Over 100 Lawmakers Skip Netanyahu’s Address to Congress Amid Protests over U.S. Support for War in Gaza

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Washington, D.C., Wednesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu had been invited by Republican and Democratic congressional leaders.

The speech came two months after Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced he was seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for committing war crimes in Gaza. During his speech, Netanyahu thanked the U.S. for its support and defended Israel’s actions in Gaza.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter, complete nonsense! It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That’s half a million tons of food! And that’s more than for 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren’t getting enough food, it’s not because Israel is blocking it. It’s because Hamas is stealing it! So much for that lie.

But here’s another. The ICC prosecutor accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians. What in God’s green Earth is he talking about? The IDF has dropped millions of flyers, sent millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way. But at the same time, Hamas — Hamas does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking Wednesday in his fourth address to a joint session of Congress. During the speech, he made no mention of the more than 16,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel since October 7th. Netanyahu’s critics said he repeatedly distorted the true picture of what’s happening in Gaza. The U.N. says 500 aid trucks are needed every day as Gaza faces famine. On an average day, Israel allows in just over a quarter of the trucks needed. Netanyahu also never mentioned the word “ceasefire” during his speech.

More than a hundred lawmakers, mostly Democrats, skipped Netanyahu’s address, including Senators Dick Durbin, majority whip; Chris Van Hollen; Jeff Merkley; Patty Murray; Elizabeth Warren; and Bernie Sanders. Vice President Kamala Harris declined to preside over the Senate chamber during his address. She instead was in Indianapolis.

Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, opted to attend, but protested Netanyahu by holding up a sign that read “guilty of genocide” on one side and “war criminal” on the other.

Ahead of Netanyahu’s address, Democratic Congressmember Cori Bush discussed why she was boycotting the speech.

REP. CORI BUSH: It’s absolutely shameful that after the murder of over 39,000 Palestinians, human beings, after the repeated bombing of hospitals, after witnessing the bombing of religious institutions, schools, humanitarian convoys, refugee camps, and fathers collecting their children’s remains in plastic bags, holding their beheaded children, that my colleagues in Congress choose to celebrate Prime Minister Netanyahu, a whole war criminal, by bestowing him the honor of addressing Congress. Because standing up for human rights is more than a talking point to me, I’m boycotting his address.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Outside the Capitol, thousands took part in protests calling for Netanyahu’s arrest and for a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. Emerson Wolfe came to the protest from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

EMERSON WOLFE: We believe we should stop aiding Israel in their genocide against Palestinians and that they need to lift the siege on Gaza. So we’re here to protest Netanyahu, but we’re also here to encourage people to come out to the first day of the Democratic National Convention to keep the pressure up on the Democrats, to let them know that we want a pro-Palestinian candidate, that the people demand change and that we will not suffer this genocide anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress and the protests, we’re joined by two guests. Noura Erakat is a Palestinian American human rights attorney, professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Phyllis Bennis also joins us, a fellow at the Institute for Policy studies. She serves as an international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace. Phyllis has written a number of books, including Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.

Phyllis, you are in Washington. You were out at the protest yesterday. Can you talk about what Netanyahu said, and what he didn’t say, and the significance of him addressing, as a foreign leader, a joint session of Congress, more than any foreign leader ever? I think Winston Churchill came in second with three addresses. This was Netanyahu’s fourth.

PHYLLIS BENNIS: It was a horrifying thing to see, Amy — I’m glad to be back with Democracy Now! today — seeing the standing ovations. By my estimate, it seemed to be about every 30 seconds you saw members of Congress on their feet applauding and applauding and applauding.

But I think that we saw two things yesterday, aside from the host of lies. Even CNN, New York Times, everybody was tracking the lies that Netanyahu was saying. I think there’s two sets of things we need to notice.

Inside, what this showed was the degree to which the support for Israel has become a thoroughly partisan issue, despite the fact that some Democrats supported and signed off on the invitation. The fact that more than a hundred Democratic lawmakers skipped the speech, refused to participate, is a real statement of how this has become — supporting the prime minister of Israel has become a political liability in a very public way for public figures across the U.S. That has not always been the case.

