Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Netanyahu Addresses US Congress to Win Israeli Votes

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of the US Congress tonight, and he is widely expected to attack the Obama administration's negotiations with Iran over the latter's nuclear program. The Republican-controlled Congress has decided this is yet another way to throw mud at the president since they can't actually beat him at politics. That said, Mr. Netanyahu has an agenda as well. Not only does he want to sabotage the negotiations, but also he wants to win re-election. he calculates that slamming the Obama administration might just help on March 17, polling day. He might also be wrong.

The current polls look mixed for Mr. Netanyahu. His Likud faction currently stands roughly tied with Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union (the Labor-Livni bloc). Maagar Mochot released a poll yesterday that had the Union ahead 24 seats in the 120-seat Knesset to 23 seats for Likud. Geocartography released a poll on Sunday that showed Likud up 24 seats to the Union's 22. Both polls group the other parties by whether they have ruled out backing Mr. Netanyahu for another term. Maagar Mochot has 52 seats held by parties that have ruled him out, and 68 still willing to consider him. Geocartography has it 51 against, and 69 still willing.

The great problem for every Israeli politician is the fact that one in four Israeli voters has yet to decide which way he or she will vote. That many undecided voters in an electoral system that elects via national lists with a low threshold for election means there is no clear leader. A single event could push significant support one way or another.

And that has been Mr. Netanyahu's big gamble all along. While the speech is designed to pressure Mr. Obama into being tougher in talks with Iran, its timing is such that it could affect how Israelis mark their ballot papers two weeks from now. Since Mr. Obama is somewhat unpopular in Israel, lecturing him from the rostrum of the US Congress and being cheered by the GOP members can only make for positive visual images.

However, he isn't getting a free pass on this at home. His former finance minister, whom he fired in December after a personal falling out, Yair Lapid accused Mr Netanyahu of "destroying Israel's relations with the United States" with tonight's speech. Sunday, he said Israel should work with the US to affect the negotiations, not against the Americans. "The thing is to be involved right now," he said. "We're not there, we are not at the table, not in a direct or indirect way. No one is talking to us, no one is listening to us." The implication is "and that's Bibi's fault."

Mr. Lapid's Yesh Atid party claims to be a centrist body. "Nobody is my natural partner," Mr. Lapid said on Sunday. "If there's somebody close enough to my way of thinking and my ideology, I need not establish Yesh Atid. We are not in the right or the left, or the center-right or center-left. We are the center-center." In the 2013 elections, Yesh Atid finished second to Likud. Current polling has Yesh Atid with about 13 seats, but what is interesting according to Al-Monitor.com is that there is a significant flow of support to the party and away from the right as well as from the left. While forecasting the composition of the next Israeli government is difficult even after the seats are awarded after the votes are counted, Mr. Lapid is a potential kingmaker.

Mr. Netanyahu wants to embarrass Mr. Obama, whom he personally dislikes (and the feeling is mutual), he would like to derail the nuclear negotiations with Iran, but in addition, he wants to shut down the flow of support to Yesh Atid and keep his job. The next fortnight will prove interesting, and quite possibly, not in a way Mr. Netanyahu will relish.

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