Democratic congressional leaders are struggling to contain outrage against their invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in front of Congress.
The four major congressional leaders jointly signed an invitation to have Netanyahu speak, which would be his first visit since the beginning of the war in Gaza. The invite has exacerbated tensions within the Democratic Party, and one prominent senator adjacent to it.
“You do not honor a foreign leader by addressing a joint session of Congress who is currently engaged in creating the worst humanitarian disaster in the modern history of this country,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in an appearance on MSNBC.
Even establishment Democrats have voiced surprise and opposition to the visit.
“There will be a lot of disruption, and it will not be helpful for Israel or its supporters,” former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told Inside Congress.
His sentiments were shared by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Politico noted that Democrats were consistently baffled as to why Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would sign onto House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s (D-LA) invite.
“We’re already divided — we don’t need this guy who’s killing people coming to speak,” a representative in Jeffries’s leadership circle told the outlet.
The outrage extended even further among left-wing activists.
“Everything about this idea is a disaster,” Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, a Democratic PAC, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “Netanyahu is starving Gaza and waging a disastrous campaign of slaughter. He’s prolonging death and suffering for his own political gain, and everyone knows it. Even President Biden acknowledges it is completely reasonable to understand Netanyahu’s motivation for continuing the war as political.”
She praised the decision of some Democratic lawmakers to not attend Netanyahu’s speech.
“It should be an easy decision not to attend,” Greenberg said. “Democrats with a range of positions are questioning this choice — why this? Why now? What are we doing here? The number of lawmakers skipping the speech is going to grow. There are a thousand good reasons to reject this speech, and not one defensible reason to do it, morally or politically.”
In the wake of the backlash, Jeffries has slightly distanced himself from the invitation. Johnson would have invited Netanyahu one way or the other, and his and Schumer’s sign-on was simply a customary move. One Democratic aide familiar with events told Politico that Jeffries “didn’t really have a lot of choice” after Schumer signed on.
One key issue is timing — the date of Netanyahu’s visit still has not been disclosed. One person familiar with the White House‘s thinking told Politico that the impact of his visit depends on when he will visit.
“If he comes in two weeks versus six weeks from now, it’s a very different situation,” they said. “If there’s a ceasefire deal, hostages are being released, there’s no fighting, then it’s just a very different political environment than if fighting is very much ongoing and active.”
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Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor, cognisant of Netanyahu’s famous 2015 speech in front of Congress on destroying the looming Iran Nuclear Deal, expressed bitterness over Netanyahu’s tactics.
He told the outlet that Netanyahu is “the only Israeli leader that can manipulate the West and interfere in our politics. He’s bragged about it publicly. He’ll come here, give a speech, take some shots at political enemies, and go back home and say, ‘Look, I did it again’ and get a polling bump from it.”