Echoes of Churchill as Bibi heads for D.C.
IN two weeks, Binyamin Netanyahu will be arriving in Washington on what he described this week as his most important visit as prime minister. Not just because he’ll be breaking Churchill’s record for the most Congressional addresses by a foreign leader, but because of the circumstances under which he’ll be doing so.
A fervent admirer of Britain’s cigar-smoking wartime leader, Bibi has never identified with his hero more than he does now. It’s no longer the future threat of a nuclear Iran he’ll be warning about, but an ongoing seven-front war against Iran and its proxies. And like Churchill, he needs American arms shipments.
This isn’t how Netanyahu envisioned his next visit to Washington, and this isn’t the background Joe Biden hoped to welcome him against. Nine months back, both Netanyahu and Biden looked forward to meeting on the White House lawn to sign a formal peace treaty with Saudi Arabia, the largest and most powerful of the Arab states, months before the presidential election.
Not even in his worst nightmares did Netanyahu imagine coming after the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with Israel locked in a bloody war that has left tens of thousands of Israelis refugees in their own country.
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