with tensions between the two countries increasing rather than decreasing.

When evaluating the effectiveness of an Israeli prime minister against a US president, it’s not just the diplomatic skill set needed: personality and values ​​matter, too.

Netanyahu and Biden’s friendship would certainly have helped US-Israel relations. However, in the diplomatic world, the two men are an odd couple not unlike the Obama pair, with different goals and values.

Unlike Netanyahu, Bennett is prime minister of a limited term: about two years. His success with America will rise or fall with this Democratic administration, led by a president to whom human rights and diversity matter.

True, the tension point here with Biden, as with Netanyahu, will be Bennett’s right-wing stance when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But Netanyahu will have a hard time navigating after Trump by reintroducing democracy into the equation.

Bennett, with his background, can sound as American as Netanyahu. His brief speeches have already shown that he understands the importance of democratic discourse and that when it comes to this president, he can speak the same language more effectively than Netanyahu.

What is important here is not only that Bennett could become the new fact of Israel to the American public, but that the tone he knows how to present could quell the expected discord, healing some partisan cracks. and reset US-Israel relations. At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise in America.