Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks up as he meets with Senate leaders at the U.S. Capitol in Washington Tuesday.
(KEVIN LAMARQUE - REUTERS)
Just hours after a meeting with President Obama Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC, during which he employed — as he so often does — a literary reference to make his point:
“Ladies and gentleman, if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, then what is it? ... That’s right, it’s a duck! But this duck is a nuclear duck. It’s time the world started calling a duck a duck.”
The statement was greeted with raucous applause.
After the jump, we’ve rounded up some other metaphors, references and allusions Bibi has used over the years:
Referencing the Bible:
“As far as a nuclear weapons-free zone, you know, when the lion lies down with the lamb, and you don't need a new lamb every day to satisfy the lion, then we might have this kind of transformation in the Middle East.”
— July 2010, to express he was not happy with the idea of participating in a U.N. conference on a nuclear-free Middle East.
A metaphorical jungle:
"...set free like savage animals, set free to prowl in our cities and our streets."’
— July 1997, in reference to attacks by suicide bombers on a Jerusalem vegetable market, and to tell Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to take stronger action against terrorists.
Referencing absurdist fiction of the 1960s:
“It's the - the theater of the absurd. It doesn't only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gaddafi's Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam's Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament.”
— Sept. 2011, in a description of the United Nations, which he said had an anti-Israeli fixation.
A metaphorical suicide:
“We don't point a pistol at our own forehead. That is not the way to conduct negotiations.”
— June 1998, in an interview with Army Radio, to say he wouldn’t be rushed on a West Bank troop withdrawal.
A metaphorical family:
“These are disagreements around the dinner table in a family.”
— May 1998, to describe tension between the U.S. and Israel, and argue that the relationship was still positive.
Watch Netanyahu deliver his most recent duck metaphor, a reference to the “Turing duck test,” a term for a form of inductive reasoning, below:
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