War upends U.S., Israeli politics

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Politics, it’s been long said, stops at the water’s edge.

But nowadays it seems to start there.

And not just in the U.S., but in Israel too, as both countries convulse over the military response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, which killed about 1,200 Israeli and international citizens and took more than 200 hostages.

It was in this context that Congress invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give an address for a record fourth time — even more than Winston Churchill.

And like the former British leader, the current Israeli one was confident and defiant in pledging to defeat the terrorist organization that’s an existential threat not just to Israel but to the vast majority of peaceful Palestinians who live in Gaza.

With so much of the global glare justifiably on the loss of Palestinian lives — more than 39,000 of them, according to the Hamas-run health ministry — Netanyahu offered an appropriate reminder of the depravity of the instigators of the war, the bravery of the forces fighting the terrorist organization, and the stakes not just to Israel and to the U.S., but to the region and indeed the world.

“This is not a clash of civilizations,” the prime minister told senators and representatives. “It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”

And yet in the U.S. and Israel, many in turn say that it’s Netanyahu and the extremists in his governing coalition who don’t sanctify life. And that criticism isn’t just from protesters (who Netanyahu deemed “Iran’s useful idiots,” with many acting like it by disgracefully burning American flags during his speech), but from some high-level legislators in Congress as well as some in Israeli society, particularly pointing to not valuing the lives of hostages enough to hammer out a cease-fire deal that would result in the release of the remaining captives — or in some tragic cases, their corpses. Also among those criticizing Netanyahu’s approach are some key members of Israel’s security establishment.

While Netanyahu received rapturous Republican applause (while Democrats, with around 50 of their members boycotting the event, were more tepid), the response in Israel might be more muted, Ronald R. Krebs, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, told an editorial writer. Krebs, who recently returned from nearly a month in Israel, said that “the primary audience for this speech was at home, not in the United States” and that Netanyahu “will try to use this as evidence that there is no one else in Israeli politics who commands the kind of bipartisan respect that he does in the United States.” But the Democratic defections may undermine that claim.

To that end, Netanyahu praised both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. And on Thursday, after visiting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, he’s scheduled to jet down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, whom he had very close ties to. Given his previous criticism of the Biden administration for pausing some arms delivery due to concern about civilian casualties, as well as his 2015 affront to then-President Barack Obama in criticizing the Iran nuclear deal in a similar address to Congress, it seems apparent that despite Trump’s resentment at Netanyahu recognizing Biden’s 2020 victory, the prime minister clearly prefers a return of Trump and an uncritical Republican Congress.

Many of those uncritical GOPers castigated Harris for not attending (she stuck to a prior speaking engagement). They were silent, however, about their vice-presidential candidate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, for skipping the address to campaign. The duplicity is disingenuous and diminishes the bipartisanship necessary to truly support Israel in its time of peril.

Criticism of Netanyahu’s Gaza policy doesn’t mean Democrats don’t have Israel’s back. In fact, it’s what true friends do. Israel not only has the right but the responsibility to defend against terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other Iranian proxies, let alone the theocracy itself. And Netanyahu is right to stress that through its military action “we keep Americans’ boots off the ground.”

But keeping Israeli boots on the ground and bombs in the air depends greatly on this country. “At the end of the day,” Krebs said, “when Israel finds itself faced with a serious crisis, as it did after Oct. 7, that in their judgment required complete mobilization of the IDF and its reserves, that even a wealthy Israel requires a very powerful and supportive American ally.”

Accordingly, the U.S. itself has every right and responsibility to influence Israeli policy, especially since that’s a direct reflection on our foreign policy. That’s something both sides of the aisle should consider as they continue to wade into politics beyond the water’s edge.