Assuming Prime Minister Netanyahu actually winds up speaking to Congress at all, he’s made it clear that he will be speaking “as a representative of the entire Jewish people.” This has already prompted a campaign by Jewish opponents (including liberal Zionists) to declare in response: no, Mr. Prime Minister, you don’t. But does Bibi have a point?

From my perspective, yes, and no.

Yes, in the sense that Israel, by its own lights and for its entire history, represents the satisfaction of the legitimate national aspirations of the Jewish people. Even if you, as a Jew, deny the existence of such national aspirations; even if you, as a person of Jewish descent, deny affiliation with anything called “the Jewish people,” inasmuch as such a people exists (whether or not you affiliate with it) and inasmuch as that people has any legitimate national aspirations (whether or not you ascribe to them), Israel has declared itself to be their satisfaction, and a wide array of national governments around the world have concurred.

So what Netanyahu is saying has some logic to it. He’s the head of the Israeli government. The State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Hence, he is a representative of the entire Jewish people. Saying “you don’t represent me” sounds an awful lot like the “not in my name” crowd from the Bush years, but you don’t get to disown a government that you don’t like and take it back when you like it better. It’s either yours or it isn’t.

Except, not.

First, “representative” is a very specific word. Israel may undertake, on its own initiative and for its own reasons, the defense of the interests of Jews outside of Israel. Indeed, by its own ideological lights, it is obliged to do so. But that doesn’t mean Israel is in any meaningful sense representing those interests. Those interests are presumably already represented by the governments where those individuals reside – indeed, they must be, unless we are to understand Jews in the diaspora as merely temporarily resident aliens.

To make an analogy, Vladimir Putin may see himself as the secular champion of Orthodox Christians everywhere. The Russian electorate may decide to endorse this ambition, and endorse a foreign policy of intervening to defend Serbs and Bulgarians and Greeks and so forth against their enemies. Serbs, Bulgarians and Greeks might even be pleased to have Vladimir Putin in their corner. But Vladimir Putin would not, thereby, become the representative of Serbs and Bulgarians and Greeks. And it would be very weird for, say, Angela Merkel to consult with Vladimir Putin as if he were – rather than talking to the leaders of Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia directly.

Second, Benjamin Netanyahu is not the head of the Israeli state. He’s the head of the Israeli government. If someone from Israel were to posture as the “representative” of the Jewish people around the world, logically that would be the head of state, which in Israel is the President.

Israel’s Presidency is a fairly weak office, but that’s not actually the problem with this formulation. The problem is that the Presidency, elected by the Knesset and generally parceled out to a well-regarded over-the-hill politician, is not an office with a lot of symbolic heft. If you really want someone to be a the living symbol of an organic nation, someone members of that nation can look to and love even if they are not citizens, then what you are looking for is a monarch.

Third, Bibi is not coming to Congress to say: I, as the representative and defender of Jews worldwide say: you must protect your Jewish citizens better, or you’ll have to deal with me. That’s an argument that, perhaps, he could make in France. On the contrary: he is coming to Congress to say: I, Prime Minister of Israel, say that the negotiations with Iran must be scuttled, lest their nuclear program develop into an existential threat to Israel. And because I am the representative of Jews worldwide, you can be assured that America’s Jewish citizens back me up.

That’s not “representation.” That’s a demand for fealty. To which the response, “no, Mr. Prime Minster, you don’t represent me” is singularly appropriate in a way that it would absolutely not be coming from Bibi’s fellow citizens.