JNS
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a regular opponent of Israel, dismissed the appearance as “political theater on behalf of the State Department.”
Some Congress members announced their intent to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday afternoon in opposition to Israel’s war to dismantle Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Senators planning to skip the speech include Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
Durbin called Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas under Netanyahu “a brutal strategy beyond any acceptable level of self-defense.”
House members who refuse to attend include Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-N.C.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Don Beyer (D-Va.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
Nearly a dozen California legislators affiliated with the Democratic Party also announced plans not to attend, such as Reps. Ro Khanna, Sara Jacobs, Jared Huffman, Barbara Lee, Ami Bera, Mark Takano, Judy Chu and the former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
Progressive “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) did not explicitly announce her intentions, choosing instead to release a statement on Tuesday calling Netanyahu a “war criminal committing genocide” who “should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court” in The Hague.
Fellow “Squad” member Ocasio-Cortez announced her boycott, calling the Israeli prime minister “an authoritarian with warrant requests from the International Criminal Court” and claiming that 40,000 Palestinians had died in the conflict.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said he wasn’t attending due to conflicting campaign duties. Other representatives slated not to appear because of previous commitments, rather than as a political statement, are Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)
‘An insult to all Israelis’
Massie, whose fervent criticisms of his pro-Israel colleagues have provoked charges of antisemitism due to his dual loyalty accusations, called Netanyahu’s appearance “political theater on behalf of the State Department.”
Welch similarly dismissed the speech as “a political stunt.”
Citing heavily disputed Hamas numbers of the numbers of women and children killed during the war in Gaza, Merkley wrote on X that Netanyahu’s war policies had “inflicted widespread starvation and prioritized his political survival over the release of hostages.”
Chu accused Netanyahu of having “purposefully undermined prospects for peace and taken a battering ram to Israel’s democracy.”
In a statement, Balint said, “I vehemently object to giving the prime minister a platform when his failed leadership has brought so much death and destruction to Palestinians and Israelis.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in response to the wave of declarations in response to Netanyahu’s appearance that “Democrats always seem to have an excuse for boycotting the chamber when Israel’s prime minister addresses Congress.”
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote that “Netanyahu doesn’t represent himself, but Israel. His name could’ve been Yair Lapid or Mansour Abbas. It is not up to Americans to say who represents Israel. It is an Israeli choice. Boycotting Netanyahu’s speech in Congress is an insult to all Israelis, Jews and Arabs.”
He made the comparison that if the shoe were on the other foot, “any Israeli officials who would have boycotted Obama or Trump delivering a speech in Israel would have been a similar insult, against all of us Americans, Democrat, Republic and neither.”
