When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, hopes that the wartime premier will “really speak to the bipartisan consensus around Israel—that he will be able to bring together both sides around the existential struggle Israel is facing right now.”
Hauer told JNS that he hopes that Netanyahu will present a counter-narrative to the one that “has been peddled around and which is gaining far too much traction,” that Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians the oppressed.
Netanayhu should “tell patiently, convincingly, the story of the values which are being brought to bear by the Jewish people in response to this horrible, sustained attack on our very existence,” he said.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told reporters in Milwaukee last week that he also hopes that Netanyahu will “help shift public opinion back to the horrors suffered by Israel.”
“This is not a war that Israel wanted,” he said. “This is not a war that Israel started.”
Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.), one of two Jewish House Republicans, told JNS last week that he thinks Netanyahu will address two points.
“One is that Israel recognizes that the United States is Israel’s greatest ally, and he knows how the majority of the American people feel about Israel, and also feel about the Jewish people,” said Kustoff.
The Tennessee Republican also thinks that Netanyahu “is going to continue to make the case that Israel and the United States must defeat terrorism down to its roots.”
‘Warmth’
Netanyahu need not come across as “mushy” or a “teddy bear” as he seeks to bridge Washington’s partisan divide with respect to the Jewish state, according to Hauer. But the Orthodox Union leader is looking for “warmth” from the premier, he told JNS.
“He is completely capable of being very articulate and clear about the strength which America has led Israel to over time, and about the strength of their moral voice, and what a difference it has made to us,” said Hauer.
He cited the military assets that Washington provided Israel and the way that it backed the Jewish state in international fora in the opening days of the conflict.
“Yes, we wish some of the things that we asked from you would come faster and more completely, but there’s a pipeline for goodness’ sake, and you have been providing for us, and we’re deeply appreciative of that,” Hauer said, channeling the tone he wants to hear from Netanyahu.
Fruitful relationship
Speaking to reporters in Milwaukee last week, Brooks said that past Trump ire about his political rivals receiving credit—including Netanyahu’s routine congratulations to Biden after the latter won the 2020 election—was water under the bridge.
“I can assure you that he and the prime minister will have a very positive and productive working relationship,” Brooks told reporters of Trump. The RJC leader said that he has had conversations with both Trump and Netanyahu.
Brooks didn’t share details of conversations with Trump but claimed he could say with “absolute certainty” that the relationship, should Trump be re-elected, “will be productive, fruitful and pick up right where it left off.”
Hauer asserted that the issue of concern over Trump’s reaction to praise for Biden in a speech could not simply be “cast aside.”
“This is a political season, and anything which he says is going to be used and reflected upon by candidates on both sides,” said Hauer. “I don’t think it would be wise for anybody to put something like this aside for the day. To say that those considerations have to throttle him and has to stop them from being able to say clearly what ought to be said about America, about both sides of the aisle, I don’t think it should get in the way.”
Antisemitism
Hauer told JNS that he hopes Netanyahu will devote more than just a “throwaway line” to surging Jew-hatred worldwide since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack.
“It’s just a fundamental issue that we are dealing with right now. This is an issue which has to be elevated in the eyes of Congress,” said Hauer. “When such a prominent leader within the Jewish people comes before them, for him not to focus on it would minimize the issue—one of the core issues that Congress has to be dealing with around the Jewish people.”
Brooks hopes one takeaway from the address will be that the United States and its close ally share a common foe.
“Israel is fighting against Hamas, and it is the same fight that affects America and the west. This is not an Israel-only issue,” he said. “Israel’s fight is America’s fight. America’s fight is Israel’s fight.”