The July 19 events marking the 10th anniversary of the Second Lebanon War provided Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an opportunity to address his favorite subject: Islamist terror. The July 14 truck attack in Nice that killed at least 84 people and injured more than 100 gave Netanyahu’s speeches a present-day dimension.
With a draftsman’s hand, the architecture studies graduate drew a straight line, crossing countries and continents, from Lebanon to Israel and the West Bank. From there he went farther afield, to Europe and then the United States. “Terror does not only strike in Sarona and Otniel,” Netanyahu said at a memorial ceremony on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl for the fallen soldiers of the 2009 Lebanon war, referring to the attacks at central Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market on June 8 and the West Bank settlement of Otniel on Jan. 17. “It is striking in Paris and Nice, in Brussels and Orlando. We are in a global war.”
