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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

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      Bernie Sanders condemns speech to Congress by ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu

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      The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to the US Congress, calling him a “war criminal” presiding over a “rightwing extremist government”.Sanders delivered his remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday as Congress expects Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. The speech comes after an underwhelming arrival to the US, just after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from November’s elections.“Tomorrow will be unique in bringing Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress,” said Sanders on Tuesday. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor.”Sanders said of Netanyahu: “He should not be welcome in the United States Congress.”Several Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech on Wednesday.Kamala Harris, the Democratic party’s presumptive presidential nominee, will not be attending because of a scheduling conflict, according to an aide.Netanyahu is slated to meet with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, before the speech.Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland will oversee the event, according to the New York Times. Cardin, an orthodox Jew, has voiced support for Israel in the months since the attacks on 7 October and amid Israel’s war in Gaza.Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, is among the lawmakers who plan to boycott Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday afternoon, reminding senators of the ongoing hunger, destruction to housing and damage done to Gaza’s health and educational system.Israel’s war on Gaza has “trampled on international law, on American law, and on basic human values”, Sanders said.The UN has reported a death toll of more than 36,000 Palestinians as of 31 May.“His [Netanyahu’s] policies in Gaza and the West Bank and his refusal to support a two-state solution should be roundly condemned,” Sanders said in a statement on Monday. “In my view, his rightwing, extremist government should not receive another nickel of US taxpayer support to continue the inhumane destruction of Gaza.”“Every university has been bombed, and 88% of all school buildings have been damaged,” said Sanders. “And now, because of the ongoing restrictions on humanitarian aid, some 495,000 people face catastrophic levels of food insecurity – in other words, they are starving.”Representative Jerry Nadler of New York said he would attend Wednesday’s speech, but still lashed out against the Israeli prime minister, calling him the “worst leader in Jewish history”.“Tomorrow’s address is the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home,” said Nadler.The invitation was originally extended by the speaker Johnson, and endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, and Schumer, despite the latter’s earlier denunciation of Netanyahu and call for fresh Israeli elections.Sanders had previously supported Israel’s right to defend itself after the 7 October attacks, also lashing out against Hamas.“Netanyahu’s extreme rightwing government has, since that attack, waged what amounts to total war against the entire Palestinian people,” Sanders said in the chamber on Tuesday.In January, Sanders sponsored an unsuccessful Senate bill to make US aid to Israel conditional on its observance of human rights and international law.“This invitation to Netanyahu is a disgrace and something that we will look back on with regret,” Sanders said. “With this invitation, it will be impossible, with a straight face, for the United States to lecture any country on Earth about human rights and human dignity.” More

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      Netanyahu upstaged by Biden and Harris on highly anticipated US visit

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      Benjamin Netanyahu expected to land in Washington DC this week with a bang. So far, it has been more of a whimper.The Israeli prime minister has kept a low profile in the US capital, which was stunned by Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to challenge Donald Trump.Netanyahu’s first 24 hours have seen a series of small meetings with the families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, in which he said that progress was being made on negotiating a prisoner exchange of the remaining 120 hostages as part of a ceasefire deal but defended delaying for better terms.“I say at the outset that this will be a process – unfortunately it’s not all at once, there will be stages,” he said, according to remarks of the meeting published by the Times of Israel, “but I believe that we can move a deal forward and maintain the means of pressure that can bring about the release of the others.”Some of those in the room were family members that Netanyahu had himself brought to Washington onboard his official jet.Netanyahu however cautioned that the way to reach the deal would be by continuing to apply pressure to Hamas, even as some families of hostages have urged Netanyahu to conclude the deal as quickly as possible. Others have lobbied the Biden administration to put pressure on Netanyahu to cut a deal.“In no circumstance am I willing to give up on victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “If we let up, we will be in danger from all of Iran’s evil axis.”A day into his trip, Netanyahu had not publicly met any US officials, and his meeting with Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19, was rescheduled to Thursday. Trump said he would meet the Israeli prime minister on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. No timings for meetings have been released with Harris.And Biden will address the nation on Wednesday evening, upstaging the Israeli PM once again just hours after Netanyahu was set to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress.“I think Netanyahu was dismayed that he’s not the center of attention,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East. “He’s not the center of attention here because of what Biden did and what’s going on with Kamala. And he’s certainly not the center of the attention in Israel.”On Tuesday, Netanyahu is set to meet with leaders of the US evangelical Christian community, then hold an event with leaders of the local Jewish community, according to his office.Dozens of Democratic lawmakers were planning to boycott the speech to Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Harris will not be attending, which an aide said was because of a scheduling conflict. According to his public schedule, Netanyahu will meet with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, before the speech.Some hostage family members have said they hope that Netanyahu would use the visit to Washington to announce a ceasefire deal, which Biden had said was already agreed on as a “framework”.“We fully expect that his speech is going to be the announcement of this hostage deal that we’ve all been waiting for,” said Jon Polin, the father of one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, during a separate press conference of the families of hostage members in Washington.Yet analysts have said that Netanyahu may be relying on the war to divert attention from his own political difficulties, or could be delaying a deal until the domestic turmoil in the US resolves and the next president is chosen.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s world is political survival,” said Miller. “That’s his prime directive. That is what drives him and motivates him.“I don’t think there’s anything Kamala can do or Biden can do or not do, frankly, that’s going to alter Netanyahu decision making” on the ceasefire, he said. “He will do this based on whether or not he thinks he can get away with it politically.” More

