So Bibi gave his talk. I wrote up an advance briefing on what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would say before Congress on March 3 and got it almost perfect.  I even got some of the punch lines word-for-word. To be honest, that was an easy task. There was absolutely nothing original in this speech.  As is true with all ideologues, the man  just repeats himself over and over. 

Netanyahu was “interrupted for applause” 43 times.  If it is any comfort, that was fewer times than the 59 members of Congress who boycotted the talk.  I did not count standing ovations, but those Congresspersons were jumping up and down like clowns in a jack-in-the-box. They know how to behave when the boss is in the house. 

Netanyahu offered up his usual inflammatory mustard-gas rhetoric, demagoguing his audience with fear and hatred.  He made 12 different references to the Holocaust and genocide. Iran’s goal, as he presented it (apart from ruling “the entire world”),  is to exterminate the Jewish people. Same with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is ecstatically happy that the Jews are concentrated in Israel so they won’t have to “chase them down,” presumably in Michigan and elsewhere. At least that is how things look from BibiWorld.  

Several commentators, both American and Israeli, used the word “arrogant”, saying Netanyahu really does think he is the leader of this country. He was pointing to this member or that, waving to the crowd, first one way, then another, as if he were at a campaign stop. He also introduced a “special guest” in the balcony, just the way presidents have done during the State of the Union since President Reagan started that tradition. When he left the podium, he walked up the aisle, shaking hands and blessing the supplicants. He looked very presidential. 

As a patriotic American, I was disgusted and ashamed that our Congress would be so subservient as to allow such a spectacle.  

The timing  was significant in two ways. First, it was  originally planned for a few weeks ago, but was moved to the current date, a short two weeks before the Israeli election. Second, running it at 11 a.m. meant that those on the west coast could not watch unless they made special accommodations, but it was prime time back in Israel. Those who say this was a campaign stop for Bibi’s re-election have a good point. Netanyahu and his rivals are locked in a dead heat. If this adds a seat or two, it could make a difference. 

This appearance before Congress has to be seen in context. The US has two strategic goals in the Middle East. One is to work out something on the Israeli-Palestinian front. That conflict explodes every couple of years with massive human destruction. It is inflaming the region and, according to General David Petraeus who oversaw coalition forces in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, serves as a major recruiting tool for extremist groups. In other words, Americans are dying because of the occupation (and more will die in the future). 

The second strategic goal is to normalize Iran’s role in the world. That means working out an arrangement that makes sure its legal nuclear program (started with U.S. help when the shah was still in power) does not turn into a non-legal nuclear program (as defined by international protocols). In his first two appearances before Congress, Netanyahu tried to disrupt strategic goal number one (and seems to have succeeded). Now he is trying to disrupt strategic goal number two. This man is a real threat to American security interests. 

Leaving aside the specifics, I think this speech had two meta goals.

First, to make Israel the center of the debate over Iran rather than American security interests. The less Americans think about our own national interests, the stronger Israel will be. 

Second, Netanyahu wanted to blur the lines between U.S. and Israeli interests, as if they are the same. In fact, they are NOT the same (as he made very clear by this attack). 

And of course, if Netanyahu gets to choose the next President of the United States, or at least make that President responsive to the Likudist vision of the Middle East, that would be a Bibi Bonus.

Ron Stockton is a professor history at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.