Dozens of Lawmakers Are Protesting Netanyahu — but Have Little to Say About Israel’s Systemic Abuses of Palestinians

Washington is abuzz with reports of elected officials opting to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday. Dozens of federal lawmakers plan to skip the address, which comes just days after the International Court of Justice found Israel’s occupation of Palestine to be illegal and constituting apartheid, and nine months into a brutal assault during which Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

The elected officials who will not attend Netanyahu’s speech span the ideological spectrum, from Vice President Kamala Harris to members of the Squad. Most of the members of the House and Senate who have said they will skip the address — including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the No. 2 Democrat in the upper chamber — focused on Netanyahu himself as a war criminal or international law violator, rather than on the Israeli state’s systemic abuses against the Palestinian people. 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian in Congress, has been the most frank in explaining her protest. 

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“Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” Tlaib said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress. He should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court.”

Some, like Reps. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have echoed Tlaib’s straightforward opposition. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said she won’t be attending the speech and that she gave her tickets to the family member of an Israeli hostage. Several prominent members of Congress, including Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., will reportedly hold counter-programming with the families of Israeli hostages at the time of Netanyahu’s address. Even former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the prime minister should not have been invited to speak. 

“Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago,” Nadler said. “The Prime Minister is putting the security of Israel, the lives of the hostages, the stability of the region, and longstanding Israeli democratic norms in perilous jeopardy, simply to maintain the stability of his far-right coalition and absolve him of his own legal troubles.”

While Nadler insisted he had “not given up on the dream of an Israel that can live in peace with its neighbors, including with Palestinians, through a negotiated two-state solution,” his statement, along with those of scores of others, made no mention of Israeli state violence against Palestinians. 

The last time Netanyahu visited Congress, in 2015, nearly 60 Democrats boycotted his speech, viewing the address as an attack on President Barack Obama’s efforts to finalize negotiations regarding the Iran nuclear deal. Today, the Israeli premier is likely facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and oversees a government that was ordered by the ICJ months ago to stop any act of genocide in Gaza.

Time and time again, reputable bodies ranging from international courts to human rights organizations to the United Nations have found the Israeli government to be committing human rights violations. Even the Biden administration — while providing financial and political cover for Israel’s war on Gaza — has admitted that Israel has killed civilians and likely violated international law with U.S. weapons. As Tlaib pointed out in her statement on Tuesday, “Since 1948, the US has provided more than $141 billion in weapons to the Israeli government to fund the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, including $17.9 billion since October.”

While that reality may not be front and center for other members of Congress, protesters from across the country descended on Washington this week to make their opposition known. In interviews with The Intercept, activists described Netanyahu as a “symptom” of Israeli politics, not the problem himself.

On Tuesday, the U.S. veterans group Common Dreams joined Israeli veterans from Breaking the Silence to urge members of Congress to support a ceasefire, and to condition any future military aid to Israel upon its respect for international law and the human rights of Palestinians. The groups also urged Congress to restore U.S. funding for UNRWA: a United Nations agency that aids Palestinians and that has faced attacks from Israeli and U.S. officials.

“We’re the soldiers that stood at checkpoints, raided homes, arrested kids, destroyed Palestinian villages and fought in Gaza,” Nadav Weiman, incoming executive director of BTS, said in a statement. “We know more than anyone else why we need to end the Israeli occupation for the sake of Israeli society and the Palestinian society as well. We cannot really be a democracy in the middle-east if we continue our continuous 57 years of military occupation over the Palestinian people.”

The former soldiers were not alone at the Capitol. Hundreds of Jewish people — including over two dozen rabbis and rabbinical students — from across the country took to the rotunda to demand a ceasefire and arms embargo to Israel.

When asked about the protest, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., suggested the demonstrators — holding signs and wearing shirts that said things like “Jews for Ceasefire” or “Not in our name” — were “pro-Hamas.” 

The Intercept pointed out that the crowd included rabbis and asked Lawler if he believed they were also pro-Hamas.

“Those that are coming here on a continuing basis as they have since October 7, to protest the State of Israel and continually support the propaganda put forth by Hamas — yes, they’re pro-Hamas,” Lawler said.

Lawler, who is Catholic, questioned whether the protesters were even Jewish, and seemed to suggest that believing the demonstrators who self-identified as Jewish was akin to believing the death toll recorded by the Gaza Ministry of Health. (Gaza’s health authority has long faced bad-faith attacks by actors who point out that it is an arm of the Hamas government. Lawler also falsely said that the United Nations reduced the ministry’s death count by 50 percent; after The Intercept pointed out that was not true, he simply said, “OK.”)

Several protesters told The Intercept that their Jewish background is exactly why they were protesting in the first place.

Tal Frieden, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors who endured the Nazi work camps, said they were at the protest because of the horrors on display in Gaza and what they had been warned about growing up. “My entire childhood, I was told ‘never again’ means ‘never again for anyone.’”

Jay Saper, whose family members were killed at Auschwitz, said they honor their ancestors’ memories by pressing Congress and the president “to stop arming Israel while it carries out a genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.”

“I love my Jewish tradition because it inspires me. It allows me to take action for justice.”

Correction: July 24, 2024
A previous version of this article misspelled Tal Frieden’s last name.