Any head of government in Israel seeks a visit to Washington, especially during an election campaign. The imminent visit is exactly what Netanyahu needs in his battle for political survival, which is different this time from those before it. His coalition's standing has slumped, as the opinion polls confirm. He is projected to win a low number of seats and his rivals' numbers are expected to rise.
And even if things end in a dead heat, with neither camp able to form a government, Netanyahu worries that the Arab members of Knesset will break the tie - wherever they place their votes, there sits the next prime minister.
Netanyahu travels to Washington carrying accusations at home from which he has yet to clear himself. Alongside his trials in the major corruption cases that could send him home or to prison, his charges swell as the election approaches, whether the vote comes on schedule or early.
Topping the list is the accusation that he has destroyed the judiciary, which the opposition portrays as the icon of state and society. They view Netanyahu’s war on the judiciary as a war on the very foundations of the state, democratic life, and good governance! Then comes the charge of indulging the Haredim, who remain exempt from military service at a time when the army is suffering a severe manpower shortage and as Israel, as planned by Netanyahu, wages a war on several fronts, not one of which has been decided.
Then there is the charge of dodging the formation of an independent commission of inquiry into the events of October 7 and of attempting to impose a commission that he would oversee: not merely choosing its members, but also shaping its conclusions.
Then there is a charge that appears to be the real reason for the Washington visit: responsibility for the rupture that has lately emerged in Israel's relationship with America. His management of the relationship, the accusation goes, has pushed Israel to the margins of the Iran talks and left it looking like a weak subordinate rather than a strong partner. The charge has been fed by statements, some of them insults, of the Trump administration. None shook the Israeli public harder than the remarks of Vice President JD Vance, who rebuked Netanyahu and warned him against any further impudence toward Trump, Israel's last remaining ally.
The accusation that Netanyahu has damaged the special relationship between Israel and America is not only made by election rivals. It also feeds on a claim that has become both political and popular currency in America: the costly war on Iran was Netanyahu's personal war, not America's. Netanyahu knew that it was impossible for the requests he would lay before President Trump to be met. He makes these requests not to see them fulfilled but as an advertising campaign to show Israel that he is hard at work.
He will try to fish in the troubled waters of the turbulent negotiations with Iran, hoping to soften the blow of his exclusion from them after all the services he rendered in the recent 12-day and 40-day wars.
Netanyahu also knows that President Trump will not listen to his incitement against Türkiye and the F-35 deal. Trump's position is shaped by his own considerations and his assessment of Türkiye's weight and its regional, international, and NATO standing - not by Netanyahu's fears, whether genuine, manufactured, or overblown.
And Netanyahu knows, too, that his appearances on American screens - however great he is an orator - will not stem the swelling popular tide turning against Israel, its wars, its incitements, and its exorbitant costs paid from the American taxpayer's pocket. Congress was once more supportive, more welcoming, and more comfortable to Netanyahu than the Knesset - indeed, he once visited Congress and delivered a speech there behind President Obama's back.
Congress today is no longer the Congress of old for Netanyahu. Many of its members now see him as a burden on Israel and on America alike - a burden that must be replaced.
On the previous visits, Netanyahu's requests were met with understanding and acceptance by his hosts in the White House and the other American institutions. This time, it seems, things are different. Netanyahu - the expert on America, as he always claims - knows it, but he is the type who never passes up a chance to use the White House as a campaign prop.
