TheAltWorld Netanyahu in Washington
Planned triumph looks set to end in failure
Benjamin Netanyahu had been planning on his current visit to Washington being a triumphal procession, where his speech to a joint session of an adoring Congress would rally US legislative and public backing for the war of extermination he is waging in the Gaza Strip.
But plans and wishes are one thing, outcomes another. The US Netanyahu is visiting today is divided and mired in chaos and confusion, facing deepening fractures and even talk of civil war, especially since Joe Biden decided — or was forced — not to run for re-election to a second term.
Netanyahu’s congressional address, and his entire tip, may be his last, and he will not succeed in attaining most if any of his objectives. He is running away from the divided entity he leads to a country that is even more divided internally and suffering external setbacks on multiple fronts, from Ukraine to the Red Sea.
Netanyahu will not be in a strong position enabling him to impose his terms on Biden. Quite the contrary. His withdrawal from the electoral race puts Biden in the stronger position to face up to Netanyahu, who has repeatedly humiliated and insulted him. With nothing left to worry about or lose, maybe the time has come for the outgoing president to settle scores.
Biden’s chosen successor as Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, has a long record of blind devotion to Israel. But to become president she will need the votes of Muslim immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos who between them make up 40% of the electorate. That may prompt her to become less supportive of Netanyahu and his genocidal war on Gaza.
Moreover, for the first time since the creation of the racist entity the State of Israel, Netanyahu will encounter noisy crowds of demonstrators in front of the White House and Congress protesting against him and in support of and solidarity with his victims in Gaza. He never experienced or expected anything like that on any of his previous sojourns.
The deep state in the US compelled Biden stand down in Harris’ favour because it does not want Trump back in the White House, not least because of his good relations with President Putin. That became ever more likely after Biden’s disastrous failure in the TV debate and the mysterious failed assassination attempt against Trump. It would not be surprising if Biden’s COVID diagnosis was contrived to justify his withdrawal.
Netanyahu has reportedly tried to arrange a meeting with Trump during his visit, and is clearly banking on his return to power to bolster his own political fortunes. But whether a meeting takes place or not, it will do him little good and could even be counter-productive, because Netanyahu may no longer be in power once Trump, as he dreams, returns to the White House, (and that, too, is not guaranteed).
The US is no longer the superpower that controls the world through force or globalisation as it did for decades.
Nor are the Arabs any longer the dumb Arabs whose armies Israel would defeat in a matter of a few hours. While there are still plenty of Arab regimes in thrall to the US and Israel, there is now also a Resistance Axis with seven fronts — fighting, support, or both — actively confronting the joint US-Israeli aggression by land, sea, and air.
They used to defeat us with warplanes costing tens of millions of dollars each, now we defeat them with drones costing a few thousand.
Biden is on his way out, Netanyahu is set to follow, and the time could be fast approaching for client Arab regimes engaged in collusion and normalisation. The war is expanding, the resistance is chalking up successes, and all the rules of engagement are changing.
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