Netanyahu is deeply unpopular in America. So why is he coming to the UN?
A woman holds a placard with a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as the right wing holds a rally to support the government’s judicial overhaul on July 23, 2023 in Tel Aviv. Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images
Michael Koplow September 18, 2023
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed in California on Monday, he traded one unwelcoming territory for another.
Netanyahu is in the United States to speak at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly and to meet with world leaders — part of Netanyahu’s annual September activities for years. But this trip will be more fraught than he is accustomed to.
The Israeli prime minister will be followed by protestors everywhere he goes, and his long-awaited and oft-delayed meeting with President Joe Biden is slated to take place on the sidelines of the U.N. in New York rather than in the Oval Office.
With Israel still riven by Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul, and mounting divisions within his coalition threatening his ability to keep his government together, one might question what benefit Netanyahu expects to receive by spending a week overseas amid a range of bad optics that will be broadcast back home.
But despite the headwinds he faces here, Netanyahu may still find the United States to be a pleasant respite compared to what he faces on his own turf.
Trouble at home
Netanyahu took off for America in the wake of a government lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court that Israel’s revered Declaration of Independence was no more than a hasty compromise signed by unelected representatives with no genuine authority.
Protests over Netanyahu’s plans to limit the judiciary’s checks and oversight over the government have entered their 37th consecutive week, and show no signs of slowing down.
Any break he gets from bickering ministers, widespread accusations of policy and political mismanagement, and his continuing criminal trials will be a welcome one.
But Netanyahu also has some tangible aims for his U.S. visit. First and foremost, he wants to reestablish his credentials as a prime minister whose geopolitical stature puts him “in a different league,” as his 2019 campaign posters showing him with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin memorably — and perhaps now infamously — declared.
Netanyahu often seizes the opportunity of a U.N. speech to make news or drop a series of memorable lines, and he will be under particular pressure to do so this year. He has always relished the U.N. lectern, and in fact had his speech moved from its original Thursday slot to a Friday morning slot in order to take advantage of the evening television hours in Israel.
But while the U.N. is the ostensible reason for Netanyahu’s trip, his address is secondary to his aims. He is also counting on as endless a parade of meetings with as many other world leaders as he can stage manage, and a high-profile sit-down with another beleaguered man in the news and the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk.
If Netanyahu can get a statement from Musk promising future investment in Israel and a series of compliments about Netanyahu’s economic stewardship and Israel’s continuing high-tech prowess, he will use it as evidence that the various warnings about the damage being done to Israel’s economy by his judicial overhaul are overblown. The risks of tensions with Biden and protestors shadowing and disrupting him might be offset by the benefits of reestablishing himself in the minds of wavering voters as Israel’s indispensable leader.
In order to do so most effectively, however, Netanyahu will have to mitigate those potential tensions with Biden. The maneuvering around a potential step back from the judicial overhaul that has marked the last couple of weeks — from reports of Netanyahu’s representatives negotiating a compromise with the opposition that Netanyahu disavowed once it was leaked, to speculation encouraged by Netanyahu’s bureau that he will walk back the overhaul’s scope unilaterally if he cannot secure an agreement with opposition leaders — is in large part aimed at mollifying Biden.
Netanyahu wants to walk into a meeting with Biden able to argue that he has taken to heart the president’s warnings about the risk of democratic erosion and not proceeding without widespread consensus. This is both to avoid a White House readout that hints at in-person tension, and also to preserve the slim chance that a meeting in New York will yield a quick follow-up invitation to meet in Washington, which is what Netanyahu truly covets.
If Netanyahu is able to use the meeting with Musk to disarm his critics on the economy, and is then able to use the meeting with Biden to disarm his critics who contend that he has damaged Israel’s relationship with the U.S., he will put this trip in the win column.
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