Benjamin Netanyahu’s Claim to Speak for All Jews Is Disputed, Characterized As “Arrogant”

Much attention has been paid to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims to speak not only for his own country, but for Jews throughout the world who are citizens of other countries, including American Jews. This claim is being widely challenged.

Early in February, Netanyahu said he was not just the prime minister of Israel but also “a representative of the entire Jewish people.” (Washington Post, Feb. 12, 2015) It is considered unprecedented for the leader of one country to claim to speak in the name of millions of men and women who are citizens of other countries simply because of a shared religious faith.

J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, declared: “Israel’s Prime Minister said he would be representing all Jews when he addresses Congress … He said he’s coming to Washington ‘not just as the Prime Minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people.’ He’s in the middle of a tough election campaign, battling along with other party leaders for the right to represent Israelis, but he certainly can’t claim to speak for Jews in the United States … Benjamin Netanyahu has his own constituents. Coming here to undermine a president who was elected with the votes of 69 per cent of American Jews, while having the audacity to claim he represents us, is real chutzpah.”

Editorially, The Forward (Feb. 11, 2015) asked the question, “Who Speaks for the Jews?” It states: “By rushing to Paris to march, lecture and promote immig¬ration to Israel after the terrorist attacks in January, Netanyahu rankled many of the Jews he was ostensibly there to help, turning what should have essentially been a shiva (mourning) call to comfort the grieving into an uncomfortable political exercise. And by claiming to represent all Jews in his plea to a GOP Congress to defy a Democratic president, Netanyahu risks the ‘Israelization’ or even the ‘Judaization’ of the debate over Iran’s nuclear program.”

According to The Forward, “We have survived into modern times because we haven’t relied on one leader — a king or prelate or pope — and instead embraced the fact that we are diverse in more ways than we can count … We’ve learned to find vitality and sustenance in a dynamic pluralism that resists centralization … Not all our lives are consumed by terror and hate. Not all our lives revolve around Israel. Editors at The Forward have been penning editorials for more than a century, but we wouldn’t presume to speak for all Jews. Neither should anyone else.”

On March 1, just before leaving to address a joint session of Congress, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted that, “I feel that I am an emissary … of the entire Jewish people.” (Washington Times, March 2, 2015). Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) declared: “Netanyahu doesn’t speak for me … I think it is a rather arrogant statement. I think the Jewish community is like any other community, there are different points of view. I think that arrogance does not befit Israel.”

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, agreed that Israel can speak only on behalf of its own citizens “and in no way presumes to represent or speak in the name of Jews who are citizens of other countries.” That was 1950. Now, in 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu has taken it upon himself to speak in the name of all Jews, what¬ever their nationality, citizenship or point view. As J Street, The Forward, and many other Jewish voices have made clear, Mr. Netanyahu has no mandate to speak for anyone but himself and those who have elected him. •