In DC, the travails of being Israel’s opposition leader

WASHINGTON — As of this writing, this has not been Benjamin Netanyahu’s highest-profile visit to America’s capital. The prime minister’s meeting with Barack Obama went smoothly — with the president gracious in victory on the Iran deal, and the prime minister sensible in not mentioning it. There’s been a bit of a dispute in recent days over Netanyahu’s gratuitously offensive newly named media adviser. There was a small row about whether the liberal Center for American Progress should be hosting him Tuesday afternoon. An AP report late Monday attempted to hype his latest settlement-building plans. But really, by the relative standards of Bibi in America, it has been pretty uneventful.

And yet, Netanyahu’s impending arrival made major headlines across the nation. TV stations carried his and Obama’s magnanimous opening remarks to each other in full. His motorcade has been stopping traffic across the capital. Most every one of the 3,000 delegates at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly was braving stringent security to ensure they heard his every word at the Washington Hilton on Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, the leader of Israel’s opposition has also been in town. His name is Isaac Herzog. If you’re an American, you’d be forgiven for not knowing that. If you’re an American Jew, you (with minor exceptions) apparently don’t much care.

Herzog schlepped to Washington overnight Sunday-Monday, briefly leaving behind his bickering Zionist Union party, which was defeated by Netanyahu’s Likud in the March elections. He didn’t get to meet with the president, but he did have talks with Secretary of State John Kerry. Like Netanyahu, he was invited to address the entire 3,000-strong JFNA GA — except that they had scheduled Herzog’s appearance for early evening Monday, when many of the delegates evidently had their thoughts on dinner. He spoke to a hall that was less than full at the start, and got progressively emptier.

Minutes later, he submitted to questioning by The Jerusalem Post’s Gil Hoffman at the Press Stage on a lower floor of the hotel; there were no more than 50 people there to hear him.

Herzog is nothing if not a trooper. Showing no visible dismay at the paltry turnout, he set out a potent and nuanced political message. He warned that “if we don’t separate from the Palestinians, we are doomed.” He didn’t solely blame Netanyahu for the failure to progress, “but he holds the key,” said Herzog of the prime minister, and then almost wailed, “He has to try!” Two or three people applauded. Unfortunately, he went on, Netanyahu is “blackmailed” by some of his coalition partners who talk nonsense about annexing parts of the West Bank.

Israel, Herzog said, needed to engage Arab states such as Egypt in the quest for an accommodation with the Palestinians. It simply has to separate from the Palestinians to maintain a Jewish democracy. “I believe I represent the mainstream point of view” of both Israelis and Jewish Americans, Herzog added passionately, again to a light smattering of applause.

He spent a few minutes singing the praises of Kerry, dryly noting the critique the secretary has endured recently from “insulting” voices — a reference to Ran Baratz, earmarked as Netanyahu’s new media chief, who intimated in a Facebook post that Kerry has the mental acuity of a 12-year-old. The secretary, said the opposition leader, “is a great friend of Israel. He cares for and loves Israel.” And even now, said Herzog, even after the White House has officially given up on trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Kerry wants to keep trying to help.

“We have to create hope,” declared Herzog. “This is one of the worst periods in the relationship of Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land. And we must change it.”

The leader of the Israeli opposition then gamely endured some questioning about the English translation of his party’s name. Is it the Zionist Union or the Zionist Camp? He didn’t really care, he said, so long as it wins the next election.

As Herzog finally posed for some selfies, and then made his weary, largely unnoticed way toward the exit, that seemed a particularly forlorn hope.