Haaretz: Netanyahu doesn’t care about the prisoners… He went to Congress to rally more support in his war
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper criticized the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the US Congress, stopping at its content.
The purpose of Netanyahu’s trip to the United States and his appearance before Congress wasn’t and never was to push through a deal that would bring back Israeli prisoners and put an end to the fighting and suffering, but to rally more American support to continue the flames of war.
Haaretz said Netanyahu went there to do the best he does, which is exerting political and public pressure on the White House by addressing the House of Representatives and cameras in the United States directly.
A contradiction between Netanyahu’s denial of Israel’s intention to establish settlements in the Gaza Strip, the newspaper explained between the lines of the speech, explaining that what Netanyahu calls disarmament and security control is quickly turning into actual settlements, and similar to the actual annexation of the West Bank, actual settlement always begins with security reasons.
Haaretz stopped when Democratic lawmakers were absent from the speech, considering it an equally important part of the congressional scene, adding that enthusiastic applause gave the impression of cross-camp support, but in reality, dozens of Democratic lawmakers didn’t attend.
Haaretz concluded that Netanyahu didn’t succeed in updating his political and security model, which it stressed was a failure, stressing that this brought Israel to this miserable situation, and recalling 9 months of a depleted war with large numbers of dead, wounded, prisoners and evacuated Israelis.
Some Democratic lawmakers not only boycotted Netanyahu’s speech, but also expressed their displeasure about it Wednesday.
Among them was Senator Benny Sander, who asserted in a post on X that Israelis want Netanyahu out of government, so he came to Congress to campaign promoting himself,” adding that he wasn’t only a war criminal, but also a liar.
Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stressed that Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was the worst offer ever made by a foreign official to Congress”.
