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    Netanyahu is presiding over a sharp decline in the US’s pro-Israel consensus

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    Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of the House and Senate may look like a political victory: the prime minister of a foreign country speaking before Congress, only interrupted by multiple standing ovations. But the political events serving as a backdrop for the speech reveal Netanyahu’s political career, and the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus in the US, in sharp decline.At home in Israel, it’s virtually unthinkable that Netanyahu could have found such a supportive audience. A staggering 72% of Israelis want him to resign over failures that permitted the 7 October attacks by Hamas to succeed.And 72% of Israelis also support a deal to release hostages over the destruction of Hamas. Despite saying he is doing everything he can to “bring all our hostages home”, Netanyahu appeared to outright reject a hostage deal in his speech to Congress, declaring Israel “must retain overriding security control [in Gaza] to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel”, a war goal the Israeli military says is unachievable and terms to which Hamas will not agree.Indeed, blatant falsehoods were scattered throughout his speech. He claimed “practically no civilians were killed in Rafah” (daily reporting shows women and children dead from Israeli air strikes on Rafah and surrounding areas), downplayed the role of Israel in creating famine conditions for much of Gaza’s population, and claimed that Israel helps “keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East”, conveniently omitting the 4,492 US service members who died in the Iraq war, a war Netanyahu lobbied Congress to undertake in 2002.While the speech was Netanyahu’s fourth address to Congress, the political landscape in Washington has shifted beneath his feet, creating a far less welcoming American public than the applause might suggest. Around half of House and Senate Democrats boycotted the speech while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the Capitol building, revealing the steep drop in support for Israel’s war on Gaza over the past nine months.Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, 38% of voters said they were less likely to vote for him due to his handling of the war on Gaza. “Many core constituencies – including independents, swing state likely voters, and Democratic party activists – are angry at Biden’s unqualified support for the Israeli assault on Gaza,” said a report from the Century Foundation, the thinktank that commissioned the poll.While sentiments towards Israel are warmer within the Republican party – Israeli flags were visible on the floor of the Republican convention last week and Republican members of Congress led many of the standing ovations for Netanyahu’s speech – that support has increasingly coincided with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans by the world’s richest Israeli, Israeli-US dual national Miriam Adelson, who alongside her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, topped the list of Republican donors since the late 2000s, raising questions about whether support for Israel is an issue of deep concern to the Republican base or simply a transaction required for campaign contributions.The election wins of Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky and Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from West Virginia (both Republican critics of US aid to Israel), suggest an appetite, or at least an acceptance, of a more balanced US-Israel relationship within Republican voters.Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, planned before Biden ended his campaign for re-election, is now set against the political uncertainty of how Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will approach the relationship with Israel. The administration of which she is still a part of bled dangerous levels of support from its own base, particularly in vital swing states like Michigan, where 100,000 Arab and Muslim voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza by submitting “uncommitted” ballots in their Democratic primary.Pressure is building on the vice-president to distance herself from Biden’s “bearhug” strategy of Netanyahu and utilize the leverage the US holds over Israel: threatening to turn off the spigot of munitions necessary for Israel’s war to drag on.The speech may have looked like a victory for an embattled Israeli prime minister but the real test of Netanyahu’s political gambit will only become clear as Harris sets the foreign policy agenda for her presidential campaign.If the boycott of the speech by Democrats, polling showing dissatisfaction with ongoing support for the war on Gaza, and protesters outside the Capitol were any sign of the political tides within the Democratic party, Harris may conclude that the time has come for greater daylight between the US and Netanyahu, distancing the US from the nearly 40,000 casualties suffered by Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military, and a conditioning of US military aid to Israel on an end to the war on Gaza and Israeli participation in a deal to release hostages held by Hamas. Such a move would cast Netanyahu’s speech as a symbolic, and highly visible, breaking point in the bipartisan US support he has enjoyed for his entire political career.

    Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and investigative journalist at large at Responsible Statecraft More

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      FBI director questions whether Trump was hit by bullet or shrapnel in shooting

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      Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has raised questions about whether Donald Trump was actually shot by a bullet during the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month or whether he was instead struck by shrapnel.During a hearing on Wednesday in Washington, before the House judiciary committee, Wray told lawmakers that it was not clear what precisely caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.The burst of gunfire from a shooter on a roof with a sightline to the stage and crowd killed one rally-goer and left others wounded.“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.”Shortly after the shooting, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he had been shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”After the shooting, Trump released a memo about his recovery from Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and current Republican representative, but the former president has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.On Thursday, Jackson responded to Wray’s testimony in a post on X, calling Wray’s comments to lawmakers “absolutely irresponsible” and “politically motivated” against Trump.“What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet,” Jackson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It was a bullet,” he added. “I’ve seen the wound!”Wray also testified to lawmakers on Wednesday that the shooter who had attempted to assassinate Trump, and was then shot dead himself by government snipers, had searched online for information about the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy. More

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      House to form taskforce to investigate Trump assassination attempt

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      The House voted on Wednesday to form a taskforce to investigate the security failures surrounding the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month.The vote underscores the bipartisan outrage over the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump came within inches of losing his life. One rally-goer was killed and two others severely injured. Lawmakers have responded quickly with hearings and widespread calls for accountability.The legislation passed by a vote of 416-0.The taskforce will be composed of 13 members and is expected to include seven Republicans and six Democrats. It will be tasked with determining what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination and will make recommendations to prevent future security lapses. It will issue a final report before 13 December and has the authority to issue subpoenas.The bill is sponsored by Republican congressman Mike Kelly, whose home town of Butler was the site of the shooting. Kelly was at the rally with his wife and other family members.“I can tell you that my community is grieving,” Kelly said. “They are shocked by what happened in our backyard. The people of Butler and the people of the United States deserve answers.”He said he was concerned when the site of the rally was picked because he thought it would be “a difficult place to have a rally of that size.” He called the taskforce a chance to build trust with Americans that lawmakers can work together to tackle a crisis.House committees have already held three hearings focusing on the shooting. The Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday, one day after she appeared before a congressional committee and was berated for hours by Democrats and Republicans for the security failures.She called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, but she angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation.Democrats also voiced support for the taskforce, saying what happened in Butler was a despicable attack that never should have happened.“We need to know what happened. We need to get to the truth. We need to prevent this from ever, ever happening again,” said Congressman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. More

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      Netanyahu says Israel aiming for ‘total victory’ in Gaza as number of protesters arrested in Congress – live

