Netanyahu delivers forceful defence of Israel in speech to US Congress

Updated

Jul 25, 2024, 10:21 AM

Published

Jul 25, 2024, 09:45 AM

WASHINGTON – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 24 turned an address to Congress into a forceful defence of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. He cast it as a battle for survival of the Jewish state, while making almost no mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel’s drive to destroy Hamas.

The address laid bare deep divisions in Washington over the war, whose toll on civilians has outraged many Democrats and drawn international condemnation. Dozens of Democrats did not show up, with some openly boycotting the speech.

Vice-President Kamala Harris, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, declined to preside in her capacity as president of the Senate, a break with tradition.

Outside the Capitol, pepper spray filled the air as police officers tried to push back thousands of protesters who had gathered to jeer Mr Netanyahu. Demonstrators held signs calling him a war criminal, burned an effigy of him and an American flag, and vandalised statues with anti-Israel slogans.

In a speech in which he condemned critics of the war as dupes aligning themselves with the world’s most dangerous actors or apologists for terrorists, Mr Netanyahu portrayed the conflict as a proxy fight with Iran that must be won at all costs to protect both Israel and the United States.

“When we fight Iran, we are fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States,” he said.

“We’re not only protecting ourselves; we’re protecting you,” he added.

The substantial number of Democratic no-shows included two top senators and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker, who later panned the speech as “by far, the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honoured with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States”.

And as Mr Netanyahu spoke, Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan and the first Palestinian-American member of Congress, brandished a sign that read “war criminal” on one side and “guilty of genocide” on the other.

Mr Netanyahu did hint at some flexibility in negotiations for a ceasefire and prisoner-release deal, just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said those talks were at “the 10-yard line”. He stopped short of saying Hamas had to be destroyed, a line he has used in the past to slow talk of such an agreement. NYTIMES

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