Benjamin Netanyahu is about to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. “He’ll be the first foreign leader to have done so four times, more even than Winston Churchill. And nothing he says will matter,” Yair Rosenberg writes. [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)
“That’s not just because the speech is happening in the shadow of extraordinary electoral upheaval, days after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and hours before Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office. No, the Israeli premier’s speech will be forgotten for a more fundamental reason: Although Netanyahu is very good at delivering portentous pronouncements, his words tend to have few consequences beyond the immediate attention they attract.
“One would think that onlookers would have figured this out by now. After all, Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, to lobby against Barack Obama’s impending Iran nuclear deal. It was a masterful piece of political performance art. It also did not derail the nuclear deal. The prime minister’s speech generated weeks of political strife and breathless media coverage in the United States, but the deal went into effect in January 2016, after the Republican-controlled Congress failed to muster the necessary votes to obstruct it. Practically speaking, Netanyahu’s dramatic intervention achieved nothing, other than rallying Democrats around their president and his signature diplomatic achievement.
“In reality, Netanyahu never had the clout in Congress to seriously challenge the deal—the address was about him and [bolstering his standing](https://www.timesofisrael.com/campaign-ad-shows-netanyahu-speech-before-congress/) in Israel’s upcoming election, not about changing the course of U.S. diplomacy. Countless “important” Netanyahu addresses in Israel, America, and the United Nations for more than a decade have followed this pattern: The Israeli leader uses his speeches to burnish his brand as a statesman of stature, but his words are only tenuously connected to any real-world outcomes.”
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Benjamin Netanyahu is about to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. “He’ll be the first foreign leader to have done so four times, more even than Winston Churchill. And nothing he says will matter,” Yair Rosenberg writes. [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)
“That’s not just because the speech is happening in the shadow of extraordinary electoral upheaval, days after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and hours before Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office. No, the Israeli premier’s speech will be forgotten for a more fundamental reason: Although Netanyahu is very good at delivering portentous pronouncements, his words tend to have few consequences beyond the immediate attention they attract.
“One would think that onlookers would have figured this out by now. After all, Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, to lobby against Barack Obama’s impending Iran nuclear deal. It was a masterful piece of political performance art. It also did not derail the nuclear deal. The prime minister’s speech generated weeks of political strife and breathless media coverage in the United States, but the deal went into effect in January 2016, after the Republican-controlled Congress failed to muster the necessary votes to obstruct it. Practically speaking, Netanyahu’s dramatic intervention achieved nothing, other than rallying Democrats around their president and his signature diplomatic achievement.
“In reality, Netanyahu never had the clout in Congress to seriously challenge the deal—the address was about him and [bolstering his standing](https://www.timesofisrael.com/campaign-ad-shows-netanyahu-speech-before-congress/) in Israel’s upcoming election, not about changing the course of U.S. diplomacy. Countless “important” Netanyahu addresses in Israel, America, and the United Nations for more than a decade have followed this pattern: The Israeli leader uses his speeches to burnish his brand as a statesman of stature, but his words are only tenuously connected to any real-world outcomes.”
Read more: [https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit](https://theatln.tc/PJItpYit)