Netanyahu Looks Like a Small Leader at a Historic Moment

When I think about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address on Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress, the first thing that comes to mind is the famous dictum “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” This is one of those weeks for Israel, America and the Middle East. A decade is teed up to happen — or not.

By pure accident, a set of profound war-or-peace tipping points have intersected this week that Tolstoy could not have made up. In the wake of President Biden’s decision on Sunday to put his country ahead of his personal interests and cede power, Netanyahu — who has consistently put his personal interests ahead of his country’s to hold power — comes to Washington. And he comes facing two intertwined decisions that could provide Biden a huge foreign policy legacy and transform Netanyahu’s own legacy at the same time — or not.

It’s as if the writers of “The West Wing” on NBC had decided to collaborate on a script with the writers of “Fauda” on Netflix — and they’re now wrestling over whether to make a series about a new dawn or a new tragedy for America, Israel and the Arab world.

Thanks to the frequent-flier travels since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 of Biden; Secretary of State Tony Blinken; the C.I.A. director, Bill Burns; and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, Netanyahu has two huge decisions sitting on his desk that could both pause the fighting in Gaza — and Lebanon — and lay the groundwork for a new U.S.-Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran.

We are talking about the most consequential opportunity to reshape the Middle East since the Camp David agreements in the 1970s.

The first decision, though, requires Netanyahu to agree — right now — on a phased-cease-fire deal tentatively reached by U.S., Israeli, Qatari, Egyptian and Hamas negotiators that would trigger, in Phase 1, a six-week pause in the fighting in Gaza and the return of 33 Israeli hostages (some dead, some alive), including 11 women, in return for several hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.