When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his advisers saw the giant headlines of the weekend papers on the morning of Jan. 23, which once again heralded an unprecedented crisis between the premier and President Barack Obama, they might well have embarked on a description of the many advantages this “crisis” presented for Netanyahu's election campaign.
Headlines such as “Boycotting Netanyahu” (in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth) and “Obama’s Revenge” (Maariv) and commentaries describing the Obama administration’s reaction to the election stunt that Netanyahu cooked up with his GOP friends behind Obama’s back, not only do not hurt the prime minister on the eve of elections. They actually add him points among his right-wing constituents. From now until March 3 — the day Netanyahu presents himself on Capitol Hill — he will devote a substantial part of his time to writing the speech. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, any speech on an American lectern is the project of a lifetime, all the more so when it’s an election eve speech in the language he loves, English, largely devoted to his fight against the Iranian nuclear threat.