Tamar Glezerman
The Guardian / July 26, 2024
A staggering 72% of Israelis want Netanyahu to step down. Netanyahu doesn’t represent us and it’s shameful that Congress invited him
To put it bluntly – Benjamin Netanyahu is the enemy of the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and of every person on this earth who values human life. He is also personally responsible for October 7. The fact that he spoke in Congress, with tens of thousands dead in Gaza and no hostage deal in sight, is an embarrassment to Congress and to every single representative who attended.
When Netanyahu spoke to Congress, Congress should’ve walked out, not given him standing ovations. Even beyond the moral obvious, no dialogue should be had with this man for the same reason dialogue with Trump is a waste of time – all you’re ever going to get is another masterclass in gas lighting. And that is exactly what this speech was – from craven lying about the death toll in Gaza to craven lying about his attempts to free the hostages – A smorgasbord of craven lying, which congress, for some reason, could not stop applauding.
But if dialogue with Netanyahu must occur – there is only one question to be asked – it’s not about the hostages – why give him another chance to pretend he cares for the people whose return he is actively preventing? It’s not about the Palestinians being killed in tens of thousands and displaced in millions – he just told you they are not. That what you see, you did not see.
No, the question is biblical and it is – have you murdered and also inherited? Asked of Achav after he and Jezebel his wife murdered Navot to steal his vineyard. This question comes to say – How dare you? How dare you profiteer from a war you’re causing? How dare you shed crocodile tears for citizens you abandoned to get slaughtered, abused and kidnapped, and are now letting die, if not actively killing, in Gaza? How dare you use the blood on your hands to prolong your death grip on power?
And there is so much blood on Netanyahu’s hands it is up to his neck. He is practically drowning in it. The blood of my aunt Hannah Kritzman, who was 88 years old when she was murdered in Be’eri by Hamas. The same Hamas Netanyahu funded and then ignored warnings about.
The blood of tens of thousands Gazan civilians and who knows how many more under the rubble and the blood of the dead hostages who could’ve come home with a deal. Unfortunately, blood is Netanyahu’s sustenance – it keeps his career alive.
I am an Israeli peace and anti-occupation activist, living in New York. My family lives in Tel Aviv and I have some friends in Gaza. Since this war started, I’ve been organizing vigils and protests for ceasefire and hostage deal with a group called Israelis for Peace NYC. The first vigil was a little after I returned to NY from my aunt’s shiva – my entire belief system is based around a rejection of revenge politics, a striving for reconciliation and a dogged, relentless, choosing of hope over fear and anger. But there are exceptions – in some cases anger, like pain, serves as an indication that we are actively being hurt. Sometimes, anger is necessary, especially when dealing with a pathologically lying narcissist. Without it, we might confuse him pissing on our legs for rain.
Because the sad truth is that the Israeli people have been mistreated by the Netanyahu family almost consecutively since 1996, when he was voted in less than a year after Rabin, whose murder he incited, was shot dead, and with him the two-state solution, (at least until now).
At the time, I was just a kid, but I grew up in a leftist household, had already been in a bombing that killed 13 people, and learned that revenge only brings more revenge and that Palestinian self-determination is not only a moral imperative, but also the only way to stop this blood cycle. So I knew what I was looking at as I watched Netanyahu replace Shimon Peres in the lead on election night in 1996 – I was looking at the starting pistol go off in the final race to the bottom. I was looking at the death rattle of hope. Since then we’ve hit rock bottom again and again, only to hear, as the Russian proverb says, knocks coming from below.
Nine months after the rockiest bottom yet, Netanyahu has come to the US to pretend to speak for the Israeli people, the same people he is sacrificing in order to stay in power, and lie that continuing this horrifying war is in our interest.
In reality, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting Netanyahu even before the war. My 88 year old aunt was one of them. She would protest from her golf cart, the same golf cart she was later murdered on. And Israelis are still out on the streets every single night, getting arrested and beaten up for simply demanding a hostage deal and an end to this war.
In reality, 72% of Israelis think Netanyahu should resign.
So Netanyahu, quite literally, does not speak for us, and Congress should have never listened, let alone applauded. Shame.
Tamar Glezerman is a writer & director from Tel-Aviv, living and working in Brooklyn
