On March 3, 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the U.S. Congress to blast President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. From that day to this, Netanyahu’s critics have claimed that his speech was a huge mistake that politicized the nuclear issue, offended Democrats, and reduced support for Israel.
Now the returns are in, from the Gallup Organization. “Americans’ views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained steady over the past year,” Gallup says. Moreover, support among Democrats has grown as well:
In fact, the Gallup charts appear to show an increase in support for Israel from 49 to 53 percent in the last year—the year in which Netanyahu’s supposedly damaging speech was made. That’s an 8 percent climb from 49 percent, not bad for one year.
It is still the case that there is a large partisan divide: 79 percent of Republicans favor Israel over the Palestinians, but only 53 percent of Democrats.
But that divide diminished recently, as Democratic support rose in the last year. So all those critics who were so sure Netanyahu had badly damaged Israel by taking on Obama owe him an apology. They misread American politics and the impact of a tough Netanyahu speech making the argument about the dangers of the Iran deal. In Israel, critics scoffed at Bibi’s claim that he understood American politics—but he has the last laugh.
