Netanyahu lied shamelessly in his address to Congress today

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's hugely unpopular prime minister, is that country's Donald Trump in this regard: Netanyahu lies shamelessly, seeks to cling to power to avoid being held to account for crimes he's committed, and avoids taking responsibility for his failures.

Today Netanyahu used an address to Congress, which was boycotted by a large proportion of Democrats in the House and Senate, to continue spreading falsehoods about how Israel has been conducting the war against Hamas under his failed leadership. 

I watched most of the speech, then couldn't stand all the B.S. that was flowing freely from Netanyahu's mouth, and fast-forwarded my recording of the speech to the analysis on CNN after he'd finished talking.

That analysis was pretty damn devastating. An Israeli criticized Netanyahu harshly, saying that his approval rating in Israel is dismal, about 30%, and the vast majority of Israelis want an election to be held where they can get rid of Netanyahu.

He added that Netanyahu failed to mention that the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas took place under Netanyahu's watch. Indeed, Netanyahu had harsh words for Iran, American protesters, Hamas, Palestinian leadership, and others, but somehow neglected to mention that he was the one in charge when Hamas conducted its "surprise" attack -- which actually wasn't a surprise, since Israeli intelligence had gotten word of it, but nothing was done to prevent it by Netanyahu's administration. 

Prior to the speech I heard Fareed Zakaria make some great points on CNN that Netanyahu also ignored in his speech. Netanyahu keeps saying that his goal is to destroy Hamas. But that's impossible, as Zakaria pointed out and many others have echoed.

Hamas is a movement, an ideology.

Its weapons and fighters can be destroyed, at least in part, but an ideology can't be destroyed so long as the conditions that make it appealing continue to exist. Israel's wholesale destruction of Gaza and the killing of 39,000 people in Gaza guarantee that Hamas will remain popular among a population that has suffered so greatly from the reckless way Israel has been conducting the war.

So Netanyahu is guaranteeing that Hamas will remain a viable ideology, Zakaria said, by ruling out the possibility of Palestinian statehood, the two-state solution favored by the United States and most of the rest of the world. Further, Netanyahu doesn't want Hamas to govern Gaza after the war is over, but he also doesn't want an alternative Palestinian government to do this.

It's obvious that Netanyahu doesn't want peace, but endless war -- with Hamas, with Hezbollah, with Iran.

That's the only way he can stay in power, by claiming that elections can't be held in Israel so long as the country is on a war footing. What was disgusting was that Israelis recognize what a self-centered liar Netanyahu is, while his mostly Republican audience kept cheering and having standing ovations for him today.

Netanyahu talked about how continuing the war against Hamas was necessary to bring all of the hostages home. But he failed to mention that almost all of the hostages who have been freed so far were released during a cease fire agreement with Hamas. This is why so many relatives of the remaining hostages are angry at Netanyahu for rejecting another ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Here's some other lies in Netanyahu's speech, according to CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond argued many of the claims made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “flew in the face” of facts during his address to Congress.

Netanyahu spoke in front of Congress on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war in Gaza. Shortly after the speech, Diamond appeared on CNN to fact check a number of things Netanyahu said.

“He talked about big numbers of aid getting in,” Diamond said, “but there is just very, very clear evidence — you talk to any humanitarian organization that actually works on the ground in Gaza, [like] The United Nations — and even when you look at Israel in the way that they have turned on and back off the faucet of aid to Gaza. There is clear evidence that Israel has not always allowed enough aid in, that they have not done enough to deconflict militarily, to provide safe routes for that aid to get in. And you also have to remember that ministers, members of his, Netanyahu’s own government called for starving the people of Gaza in the earliest days of the war.”

Diamond then called it “laughable” that when the prime minister talked about civilian deaths in Rafah, he claimed there were “practically none.”

“I can think of several strikes in which civilians were killed,” Diamond continued. “That just doesn’t even pass the smell test. And then he once again cited this West Point expert, John Spencer, claiming that Israel has the lowest civilian-casualty ratio. [If] you talk to any other expert on the conduct of militaries in warfare, including how the United States has carried out its campaigns, and they will all say that Israel has not taken nearly as many precautions as most modern militaries do in warfare, in Gaza.”

For sure.

As noted above, about 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Israel has said that about 14,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. This means about 25,000 civilians have been killed by Israel. That's about 1% of the population of Gaza. If the same proportion of Americans were killed, that'd be more that 3,300,000 people. 

Is it any wonder that most Americans disagree with how Israel has been conducting the war against Hamas? We may not be protesting in the streets, but 56% of us don't like what Israel is doing. This helps explain why Kamala Harris and JD Vance both passed on attending Netanyahu's speech. He isn't popular in Israel, and he isn't popular in the United States.

Comments

[Les Margosian]

Splendid article/editorial on Netanjahu's incredibly mendacious speech to our incredibly venal, cowardly and servile Congress people. Venal because they've been bought by Israeli lobby donations, cowardly because they live in fear of lobby deciding to support a political rival, and
servile because they welcome control of our country's foreign policy having been usurped by a foreign country whose interests are far different than ours.
One of the more incredible lies this international criminal fed our congressional supplicants was that it wasn't really the Israelis who were killing Palestinians but it was Hamas shooting them and then blaming the Israeli Army!! For this nonsensical absurdity he received a standing ovation.