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      Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will achieve “total victory” and that it will settle for “nothing less”.Total victory, he says, means that Israel will fight until it destroys Hamas’s military capability, end its rule in Gaza and bring all the hostages home.The Israeli prime minister moves on to talk about a post-war Gaza, and says that “a new Gaza could emerge” the day after Hamas is defeated.He says that his vision for a post-war Gaza is of a “demilitarized and de-radicalized Gaza”, adding:
      Israel does not seek to settle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.
      Netanyahu says that Gaza should have a civilian administration “run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel” and that a new generation of Palestinians “must no longer be taught to hate Jews”.He notes that the terms “demilitarization” and “deradicalization” were applied to Germany and Japan after the second world war, and that applied to Gaza “can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace”. “That’s my vision for Gaza,” Netanyahu says.Connecticut senator Chris Murphy reacted to Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, asserting that it’s out of bounds to suggest that anyone who objects to the war in Gaza is a “Hamas sympathizer.”“That speech was, as I expected, a setback for both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the fight against Hamas” Murphy said on X.During his address, Netanyahu likened that the thousands of protestors demonstrating at capitol hill as Hamas sympathizers. “Many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil,” he said. “Many stand with Hamas.As Netanyahu address Congress today, demonstrators marched in Washington DC, calling on the US to end arms sales to Israel and to implement an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.Our video editors have this report of Netanyahu’s visit to DC:Here are images from around Capitol Hill today, where thousands gathered to protest Israel’s bombardment of Gaza ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress.The Democratic party has announced the rules for the nomination of its presidential candidate, setting the stage for Kamala Harris to be officially chosen as the party’s standard bearer in early August before the party’s convention in Chicago begins later that month.According to rules adopted today by the convention’s rules committee, candidates will declare their intention to stand by 27 July, and then voting can begin virtually by 1 August at the earliest. Delegates will convene in Chicago beginning 19 August “to approve the Democratic Party platform, have ceremonial and celebratory votes on the nominees, and host historic acceptance speeches from the new Democratic ticket and voices throughout the Party”, the Democrats said in a statement.Harris, who announced her candidacy on Sunday, has said she has enough delegates to win the party’s presidential nomination, and no other major candidate has come forward to challenge her.Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, held up a sign accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of genocide during his speech today.She had this to say about it:Separately, Axios reports that about half of the Democrats elected to the House and Senate opted to skip the Israeli prime minister’s speech:Jean-Pierre also elaborated on Joe Biden’s timeline for revealing his decision to end his bid for a second term.The president, who had been recovering from Covid-19 at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, announced the decision with a post made on X, without warning, on Sunday afternoon. Jean-Pierre shed a little bit more light on the lead-up to that:
      He met with a small group of advisers on Saturday evening and with his family, and was thinking through how to move forward. Sunday afternoon, he made that decision. It was in a very short period of time, as you can imagine. And then at 1.45 [pm], he got on the phone with some of his assistants, assistant to the president, some advisers. He let them know, and then minutes later, a letter went out.
      So, it was in a very short period of time that the president was able to think about this and make a decision.
      Over at the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding the first briefing with reporters since Joe Biden announced he would end his bid for a second term.Besides a letter he released on social media, the president has not elaborated on his decision, but plans to do so when he addresses the nation from the Oval Office at 8pm ET, Jean-Pierre said.“The decision that he made on Sunday was about putting country first, was about his party and was about the American people,” Jean-Pierre said.“He’s going to be on camera later today, obviously, to address the American people from the Oval Office, because of this moment and how big this moment is. He wants to do that. He wants to make sure that Americans hear directly from him.”Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that every man, woman and child in Gaza is receiving more than enough food.“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!” he said, wagging his finger.According to data released by the United Nations, a total of 25,183 trucks entered Gaza before Israeli forces stormed the Rafah crossing in May, which affected both crossing points in the southern part of the enclave. The same UN data says a total of just 2,835 have entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom and Erez in the north in the months since, a fraction of the need.In total, per UN data, 28,018 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the war began. A little more relief entered via the US-built pier, but this has not been seen as a successful effort to boost the supply of aid.The US pier was also intended to overcome what the relief organisation Oxfam called, in a report earlier this year, Israel’s deliberate blocking of aid.Sally Abi Khalil, the organisation’s Middle East and north Africa director, added: “Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it.”Earlier this year, the world’s leading authority on famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, warned that Gaza was on the brink of famine if no action were taken.In a report in June, the organisation’s famine review committee said that as there had been some increase in goods allowed into northern Gaza, that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring”.However, they added that the risk of famine remains. They added: “The situation in Gaza remains catastrophic and there is a high and sustained risk of Famine across the whole Gaza Strip. It is important to note that the probable improvement in nutrition status noted in April and May should not allow room for complacency about the risk of Famine in the coming weeks and months. The prolonged nature of the crisis means that this risk remains at least as high as at any time during the past few months.”The US Capitol Police now say six people were arrested for disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in the House chamber:The US Capitol Police said five people who disrupted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech from a gallery in the House chamber were arrested, while officers deployed pepper spray on protesters outside the Capitol:Photographers on the scene caught images of Capitol police deploying pepper spay:Benjamin Netanyahu also uses his address to praise Donald Trump, and says he wants to thank the former president “for his leadership in brokering the historic Abraham accords”.He thanks Trump for “recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights”, for “confronting Iran’s aggression” and for “recognizing Jerusalem as our capital and moving the American embassy there”.The status of both Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are disputed under international law.Israelis were “relieved” when Trump “emerged safe and sound from the dastardly” assassination attempt on him, Netanyahu says.Benjamin Netanyahu says that he is “confident” that the US and Israel will “vanquish the tyrants and terrorists” that threaten both countries.He says that as Israel’s prime minister, he vows that Israel “will not relent” or bend, no matter “how difficult the road ahead”.He says that Israel will continue to work with the US and its Arab partners on the “noble mission” to “transform a troubled region” full of “repression, poverty and war” into an “oasis of dignity, prosperity and peace”.Israel will always remain the US’s “indispensable” ally, “loyal friend” and “steadfast partner” through thick and thin, Netanyahu says.
      Thank you America. Thank you for your support and solidarity. Thank you for standing with Israel in our hour of need. Together, we shall defend our common civilization together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations. More

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      Netanyahu tells Congress Israel’s ‘fight is your fight’ amid boycotts and protests

