Visiting DC, Netanyahu and Lapid vie for critical title of Israel’s most adept US whisperer

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Yair Lapid, the leader of his opposition, are in Washington, ostensibly to attend the funeral of one of the staunchest pro-Israel American politicians, Lindsey Graham.

They are also, as Lapid made clear in an appearance Monday at the influential Atlantic Council think tank, launching a bruising election campaign and are intensely seeking the favor of a constituent who does not vote in Israel on October 27: President Donald Trump.

Or more broadly, the favor of Americans.

Israeli-born Netanyahu, who was raised in Philadelphia, has made a career of defining himself as his country’s best, even inevitable, envoy to its most important ally. He met with Trump on Tuesday. Lapid in his speech sought to portray Netanyahu’s public diplomacy – the defining characteristic of his political career – as busted and harmful.

“The first step is obvious” to restoring Israel’s reputation, Lapid said. “Send into retirement Benjamin Netanyahu and his group of extremists who are tearing us apart at home and abroad.”

Lapid, who speaks in fluent but accented English, says he wants to be the foreign minister in the next government, one led by Naftali Bennett, a security hawk, as prime minister. He, too, claims an intimacy with the American psyche, evident in an essay he just published in The Atlantic about the cross-country road trips he takes every several years.

Netanyahu is on a mission to secure support for continuing and winning the war he and Trump launched against Iran. In remarks in Hebrew he recorded just prior to leaving Israel on Monday, he leaned into his friendship with Trump.

“I am on my way to Washington to a meeting with our friend the president of the United States, Donald Trump,” he said, standing with his wife, Sara, outside the airplane. “This is my eighth meeting with him since he was elected for his second term, more than any other world leader. It is a great privilege, and also a great responsibility.”

Both Lapid and Netanyahu claimed a closeness to Graham, the South Carolina Republican senator who helped Netanyahu cajole Trump into the war with Iran. Graham, Netanyahu said, was “a true friend of mine and the state of Israel.” Lapid inserted Graham into his argument that the long term goal for Israel and the United States should be the collapse of the Iranian regime. “The last conversation I had with the late Lindsey Graham was about this,” he said Monday.

Lapid at the outset of his remarks sought to erode Netanyahu’s reputation as an America whisperer, saying the coming election would “be the most dramatic, the most crucial, the most intense the country has ever seen.”

“Here is the not to-do list for the Israeli government if you don’t want to witness the complete collapse of the country’s international status.”

Lapid accused Netanyahu of isolating Israel by caving to extremists in his government and alienating allies. Instead, he laid out a formula for how the next prime minister would govern.

“If a minister in your government says a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza, fire him. If a minister in your government says there are circumstances in which it is acceptable to starve the civilian population, fire him. If a minister stands over a large group of handcuffed activists lying on the floor of a detention facility, waving a flag and mocking them, fire him,” Lapid said.

He was referring, respectively, to controversial statements and actions by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, some of which have been used to fuel the claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the war Hamas launched on October 7, 2023 with deadly raids inside Israel.

Netanyahu’s mission comes at a perilous juncture in the US-Israel relationship, and his own reputation. Trump’s approval ratings are at a low as the war appears to have generated victories for Iran, which now controls the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway critical to the passage of a fifth of the world’s petroleum. Inflation has skyrocketed, US allies are furious, and Americans in large majorities oppose the war, just as Trump is facing his own electoral test less than 100 days before the midterm elections.

Netanyahu is unpopular in the United States, and for the first time, Americans are more likely to favor Palestinians than Israelis. An Economist poll published Tuesday showed half of Americans supported Netanyahu’s arrest. Trump wants Israel to stay out of the war, crippling Israel’s ability to influence the outcome of the conflict that continues to loom on its border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, hopes to regain its strength.

Lapid’s audience here is mostly left of center: His host at the event was Daniel Shapiro, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Israel. A spokesman for Lapid said that other than his attendance at Graham’s funeral, his only public appearance on his trip to the United States this week would be with a group of Democratic senators.

The Atlantic Council is bipartisan, but its Republican component is made up mostly of the old-school believers in alliances that Trump has all but ousted from the party. Seated in the front row was Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor to former President George W. Bush, who is a board member of the Atlantic Council.

Lapid said reconciling with Democrats would be a priority in the next government, should his dream team emerge victorious: Bennett as prime minister, Lapid as foreign minister and Gadi Eisenkot as defense minister. Eizenkot, who has in recent polls surpassed Bennet and Netanyahu, obviously might have different ideas about who gets which job.

“Elizabeth Warren, John Ossoff and Tim Kaine are not the enemy,” he said, referring to Democratic senators from Massachusetts, Georgia and Virginia who have been critical of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, and who have voted to suspend defense as...

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: The Times of Israel. Open at source →