Tel Aviv Diary: Did Bibi's Speech Do the Trick?

Last night (Israel time), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington speaking to Congress, where he attacked the outlines of an agreement that seems to be taking shape between the United States and Iran over the latter's nuclear program. Israelis across the political spectrum have been expressing opinions about the speech long before the first words were uttered.

Yesterday morning on the radio, senior political commentator Hanan Crystal called Netanyahu's speech "the central event in the 2015 election campaign." It would be hard to overstate the political importance of this speech to the prime minister. He was first invited to give the talk two weeks ago, then requested that the address be moved, ostensibly to coincide with his scheduled address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, then conveniently moved it closer to Israel's March 17 elections.

Prior to the prime minister's congressional speech there was a universal sense that the Likud campaign was in deep trouble. It has faltered due to its failure to address the social and economic issues that Israelis have repeatedly said concern them the most. Netanyahu's response to the state comptroller's report on the housing crisis—which was that while housing is important, it is not as important as living (a reference to the Iranian nuclear threat)—did not go over well.

Even before Netanyahu made his speech, it had clearly achieved his goal of changing the public narrative. For several days, the discussion in the country has been about the speech and the Iranian threat, the one area where Netanyahu has a clearly perceived advantage over his rivals. In the days leading up to the speech, Israeli news media commentators were dubious about whether the prime minister's choice to deliver the speech was the appropriate action to take at this moment.

On Saturday night, Dov Weisglass, one of former prime minister Ariel Sharon's closest advisers, summed up the view of most Israeli commentators best, saying that if there was even a 1 percent chance of changing the outcome of the Iran negotiations with Iran a speech, then the potential harm that Netanyahu is causing to Israel-American relations would be worth it. However, since Weisglass did not believe there was even a 1 percent chance of the speech having an effect, he thought it was a big mistake.

So now the speech has come and gone. There is no question that those who were sitting in their living rooms in Tel Aviv and throughout Israel watching it on TV were impressed, despite the five-minute delay mandated by the Israeli election commission, in case Netanyahu began giving an election campaign appeal.

The citizens of Israel saw the Congress give Netanyahu repeated standing ovations. This show of approval was without question impressive. Israelis know they have never before had a leader who gives such powerful speeches in English. Yet, to most Israelis, there was little new, as the address was similar to several of Netanyahu's past speeches about Iran.

What impact the speech will have on the election is not clear. This evening I spoke to a wide variety of Israelis, and most had not yet heard the speech and had no opinion.

I did have a chance to speak to a group of men at a local bar who had heard the address. These men have known each other for almost 40 years, and all live in Tel Aviv. To a man, everyone thought the prime minister delivered a good speech, one that needed to be given.

One of them asked me, "Have you ever been in a situation in which you knew something bad was happening and yet you did not say anything? That is why Bibi had to speak to Congress today. He has to know that he has done the maximum to stop what he considers a very bad deal."

The others at the table all agreed. Most thought Netanyahu's speech might affect the negotiations. A few of the men were concerned that the speech might turn Israel into a partisan issue in the United States. Interestingly, none of the six men at the table were planning to vote for Bibi in the coming election, even after hearing what they considered an excellent speech.

The elections are now two weeks away. Traditionally, election results in Israel are determined in the last two weeks, so the next weeks will indicate if the speech had any impact on the outcome—and on a potential U.S. deal with Iran.

Historian Marc Schulman is the editor of historycentral.com. An archive of his recent reports from Tel Aviv can be found here.