Netanyahu’s high-profile U.S. visit derailed by shifting politics here and at home
LA TimesA mobile billboard opposing military aid for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears in front of the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday. Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a weeklong U.S. trip Friday with a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, tipping his hat to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, after stops at the two citadels of U.S. power: the White House and the Capitol. In separate private meetings with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, Netanyahu heard some of the toughest talk yet on the urgent need to accept a cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to U.S. officials. In his address to Congress — a largely dark speech vowing absolute victory in Gaza — Netanyahu dismissed U.S. protesters as “useful idiots” acting on behalf of Israel’s enemies. “For all of his unwavering defense of Israel, it falls flat for too many,” Michael Koplow, chief policy officer for the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based analytical group, wrote in a weekly column appearing Friday, “both because of problems of Netanyahu’s own creation and his omnipresent choice to elevate his own political security before the fundamental security of Israel.” Koplow added: “Netanyahu wins, Israel loses.” Israelis who traveled to Washington to protest against Netanyahu, including relatives of Israelis and Americans still being held hostage by Hamas, said many members of Congress and others in the U.S. fail to grasp how unpopular the prime minister is at home.