Speaker Johnson will Invite Netanyahu to Address Congress

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says he plans to invite Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. 

What better way for Netanyahu to counter Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s completely inappropriate and disgraceful speech he delivered that encouraged Israel to hold an election while Israel is at war? Schumer most likely delivered that speech at President Biden’s request. Biden doesn’t have the nerve to be honest about his feelings about Netanyahu. He likes to point to several decades of friendship but privately he is stabbing Netanyahu and Israel in the back. 

Israel has a right to protect herself. This is a time of moral clarity and Biden, along with most Democrats, is failing spectacularly. A very strong and vocal population in the Democrat Party is  antisemitic. It has been an eye-opener to see the large number of them so publicly anti-Israel and pro-Hamas. 

Chuck Schumer had no right to make that speech and Joe Biden was wrong to say he thought it was a good speech. It was not. It was an American senator meddling in Israel’s government. It brought back memories of former President Barack Obama’s staff who went to Israel during his administration to make sure that Netanyahu did not win an election back then. Biden and Obama have worked against Netanyahu for years. Obama despises Netanyahu. 

Schumer said he believes that Netanyahu has “lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace. Netanyahu is trying to destroy Hamas, as he has the right to do after the massacres on October 7, 2023, an act of war by any standard, and Schumer’s interference was shocking. The silence from other Democrat senators since Schumer’s speech is deafening. What a bunch of cowards. Now Schumer says he’d welcome an address from Netanyahu. 

“Israel has no stronger ally than the United States and our relationship transcends any one president or any one prime minister,” he said. “I will always welcome the opportunity for the prime minister of Israel to speak to Congress in a bipartisan way.”

There is history of Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress. He was invited by former Republican Speaker John Boehner during a time of sensitive talks about Iran’s nuclear program. Democrats criticized Boehner because Obama was not consulted. Obama was too busy cozying up to the Iranian leadership to try to make a deal. 

Johnson said today that he had a lengthy conversation with the prime minister. He said he “reiterated to him the House Republicans’ strong support for Israel in their efforts there.”

Senate Republicans heard from Netanyahu at their weekly caucus lunch via video today. He told them that he believes he still has support in the United States and in Israel. He also said Schumer’s remarks were inappropriate. 

“We made it clear to the prime minister that in our judgment, the American people overwhelmingly support Israel’s war, that we understand the need to prosecute the war,” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said after the video call. “Without conquering Hamas, we cannot have peace.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said that Netanyahu had called him last week and said he wanted to address the GOP conference. “Bipartisan support for Israel seems to be cracking on the political left in this country,” said McConnell, who has been sharply critical of Schumer’s remarks.

Democrats don’t like Netanyahu because he is conservative and he has a spine of steel. He has made it abundantly clear that he is in charge and will pursue the demise of Hamas on his own terms. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer should stay in their lane. Biden’s pandering to Dearborn, Michigan Muslim Arab American voters is destructive to the future security of Israel.

Donald Trump weighed in on the kerfuffle by advising Jews on voting. Shocker, I know. He is being criticized by Jews for saying this week that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.” That was like Biden telling Charlemagne tha God, “Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” 

 American Jewish history professor Jonathan Sarna at Brandeis University said Trump is capitalizing on tensions within the Jewish community. Jews don’t want to be told how to be Jewish. 

“For people who hate Donald Trump in the Jewish community, certainly this statement will reinforce their sense that they don’t want to have anything to do with him,” he said. “For people who like Donald Trump in the Jewish community, they probably nod in agreement.”

To many Jewish leaders in a demographic that has overwhelmingly identified as Democratic and supported President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump’s latest comments promoted harmful antisemitic stereotypes, painting Jews as having divided loyalties and that there’s only one right way to be Jewish religiously.

“That escalation of rhetoric is so dangerous, so divisive and so wrong,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest U.S. Jewish religious denomination. “This is a moment when Israel needs there to be more bipartisan support.”

I find it unthinkable that American politicians need to be reminded that Israel is a loyal and strong ally to the United States. It is the only democracy in its neighborhood. Israel deserves to pursue the war against Hamas as it sees fit, without interference from American Democrats.