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      Benjamin Netanyahu lauded US support for Israel’s war in Gaza but offered few details on ceasefire negotiations with Hamas as he addressed a raucous joint session of US Congress that was boycotted by dozens of Democratic lawmakers and protested against by thousands on the streets outside the US Capitol.In a fiery speech in the House chamber, Netanyahu called for “total victory” in the nine-month-old war, dashing hopes among some that he would announce progress toward a ceasefire and the return of Israeli hostages before his meetings with Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.“We’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you … Our enemies are your enemy, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory,” Netanyahu shouted, as House and Senate Republicans rose to their feet to applaud the Israeli prime minister.Dozens of Democratic members of Congress – including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – said they would boycott the speech over humanitarian concerns about how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, which has left an estimated 39,000 Palestinian civilians dead.Pelosi, in remarks to Politico before the speech, said it was “inappropriate” for Netanyahu to be invited and that she had “no sense of Netanyahu’s interest in peace”.Bernie Sanders, who also boycotted the speech, said that “it will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.” The international criminal court, which the United States does not recognise, is considering its prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu (as well as other Israeli officials and senior Hamas leaders) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.Netanyahu brushed asidehumanitarian concerns for the civilian population of Gaza aside, calling for “total victory” and issuing an appeal for the US to fast-track military aid to Israel: “Give us the tools and we’ll get the job done faster.” He thanked Biden for his “heartfelt support for Israel”.Netanyahu did not offer new insight on negotiations about a ceasefire with Hamas, saying only that “we’re actively engaged in intensive efforts” to secure the hostages’ release, adding that “some of those efforts are ongoing right now.”He also denied that Israel would seek to “resettle” Gaza when the conflict ended, but demanded the”demilitarization and deradicalization” of the territory, calling it his “vision for Gaza”.Police officers inside the Capitol arrested several members of the audience wearing shirts that read “Seal the deal NOW!” During the speech, Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, held up a black-and-white sign that read “war criminal” and “guilty of genocide”.Outside the Capitol, police used pepper spray against protestors who chanted “Netanyahu, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide,”.Netanyahu attacked the protesters directly, saying that they were “Iran’s useful idiots”.“Many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil,” said Netanyahu. “Many stand with Hamas.”The address was Netanyahu’s first to the Congress since the 7 October attack by Hamas that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and took more than 250 hostages, of which 120 are thought to remain in captivity.In meetings with families of hostages this week, Netanyahu indicated that a ceasefire deal could be taking shape, but also said that he would maintain pressure on Hamas and hold out for the best terms possible.A number of the families of hostages have demanded that he conclude a deal as quickly as possible. “I have to say that the urgency of the matter did not seem to resonate with him,” Daniel Neutra, whose brother Omer is one of eight American citizens in captivity, told a House panel. Inside the House chamber on Wednesday, some members in the audience wore bright yellow T-shirts that read: “Seal the deal NOW!”The US political turmoil has largely overshadowed Netanyahu’s visit to Washington this week. Biden on Sunday announced that he would not seek re-election, endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris as the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump at the polls in November.Harris was absent from the House rostrum on Wednesday, saying that she had a prior engagement. She later released a statement denying that she had boycotted the speech.Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Israeli national security minister, openly endorsed Donald Trump in the elections on Wednesday, saying that “a cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality, but that’s impossible to do after Biden”.In an interview with Bloomberg published hours before Netanyahu was due to speak, Ben Gvir said that Biden had been restraining Israel in fighting against regional enemies, including Iran.“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” Ben Gvir said. “With Trump it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated.“The US has always stood behind Israel in terms of armaments and weapons, yet this time the sense was that we were being reckoned with – that we were trying to be prevented from winning,” Ben Gvir added. “That happened on Biden’s watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy.”Netanyahu is set to meet with Biden at the White House on Thursday. He is also expected to meet with Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate, on Thursday, and then with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Harris would normally have sat directly behind Netanyahu, but said that she had a prior speaking engagement at a sorority in Indianapolis. More

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      Elon Musk attends Netanyahu’s congressional address as his guest

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      Elon Musk attended Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday as a guest of the embattled Israeli prime minister.A day earlier, the tech billionaire announced that his Starlink internet service was now active in a Gaza hospital, with the support of Israel’s government.Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.Musk has a history of courting rightwing leaders in countries that have overlapping business interests with his various enterprises. He previously hosted Javier Millei, Argentina’s president, at his Tesla factory and has been a cheerleader for his policies, while also cozying up to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president.Musk previously met with Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last year, as the tech leader sought to quell accusations of antisemitism after personally endorsing a post on his social network X, formerly Twitter, that claimed Jews hate white people. Far-right content on the platform has also increased.Musk’s visit also appears to have helped pave the way for SpaceX to provide its Starlink satellite internet to Gaza, which he announced on Tuesday was now in service at a hospital. The single location, which was supported by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also reflects the tight controls that Israel has put on communications technology in the area.In recent weeks, Musk has also thrown his support behind Donald Trump’s election campaign and played a direct role in advising the former president to select JD Vance, Ohio senator, as his running mate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlthough Musk has continued to post conservative content and attacks against the presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he appears to have tempered some of his support for Trump following Joe Biden dropping out of the race. Musk pushed back against a report he was set to donate $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee.Musk’s appearance as a guest of Netanyahu further aligns him with the Republican party line, which has thrown its support behind the Israeli leader as many Democrats condemn his actions. A number of progressive Democratic lawmakers declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech, with New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denouncing him as a “war criminal”. More

