This being the day of The Speech, it’s only fitting to begin with Netanyahu’s ruinous decision to accept an invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress two weeks before a (very tight) Israeli election and without clearing it first with the White House, both of which violated diplomatic protocol. Then, of course, there’s Netanyahu’s plan to use the platform to publicly sabotage Barack Obama’s negotiations with the government of Iran over its nuclear program — an unprecedented act of meddling in American policy by a foreign power.

But this behavior is nothing new. Netanyahu has defied the wishes of the American president for years, not least over the expansion of settlements in disputed areas of the West Bank, even though the policy is obviously contrary to Israeli interests and only encourages elements within Israeli society that would like to continue the occupation indefinitely and even annex large chunks of Palestinian territory. 

Then there’s the 2014 Gaza War, a profoundly counterproductive escapade that grew out of Netanyahu’s demagogic manipulation of the killing of three Israeli youths in the West Bank. It may have temporarily stopped rocket fire from Gaza, but it returned the region to an unjust status quo that will surely erupt into violence again, demonstrating that the war (like so many before it) settled precisely nothing.
 
As I said, I’m not at all a fan.