In Washington, Netanyahu has come to represent the Biden administration’s frustration with an ally that some officials see as misusing U.S. aid to inflict disproportionate punishment on civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Republicans, meanwhile, have backed Netanyahu and are trying to portray the right-wing leader as a valued ally who was betrayed and weakened by Biden and the Democrats at Israel’s most critical moment.
Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday, initially at a sole invitation from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), presented an uncomfortable moment for Democrats divided on U.S.-Israel relations, an emotive topic for many voters after four turbulent months. Presidential election.
Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Monday, a day after President Biden announced he was withdrawing from the race for a second term and endorsing Vice President Harris as his successor. VP Harris has been careful not to publicly deviate from Biden’s staunch support for Israel. But she was one of the first officials to speak forcefully about civilian casualties, question the way Israel is waging its war against Hamas and express visceral concern about the devastation in Gaza.
U.S. officials have insisted in recent weeks that a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel is close, but some say privately that opposition to a deal from Netanyahu’s far-right government remains a major obstacle.
Dozens of Democrats, including several Jewish lawmakers, plan to skip Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday afternoon in protest of his government’s military operation in Gaza that has killed about 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Harris and the Senate president pro tempore, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), have declined a request to chair a joint session and will not attend. According to aides.
“People don’t want to send a signal that they support Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extremist coalition,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who will not be speaking after returning from a Middle East trip on Saturday. “I refuse to be the instrument of a political deception that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the great guardian of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, when in fact he and his extremist allies are destroying that relationship.”
U.S. Capitol Police arrested dozens of anti-war protesters on Tuesday as they tried to take over a House office building. Authorities prepared for larger demonstrations on Wednesday, erecting iron fencing around the Capitol grounds with a level of security reminiscent of measures taken after the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot and storming of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Netanyahu’s critics in both Israel and the United States, including families of those taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, accuse him of prolonging the war to ensure his own political survival. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York in March called the Israeli leader one of the four major obstacles to peace and called on Israelis to force him out of office.
This will be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fourth time speaking to the U.S. Congress, the most by a foreign leader.
Johnson sent the invitation to Netanyahu months ago, effectively provoking Schumer to refuse to sign it. “I appeased him,” Johnson told an audience at the Republican National Convention last week, saying he believed Schumer signed it after leaking the invitation to the press.
Schumer said in May that he had never opposed Netanyahu’s invitation, saying “our relationship with Israel is strong and it transcends any prime minister or president.”
Johnson on Tuesday criticised Harris for missing the event, but her aides said the absence was due to a previously scheduled conflict and did not reflect the prime minister’s views on Israel.
“Mr. Vice President, you say you want to be the leader of the free world, but you don’t have the courage to sit behind our most important strategic ally at this moment,” Johnson said at a news conference. “That’s not a good image for you. That’s not a good image for America. That’s not a good image for the party she seeks to lead.”
At least nine senators have already announced plans to skip the event.
“I’m not going to listen to Netanyahu,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). “I don’t think he should have been invited,” he said on MSNBC last week.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, plans to speak at a rally during Netanyahu’s speech. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said she would give her tickets to the hostages’ families. Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) said she would invite as guest Harrison Mann, an Army officer who resigned over U.S. support for Israel, to join her in boycotting the speech.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, accused Netanyahu of committing genocide against Palestinians and said he is a war criminal who “should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court.”
Many Democrats are still expected to attend, with some denouncing their colleagues’ protests and joining Republicans in saying the United States must remain unwavering in its commitment to the Jewish state, regardless of politics.
“Israel is one of our most important strategic partners, a country in the midst of an existential war with three Iranian-backed terrorist armies,” Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said in a statement. “I urge my colleagues to recognize the need for bipartisanship in this moment and demonstrate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East.”
A majority of Democrats in Congress, including some who want the Biden administration to further pressure Israel to accept a cease-fire, voted earlier this year to send billions of dollars in additional military aid to the Jewish state.
Democrats who said they would attend the speech also made their disgust for Netanyahu known. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since King Maccabee invited the Romans to Jerusalem more than 2,100 years ago,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement on Tuesday, calling the speech “a cynical ploy aimed at aiding his desperate political position at home and interfering in domestic American politics just months before a crucial election.”
But Nadler, a self-described “lifelong Zionist,” said he would attend the speech anyway out of respect for the Jewish state and his ultimate pursuit of a two-state solution. “I feel like what I say will have more impact in the room in terms of holding the prime minister accountable,” Nadler said.
Both Biden and Harris are scheduled to meet with Netanyahu this week, but White House officials have privately distanced themselves from the trip, telling officials they were not involved in the invitation, according to two people familiar with the talks, who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Netanyahu has remained a firebrand in U.S. politics. In his final speech before Congress in 2015, he infuriated the White House with a scathing attack on the Obama administration’s efforts to secure the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu is expected to take a more bipartisan stance on Wednesday, but he and Biden have been at odds in recent months over Israel’s conduct of war and providing humanitarian aid to Iran. Palestinian civilians in despair.
Netanyahu has made little effort to hide his support for former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. At one point this year, he addressed a meeting of Republican senators via video call and last week he sent two of his top diplomats to the Republican National Convention to speak at the event alongside Johnson. Trump said Tuesday he plans to host Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week.
“The only party that is truly pro-Israel is the Republican Party. We have demonstrated that time and time again,” Johnson told an audience at an event hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition at the Republican National Convention last week. “This is a time that calls for moral clarity, and it is inexcusable to us that the president of the United States and some of the leaders of the Senate are unable or unwilling to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong.”
In his letter Tuesday, Johnson threatened that Capitol Security and Capitol Police would remove and arrest attendees if they disrupted the event.
Yasmin Abutaleb, Mariana Alfaro, Lee Ann Caldwell and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