The other thing is that this is different than what happened in 2015, when about 60 members of Congress skipped the speech. They were overwhelmingly from the Congressional Black Caucus, and they were focused not so much on the question of the denial of Palestinian rights, what had happened just months before that visit in the attack on Gaza at that time, that had gone on for 55 days, left 2,200 Palestinian civilians killed, but they recognized the incredible racism, the disdain with which the prime minister of Israel treated President Barack Obama. And it was in response to that direct racism that led to this massive refusal to participate. This time around, it was straight up about the refusal to call for a ceasefire, and it was about genocide.

Outside, there were two very important lessons, I think, as well. One is that our movement, the broadly defined movement, not only the self-defined Palestinian rights movement that has been around for so many decades in this country, but the broad, spontaneous movement that has risen up in the last 10 months in direct response to the horrific level of genocide that Israel has been carrying out in Gaza, that broad movement has really normalized the whole question of ending — not only cutting or conditioning, but ending — U.S. military support to [Israel]. It’s no longer a challenging position. Sixty-two percent of adults in this country, of all parties, voting and nonvoting, say that we should stop — they oppose sending weapons and sending material support to Israel.

The second thing is that our movement has redefined the demand for a ceasefire. It has stuck to a kind of message discipline where immediate ceasefire now is the call, but what that ceasefire means is very different than what it meant nine or 10 months ago. It now means three things. The first is stop the firing, stop the bombing, stop the tank fire, stop the ground assaults, stop killing people. But it also includes two other key points. One is the need for massive humanitarian escalation, humanitarian aid at scale of what’s required, meaning start refunding UNRWA. The U.S. is now the only country that is still refusing to support the most important U.N. agency, the only one capable of providing Palestinians with the very basics of life, water, medical care, food. And the third thing that’s part of a ceasefire now is to stop sending the weapons that enable the genocide. And until all three are met, this will not be the ceasefire that people are demanding.

And that’s the message that is being sent both to President Biden, who will be president for another six months, presiding over the support for this genocide, and to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the likely nominee of the Democratic Party to be the next president, telling her what ceasefire now really means. So, that was, I think, the messages that we took yesterday. It was an extraordinary mobilization in the streets of Washington.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Phyllis Bennis, could you talk about what the significance is of Kamala Harris not being present when Netanyahu spoke?

PHYLLIS BENNIS: Well, again, this was a reflection of the degree to which there’s recognition that showing support for the prime minister of Israel has become a political liability. And Kamala Harris wanted no part of it.

She also has expressed a very different tone, a very different kind of language than President Biden, so that it’s quite clear that whatever policy positions she’s been willing to take that differ from his — and that has meant, essentially, her willingness, way before Biden did, to call for an immediate ceasefire. And the fact that she called for it on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, that was so famous — infamous in this country’s history, of beating and attacking Black protesters that were being denied the right to vote, that was an extraordinarily powerful moment to use that day and that place to call for an immediate ceasefire, something that her president had so far refused to do. So we know that her position is somewhat different.

How much she’s going to be willing to break with Biden’s position, we still don’t know. What is clear is that for her to take a different position will be a whole lot easier than it will be for President Biden. President Biden has responded to some of the protests, particularly that of the “uncommitted” movement, as well as the massive numbers of people on staff of the administration and of Congress demanding — demanding of the president that he stop supporting this, saying they can’t do their jobs to represent this country as long as he’s maintaining that position. For a President Harris in the future, she would not have to be denying decades of uncritical massive support for Israel that have been reflected by Joe Biden.

And in that context, I think there is some hope. I think that’s part of the reason that so many young people, people of color — particularly we’re seeing it among people who supported the uncommitted movement. People in the Palestinian and Arab communities in this country are saying, “Well, maybe there’s a chance here. Maybe there’s a way that she could do something that would make it possible to vote for her.” That’s not clear yet. She has not earned that vote yet. But it does look like she’s taking a very different position than the person that she has served as — essentially, as his deputy.

So I think it was very, very important that she refused to participate and that she refused to have her photograph central, right above this man who was taking on a speech in the People’s House, as people like to call it here in Washington, in the Capitol, our Capitol, using it as if — as CNN said, as The New York Times said, as all the mainstream media is acknowledging, treating it as if he were giving a State of the Union address, inviting his own guests to sit in the balcony, and addressing them, making them the subject of it, speaking for an entire hour, with ovation after ovation. And apparently, Kamala Harris wanted no part of that. So, there’s a different — there’s a significance in that different approach that she has taken.