Ben Gurion's and Begin's talking points for Netanyahu

 Typically, Israel assumes a reactive, defensive attitude in foreign affairs: “Please like us, we haven’t done anything wrong”. It has never worked. 

We might best learn from Ben Gurion and Begin in their best moments, proactive and assertive. Biden probably doesn’t remember when Begin told him: “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

Or as Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, famously noted: "It does not matter what the goyim say, it only matters what the Jews do.”

Reactive and defensive may convince our friends, it will not help us with our enemies. We need to be proactive and assertive. We need to set the agenda, not refuse theirs. Should he chose to go, Netanyahu could practice some of these lines on the plane to Washington:

-“If we didn’t care more about Gaza citizens than Hamas, this would have been over on October 8th.”

-“They already have ‘From the river to the gulf’ and that’s all worse than Gaza ever was. That’s over now in Gaza.”

-"Joe, it was not theirs until 1948, they possessed it for 19 years which was not internationally recognized and introduced ethnic cleansing, took away freedom of religion, and women's rights. They destroyed historic sites. Why is that 19 years the gold standard we should return to?"

And for 2-staters in the Biden administration:

-"How long have you supported ethnic cleansing?"

-"We are very happy with freedom and rights. If you don't like them, you can cross the river to Palestine, often called Jordan, where the rest of your Syrian and Egyptian families live."

-"We paid for it with the blood of our son's, our brave soldiers, in defensive wars that they started. They can try to take it away from us but I don't suggest that. We paid dearly for it, we're not giving it to them."

-"We are sitting on the Jordan River, we are staying here. If they have something to say about that come to our capital, Jerusalem and we can discuss their concerns."

-"No, we're not going to Qatar to talk to them, if they want to talk they can come to Jerusalem."

Those are the positions our neighbors understand. They should be the starting and finishing point of any discussion. If they would like tea and biscuits in the middle we would gladly boil the water and make the tea.