Netanyahu in N.Y.: Daniel in the Lion’s Den or World’s Greatest Nudnik?

The prime minister is demanding peace talks ‘with no preconditions,’ as if he’s Golda Meir and this is ‘That ’70s Show.’

Ha’aretz

At the very end of his short and somber news briefing, overshadowed as it was by the terrorist attack in which an Israeli couple was gunned down on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly inquired, in a much lighter tone, whether anyone had timed his “moment of silence” at the United Nations General Assembly. After being told that it had been clocked at 45 seconds, Netanyahu replied proudly: “One of the Americans said that I gave the UN the ‘silent treatment’.”

If you are a fan, you will interpret Netanyahu’s comment as a human moment of well-deserved relief for a leader otherwise burdened by the sad news about the killing of Eitam and Naama Henkin by Palestinian gunmen and the security challenges that the incident creates. If you are a cynic, on the other hand, you could view the prime minister’s comment as the rueful observation of a frustrated politician whose perceived moment of triumph was ejected from the main headlines by the terror and tragedy, not only in the West Bank but in Roseburg, Oregon as well.

The same dichotomy held true for Netanyahu’s speech itself: its reviews were in the eye of the beholder. For admirers, it was a masterpiece, a forceful and unapologetic “J’Accuse” against a hypocritical, anti-Israeli world. For his devotees, Netanyahu presented a relentless tour de force that spoke truth to power. It was a vigorous condemnation of the Iran nuclear agreement coupled with conciliatory offerings to President Obama, a masterful rebuttal of Mahmoud Abbas’ lies with a hand outstretched nonetheless in peace.

It was a great speech for those who believe that the function of Israeli diplomacy, in general, and of Netanyahu’s addresses, in particular, is to relentlessly proclaim our own righteousness. It was certainly satisfying for the great number of Israelis, Diaspora Jews and American conservatives who kvell whenever Netanyahu tells the world where to get off. A “clear and compelling message” was how American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris described it. “This is what a real leader looks like,” tweeted New Hampshire conservative talk show host Rob Eccles.

But while Netanyahu is nothing less than a latter day Demosthenes to his fans, and his annual appearances at the United Nations a modern reenactment of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, for his detractors he is still the slick snake oil salesman who constantly rewraps his do-nothing policies in flowery formulations and pompous postulations that are clearly aimed at his home constituencies in Israel and the Republican Party. The same thunderous silence that was viewed by aficionados as a potent protest is seen by his denigrators as nothing more than a hackneyed gimmick.

Among his critics, Netanyahu’s speech was a cause for exasperation and consternation, from his holier-than-thou put-down of his United Nations hosts through his relentless denunciation of the done Iranian deal to his clichéd demand for peace negotiations “with no preconditions,” as if he was Golda Meir, this was “That ’70s Show” and there was more than a slight chance in hell that it could bring an end to the endless cycle of violence.

But there was also something almost pathetic in the speech and its setting. Netanyahu was talking, after all, in front of near-empty General Assembly plenum that was almost over, with police outside starting to dismantle the roadblocks and UN officials planning their weekend escapes from Hurricane Joaquin, which has since turned the other way. In the main media center that buzzed from excitement earlier this week when the Obama-Putin showdown provided high drama, a few Third World journalists were lazily watching the screens in a scene that evoked Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic, “The Last Picture Show.”

In this view, Netanyahu was somewhere on a scale between a nebbish and a nudnik, refusing to let go of his harsh campaign against the Iran deal despite the fact that it was over, continuing to spar against his mega-nebbish nemesis Abbas in what seems, against the backdrop of the momentous events to Israel’s north, as a nagging sideshow. A nudnik, in other words, in the sense coined by Yiddish poet Morris Rosenfeld at the start of the last century: “A man whose purpose in life is to bore the rest of humanity.”