Don’t make the mistake of dismissing Netanyahu as shallow caricature

His speech to last week’s United Nations General Assembly showed what nonsense this is. All it reveals is the cartoonish understanding of those who push it. Because one of the most striking aspects of Netanyahu’s political career, which is well understood even by his most implacable opponents in Israel, is that however strongly one might disagree with his policies and behaviour in government, Netanyahu has a serious and deep understanding of history, of strategy and of tactics. He has an almost unmatched grasp of geopolitics and realpolitik. Almost all the coverage of last week focused on the walk out by delegates (from Muslim states and those cosplaying Muslim states) as Netanyahu was called to the podium. There was next to no coverage of what he actually said, which – typically – was full the bracing truths which have been his stock in trade at such gatherings for so long. (Remember how Netanyahu would repeatedly spoil the UN party by pointing out the Iranian nuclear threat, and was treated as if he had farted in front of the Queen. How uncouth. How Manichean. How demeaning. And, as pretty much everyone now acknowledges, how right.)

Last week he confronted delegates with another home truth. Referring to the speed with which so many supposed allies of Israel have turned on it in fear of their domestic Muslim voters, he asked, rhetorically: “When will you learn…You can’t appease your way out of jihad. You won’t escape the Islamist storm by sacrificing Israel.”

Those few words, which encapsulate much about what is actually going on, expose the futility – and fatuity - of viewing public figures through a one-dimensional prism. You can loathe Netanyahu, you can argue that he draws the wrong conclusions from his analyses, you can see him as dangerous. That’s all good and proper political debate. But what you can’t do, and expect to be taken seriously, is simply dismiss his analysis without engaging with it.

Monday saw Netanyahu visit the White House and gave rise to another example of how our one-dimensional approach to analysis and reporting is so misleading. It is another statement of the obvious that President Trump has many…well, let’s call them issues. He is a bully. A braggart. A fantasist. You name it. But he is also capable of acts of astonishing, unprecedented statecraft. In the first term, of course, it was the Abraham Accords – and the ripping up of the appalling JCPOA, the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. On Monday, Trump exposed the idiocy of Starmer, Macron, Carney, Albanese, Sánchez et al with their performative recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state. As the BBC’s headline the following morning put it: "There has been international support for President Trump's peace plan for Gaza. But Hamas has yet to say if it will accept the deal." That international support includes, crucially and unprecedentedly, every significant Arab and Muslim state. The word ‘but’ may be doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but it is the key. If Hamas accepts the deal there is a serious and positive way forward, which shows how pathetically pointless the above so-called statesman have been in their words and deeds. And if Hamas doesn’t, then Trump has been clear that he will back Israel to “finish the job” – as would any leader who understands the reality of Gaza and Hamas’ poisonous role. Instead of the vacuity of Starmer and friends simply mouthing the platitude that ‘there must be no role for Hamas in post-war Gaza’, Trump accepts that to achieve that requires not a carrot but a stick.

Stick with your caricatures of Trump, Netanyahu and so many others, if you wish. But if you do, the rest of will see though you.