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      Secret Service chief berated in House hearing after Trump rally shooting

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      Lawmakers grilled the director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, during a contentious House hearing on Monday, where members of both parties called for her resignation in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month.In her opening statement, Cheatle acknowledged the Secret Service had “failed” on 13 July, when a 20-year-old gunman was able to take a clear shot at the former president from a rooftop near Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.Trump survived but sustained an injury to his ear, and one rally attendee, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed in the attack. Two others were injured.“As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,” Cheatle told the House oversight committee. “We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.”In a particularly damning moment, Cheatle acknowledged that Secret Service agents were informed of a suspicious individual at the Trump rally “somewhere between two and five times” before the gunman opened fire.The Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, mourned the assassination attempt as “a horrifying moment in American history” and demanded that Cheatle offer her resignation.“While we give overwhelming thanks to the individual Secret Service agents who did their jobs under immense pressure, this tragedy was preventable,” Comer said. “It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign.”Lawmakers repeatedly pressed Cheatle on how such a galling security lapse could have occurred, but the director dodged many of their questions, reminding members that the investigation of the shooting was still in its earliest stages. When Cheatle again told Comer that she could not specify how many Secret Service agents were assigned to Trump on the day of the shooting, the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene interjected: “Why are you here?”Cheatle did deny allegations that the Secret Service rejected the Trump campaign’s demands for additional security on 13 July, telling lawmakers: “The assets that were requested for that day were given.”But Cheatle became more vague when the Republican congressman Jim Jordan pressed her on whether the Secret Service had denied past requests for additional security at Trump campaign events.“It looks like you won’t answer some pretty basic questions,” Jordan said. “And you cut corners when it came to protecting one of the most important individuals, one of the most well-known individuals on the planet.”Some Republicans representatives grew openly combative as they questioned Cheatle, with Nancy Mace telling the director: “You’re full of shit today.”Democratic members joined in on the criticism, and at least two of them, Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna, echoed Republicans’ calls for Cheatle’s resignation. Khanna compared the situation to the fallout after an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan in 1981.The then Secret Service director, Stuart Knight. stepped down in the months after the Reagan shooting.“Do you really believe that the majority of this country has confidence in you right now?” Khanna asked.Cheatle replied: “I believe that the country deserves answers, and I am committed to finding those answers and providing those answers.”Asked when more answers might be available, Cheatle said the agency hoped to conclude its internal investigation in 60 days, a timeline that sparked censure from committee members.“The notion of a report coming out in 60 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States, irrespective of party, is not acceptable,” said the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not theater. This is not about jockeying. This is about the safety of some of the most highly targeted and valued targets – internationally and domestically – in the United States of America.”Raskin, the Democratic ranking member of the oversight committee, agreed with calls for accountability at the Secret Service while adding that lawmakers must reckon with the broader problem of gun violence in the US. He noted that the Trump campaign rally attack was not even the deadliest shooting on 13 July, as four people were killed later that day after a gunman opened fire at an Alabama night club.“What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure: the failure by the Secret Service to properly protect Donald Trump and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence,” Raskin said. “We must, therefore, also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins and criminals to obtain firearms generally and AR-15 assault weapons specifically.”With Republicans in control of the House, it seems unlikely that a gun safety bill will pass Congress anytime soon. And after Cheatle’s performance on Monday, it seems even less likely that she will be able to hold on to her job for much longer. More

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      Bob Menendez set to resign from Senate after bribery conviction – report

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      The Democratic US senator Bob Menendez is refuting early reports that he told allies he was considering resigning from Congress after being convicted on corruption charges.“I can tell you that I have not resigned nor have I spoken to any so-called allies … Seems to me that there is an effort to try to force me into a statement,” Menendez told CBS News late Wednesday evening.Menendez has represented New Jersey in Congress for more than 30 years, as a representative in the House from 1993 to 2006 and since then in the Senate.NBC News reported early on Wednesday Menendez was preparing to resign.A jury in New York on Monday found the 70-year-old former chair of the Senate foreign relations committee guilty of 16 federal charges, including accepting bribes of cash, gold and a luxury car from three New Jersey businessmen, and acting as an overseas agent for Egypt.Shortly after the verdicts were read, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader; Cory Booker, Menendez’s fellow New Jersey senator; and Phil Murphy, the state’s Democratic governor, had urged him to stand down.Despite months of defiance from Menendez, NBC reported he is ready to relinquish his seat, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the senator’s intentions.“In light of this guilty verdict, Senator Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, and our country, and resign,” Schumer said in a statement.Murphy, who was among the first Democrats to call for Menendez to resign, will appoint a senator to temporarily complete Menendez’s term, which ends in January 2025.After the guilty verdict, Menendez told reporters: “I have never violated my public oath. I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country.”It was a familiar refrain from Menendez, who has taken a defiant stand ever since he was first indicted in September last year.The senator was on trial with New Jersey businessmen Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, who were also convicted of all the charges they faced. All three pleaded not guilty.Another businessman pleaded guilty before trial and testified against Menendez and the other defendants.Menendez’s wife, Nadine, was also charged, although Stein announced Tuesday that her trial had been postponed indefinitely. Menendez said in May she was being treated for advanced-stage breast cancer.This article was amended on 17 July 2024. An earlier version stated that Menendez was going to resignReuters contributed reporting More