There was an oddly pleasant atmosphere to Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress this afternoon, thanks to the dozens of anti-Israel members who gave America the gift of their absence. As inappropriate as it was for the lawmakers to boycott the address, one is tempted to thank them for staying home.

The scene set up a very clear and clean contrast: inside the chamber were supporters of the American-led Western alliance, and outside were demonstrators burning and otherwise abusing American flags. It was like East and West Berlin without the wall.

The protesters were the butt of the joke. The only sign of the Squad was a frowning Rashida Tlaib sitting alone and occasionally raising an auction-style sign that said “Guilty of Genocide.” But honestly her heart didn’t seem to be in it either. That’s in part because Netanyahu shrewdly kept the script to facts about the war and about Israel and America that were inarguable. He saved all his confrontational lines for the protesters outside and on college campuses who “choose to stand with evil” and “should be ashamed of themselves.”

It also helped that the prime minister brought along with him former hostages, the families of current hostages and a diverse range of IDF heroes from the war, all of whom got much of the attention for the first half of the speech. “These are the soldiers of Israel,” Netanyahu said proudly, “unbowed, undaunted, unafraid.”

Bibi was gracious toward President Biden, whom he thanked repeatedly. He merely said that the faster Israel gets the weapons it needs, the sooner it will win the war. “America has our back, and I thank you for it,” Netanyahu said. “All sides of the aisle.” Indeed there was nothing for the Democrats in the chamber to object to in the speech, and the Democrats who attended seemed more relaxed without their spiteful and ignorant colleagues there to make everyone miserable.

Those who boycotted missed a history lesson—Bibi chuckled at the thought that there were still educated folks who don’t know that the people of Israel are native to the land of Israel. And the members of Congress smiled back. That was the general tenor of the address and its reception; without the boycotters and their obnoxious “disrupters,” no one in the room felt pressured to pretend they were angrier or dumber than they were. It had the feel of a large family dinner from which a few teenagers rudely stomped off but everyone was happier with them gone anyway.

There was no news in the speech. There was gratitude for America and reasons given for that gratitude to be mutual—for example, the fact that Netanyahu said the Israeli soldiers in the gallery were the West’s boots on the ground in a common fight, obviating any need for Americans to send their own soldiers after the terrorists who stole their sons and daughters from them.

Nor was there anybody in the chamber who seemed particularly bothered by the talk of victory.

That seemed to be another lesson: The anger of the progressive left is contagious. Its rage plays satisfyingly to the inner totalitarian and the lazy academic alike. It is lowest-common-denominator politics. Take away the members of Congress whose every move and every word is geared toward their social-media “brand,” and you’re left with a recognizably normal and decent bunch of folks.

Amid all this, there was something genuinely pathetic about Tlaib and her very sad sign. Everyone was where they wanted to be today except her. The pro-Western lawmakers were in the chamber to receive the ecstatically pro-American prime minister of a crucial ally. The Squadniks and those who fear them were in their own comfort zone—far from the American flags and the “citadel of democracy,” as Bibi put it. The protesters were in their usual spot, soaking in the mists of misplaced rage. Only poor Rashida Tlaib sat there in abject misery listening to people say nice things about America.

No one who boycotted the speech had a good reason for doing so, but I suppose they would have looked even sillier booing hostages and pouting at moral clarity. And anyway, Rashida Tlaib can tell them what they missed.