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      Thousands rally around Congress to denounce Netanyahu speech

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      Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday.With tensions over Israel’s nine-and-half-month war on Gaza running high, police mounted a huge security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection, adding “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!” Capitol police deployed pepper spray at protesters they claimed had crossed the police line.Netanyahu’s speech – arranged weeks ago and instigated by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson – comes at a singularly dramatic moment in US politics, days after the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race and less than two weeks after a failed assassination attempt on the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.But the fevered domestic backdrop has done little to reduce the furore surrounding Netanyahu, seen as a renegade figure even among some pro-Israel Democrats for prosecuting a war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.The military offensive was launched in response to an assault by the Palestinian group Hamas last October that left about 1,200 Israelis dead and saw another 250 taken hostage.Netanyahu’s presence was protested by demonstrators coming from a broad range of mostly leftwing groups, some of them Jewish, and many of them having travelled from as far as Indiana, Georgia and Illinois, according to protest organisers.View image in fullscreenIn a sign of the many fractures created by the war, anti-Netanyahu protesters from different factions clashed angrily with one another, after pro-Palestinian demonstrators apparently mistook another group displaying Israeli flags as supporters of Israel’s prime minister.Police intervened after scuffles broke out, as a march passed a group of protesters denouncing Netanyahu for his failure to end the war in Gaza and strike a deal that would free the remaining hostages being held by Hamas.Marchers chanted “free, free Palestine” as they passed the Israeli groups gathered in a park near the US Capitol. Things turned heated when two men close to the Israeli gathering shouted “from Hamas” in response.As tempers frayed, a young pro-Palestinian marcher appeared to grab several Israeli flags, leading to scuffles and shouts of “do not attack” and “leave her alone” from a man holding a Palestinian flag.As a shouting match ensued, the same man was clearly heard shouting “go back to Poland” at members of the Israeli group, some of whom wore T-shirts bearing slogans like “Saving Israeli Democracy”.View image in fullscreenOfficers nearby appeared to be slow to react but arrived on the scene after being summoned by the members of the Israeli gathering.“Both sides have a trigger when they see the other flag,” said Offer Gutelson, an organiser with UnXeptable, an Israeli group protesting against Netanyahu. “They get the feeling when they see the [Israeli] flag that we are not on their side, but we are,” he said. “We are on the side of the people who want peace, but not the ones who want to free Palestine from the river to the sea.”Among those organising the main rally were Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, the US Palestinian Community Network, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), the People’s Forum and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.Speakers lined up to address the crowd included Jill Stein, the Green party presidential candidate, and the actor Susan Sarandon.Protesters demanded Netanyahu’s arrest, as requested by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in May. The request was later denounced by Biden.“If Biden were fit to lead, he would stop funding genocide and turn Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over to the ICC,” Ahmad Abuznaid, an executive director at the USCPR, said in a statement.The demonstrations started on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu’s arrival in the US on Monday night, when members of the Jewish Voice for Peace group occupied the rotunda at the Cannon building, where many members of Congress have office space. Police carried out arrests and the group said about 400 of its members were detained.At the main demonstration – a safe distance from the fenced-off Capitol on a square off Pennsylvania Avenue – protesters chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan some supporters of Israel have alleged is antisemitic and potentially genocidal.A giant effigy of Netanyahu with horns on his head and blood dripping from his mouth was on display, while one woman holding a Palestinian flag had a baby doll held in a makeshift child’s sling fashioned out of a keffiyeh, apparently as a symbol of the large number of children killed in Israel’s Gaza offensive.One of several speakers to address the crowd, Abuznaid of USCPR said Palestinians were fighting “for our stolen past [and] our liberated future”.He added: “We reject Netanyahu not because he is more brutal or racist than those before him … [but] because he’s exactly the manifestation of the colonial project known as Zionism. We reject genocide Joe [Biden] and the US government’s support of this monstrosity historically and today.”Emily De Ferrari, 72, a retired midwife and volunteer for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), which campaigns for economic and cultural embargoes to pressure Israel to change its policy, called Netanyahu’s visit to Washington “criminal”.“I don’t know what to say about the people who invited him,” said De Ferrari, who had driven five hours from Pittsburgh with a group of fellow activists to be present. “It’s a cynical, manipulative, criminal move to invite him here today.”Asked if she believed Israel should continue to exist as a Jewish state, she replied: “A place where Jews are free and safe, I think that’s a justifiable aim. But it doesn’t make any sense for the Jews to say: ‘We’ve got to be free and safe and you don’t.’“Shouldn’t the Palestinians be allowed to live where they have lived for thousands of years? That’s not to deny the Holocaust or thousands of years of antisemitism.”View image in fullscreenSeveral Democratic members of Congress, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, have said they will boycott Netanyahu’s speech.Some made statements of condemnation on the eve of its delivery. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor” of addressing a joint session of Congress, Sanders said on Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor.Jerry Nadler, a senior Democratic House member from New York, also issued a withering denunciation, calling the Israeli prime minister “the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago”. However, he said he would be present during the speech out of respect to the state of Israel.He called the speech “the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicise the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home. There is no question in my mind it should not be happening.” More

