Netanyahu in Washington: Combative talk, little substance

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the US has been marked by protests, a fiery speech at the US Capitol and meetings with the current US leader and the two candidates most likely to take his place. Hanging in the air — the fate of a cease-fire and hostage release deal back in Gaza.

Netanyahu's presence in Washington comes at a particularly strange juncture for the country. President Joe Biden will meet the Israeli prime minister on Thursday. The meeting takes place after Biden gave a speech in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening addressing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election race. 

The domestic political atmosphere is complicated, and analysts say Netanyahu's message would have made more sense if it had been delivered earlier.

"When I think about it, the timing is so odd," said Brian Katulis, a US foreign policy expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. "It might have been better if he did it between October and the spring when the Republican Party, under [Speaker] Mike Johnson, held up funding for Israel's defense for about six months," he argued, referring to a delay in passing assistance packages for Ukraine and Israel earlier this year.

Republican lawmakers had demanded stricter controls on the US' southern border in return for their vote on the assistance packages.    

'Very substantive, very detailed discussion'

Ahead of the meeting between Biden and Netanyahu, a senior US administration official told reporters that the agenda would center around closing "the final gaps" in a possible cease-fire and hostage release deal being negotiated between Israel and the militant Hamas group, which is recognized by the US and EU as a terrorist organization. 

A "very substantive, very detailed discussion" is expected, the senior official said.

The meeting comes in the middle of Netanyahu's five-day visit to the US. The most dramatic moment unfolded on Wednesday, with the Israeli prime minister's speech to US lawmakers in Washington. Thousands of chanting protesters, angry at Netanyahu's handling of the war, gathered outside the Capitol building, juxtaposed with the applauding lawmakers inside. 

Analysts have said Netanyahu's speech itself was short on substance.

"What stood out to me were two things: the combative rhetoric that he used to frame his attack on critics and political opponents, and then second, the emptiness in the actual policy ideas he was presenting to address Israel's security challenges," said Katulis. "In my view, the speech was all sizzle, no steak, or as I sometimes call it, a nothingburger. There really was nothing in there in terms of content that answered the key questions that Israel is facing today."

As anticipated by many observers, the question of Netanyahu's support for a cease-fire and hostage release deal was left unresolved by the speech — although Netanyahu did mention the need to free the remaining close to 120 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, living or dead. He said "intensive efforts" were underway to get them released.

Ahead of Netanyahu's arrival, Secretary of State Antony Blinken had previously defined "a successful visit" as one that saw a cease-fire deal finalized and a way forward for postwar Gaza.  

No serious plan for postwar Gaza

But Katulis said that, so far, Netanyahu does not have a day-after plan for Gaza that Arab states would be willing to support. 

"He did float some gauzy vision of what a postwar Gaza would look like, but it's not anything that any significant Arab partner, like Saudi Arabia, would agree to, because it does not include a pathway to create a state of Palestine," he said. 

The fact that Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed legislation last week calling the creation of a Palestinian state "an existential danger" by a wide majority means any such plan is even further away. 

As attention turns toward whether the meeting between Biden and Netanyahu would result in more material progress in terms of a cease-fire deal, Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential candidacy means her position toward Gaza is also coming into focus. She is set to meet Netanyahu separately after he meets with Biden. 

While Harris has followed the Biden administration policy on Israel's right to defend itself, she was also the first senior administration official to call for an immediate cease-fire. Along with dozens of Democratic lawmakers — about half of the Democrats in Congress and the Senate boycotted the event — she was not present at Netanyahu's speech to Congress. Her office cited a campaign scheduling conflict.

That conflict allowed her to sidestep a political contrivance of the Republicans' making, said Filippo Trevisan, an associate professor of public communications at the American University in Washington.

"By inviting Netanyahu, Speaker Johnson hoped to create a media spectacle that would tie the Democrats, including Kamala Harris, to the protesters outside the Capitol," said Trevisan.

That might have worked for the loyal Republican base but in the end, it also created an opportunity for Harris, he continued.

"Her absence enabled her to project an image of a leader whose agenda isn't dictated by others and could also help her mend the relationship with pro-Palestinian voters that the Democrats need to win in November," he said.

Many young Americans and Arab Americans have been angered by Biden's commitment to Israel, even as the death toll in Gaza approaches 40,000, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry. Israel started its ongoing military campaign following Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which killed just under 1,200 individuals.

Edited by: Cristina Burack