Sitting in Tel Aviv tonight and watching Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations was an interesting experience. As someone who has never been a supporter of Netanyahu, it was clear to me (and all the others in the room) why he keeps being elected Prime Minister – and why he is likely to be re-elected again next time.
Israelis prefer hearing Netanyahu speak for them at the U.N. over any other possible candidate. It's not just his command of the English language, but, rather, his ability to tie together and communicate all of the threats facing Israel into one neat package.
His speech was clearly aimed at a domestic audience. The address was covered live on all the Israeli television channels, in prime-time. The Prime Minister knew what he was doing and there is no question that this speech helped him politically in Israel. The problem with the speech is that almost everything he said was true – but, so what? It is impossible to translate all the truths he stated into policy, either for Israel or for the rest of world.
There is no question Netanyahu was correct when he tied the militancy of the Islamic State to the ideological militancy of Hamas, and to the ideological militancy and revolutionary fever in Iran. All share the same theoretical goals. All share the same militancy. In politics one does not only judge a state by its ideology but on its actions, its interest and its immediate intentions. If policies were drafted solely based on ideology then President Richard Nixon could never have gone to China and the nuclear disarmament treaties could never have been written.
Netanyahu is correct when he says that Iran as a “nuclear threshold state” (a status it might obtain in current negotiations) is a terrible reality. He is also right that if Hamas could wipe out the State of Israel in the blink of an eye, it would.
Yet, sitting in Tel Aviv, working to fund a new start-up I am involved in whose whole premise is based on travel and a connected world, I find it hard to listen to Netanyahu. With three children, I have to believe that the world will continue to move toward becoming a better place. I need to believe that all of the threats facing Israel will be overcome. I want to believe that, despite the fact that until now the Palestinians seem unwilling to make the necessary concessions to bring about peace (as do our own leaders), we will eventually achieve that peace.
I am sure much of the world did not appreciate Netanyahu’s speech today. It was a speech that I did not appreciate either. I could not decide: Was it the speech of a man willing to stand up to conventional wisdom and tell the truth? Or was it a speech of a man who sees threats everywhere? Of a man unable to seize what’s positive in the world and find solutions?
I know that I and most of my fellow Tel Avivans want to believe it’s the latter. A little voice nagging inside of me, however, keeps wondering – maybe Netanyahu is right and our world is as bad as he says.