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      A genocidal war criminal will address Congress. As a congressman, I’m outraged | Jamaal Bowman

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      The United States and our federal government love to portray ourselves as leaders in peace, diplomacy and human rights. In the eyes of the world, we want to be seen as collaborators and coalition-builders, working together to solve problems around the world.The reality in the halls of power is very different.On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu will come to the People’s House to give a joint address before members of Congress, one of the highest honors afforded to foreign leaders. The Israeli prime minister was invited in the midst of what the international court of justice has determined to be a plausible genocide by the Israeli government.We are at a pivotal moment in our democracy and our society where we have to ask ourselves: how do we want to be represented on the global stage? What do we stand for as a nation if we are inviting an accused war criminal to address a joint session of Congress as he inflicts collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children? Platforming a war criminal should not be our answer.Last month, I had the opportunity to meet with Sara, a 17-year-old girl from Gaza whose home was bombed by Israeli forces. Her two brothers, Ahmad and Mohamed, were killed, and she suffered deep burns across her entire body. She was unable to leave her house to seek medical treatment for a month because Israeli forces surrounded her home. Luckily, she was able to come to the United States to seek treatment but she is still afraid for the safety of the family she left behind.I have also met with families of Israeli hostages who are worried for the safety of their family members as Netanyahu continues to inflict collective punishment. They are terrified that their loved ones will be killed by Israeli military campaigns like others have.I am disgusted that we are allowing the man who is responsible for ripping families apart and killing Israeli and Palestinian civilians to be given a platform before Congress to try and win support and funding for his indiscriminate bombing campaign.Netanyahu’s record of fascist and genocidal behavior is not new. His initial work to prop up Hamas is responsible for widespread destabilization in Palestine. He has presided over the detainment of Palestinians without due process, the illegal expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and the practice of “mowing the lawn”, indiscriminately murdering dozens of Palestinians in horrifying military onslaughts. He has also worked to dismantle the national judiciary so he cannot be held accountable and aligned himself with far-right actors such as Itamar Ben-Gvir who have called for mass displacement of Palestinians.In Israel, thousands of people are protesting against Netanyahu’s handling of the war, which is further putting hostages held in Gaza at risk. They are calling for a ceasefire and negotiations between Israel and Hamas to protect the safety of innocent civilians in Israel and Gaza. On Tuesday, thousands of people will protest outside the Capitol, calling for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and release of the hostages. The majority of American people and people around the world support this.There is a moral outrage in the American conscience that is not being fully expressed in Congress. Netanyahu’s presence and his joint address are directly undermining the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans who want peace. Instead of joining this collective push, most members of Congress are more focused on institutional norms and their neoliberal approach to foreign policy.Our system is broken if our leaders choose to ignore the will of the people. We should all be outraged about the murder of children, whether at home or abroad. We should all be yelling in the halls of Congress until our leaders have no choice but to listen.We need a permanent ceasefire and release of the hostages. We need a world where people understand that criticism of a state or a leader does not make you antisemitic. We need a paradigm shift on how we approach the issue of Israel and Palestine. It’s time to re-evaluate where we stand as a democracy and a society and re-examine our alignment and support for Netanyahu and his genocidal government because it is outrageous. For hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and for our democracy as a whole, the future depends on it.

      Jamaal Bowman is the United States representative for New York’s 16th congressional district since 2021 More