Rapturous congressional applause greets war criminal Netanyahu
Michael F. Brown Power Suits 25 July 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Wednesday to a joint session of Congress and received repeated ovations for promoting war crimes against Palestinians.
Amos Ben Gershom GPOMembers of the US Congress greeted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, with rapturous applause Wednesday when he spoke to a joint session of Congress for a record fourth time.
Unsurprisingly, many applauded when he smeared thousands of protesters in Washington, DC as “Iran’s useful idiots.” First Amendment rights to protest the Gaza genocide are not well regarded by many Washington politicians.
“For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building – not that many, but they’re there – and throughout the city.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Democrats, bear responsibility for joining Republicans in inviting Netanyahu into the chamber to disparage key Democratic constituencies.
Vice President Kamala Harris, now the expected Democratic presidential candidate, has yet to push back. She has loyally stood beside President Joe Biden – cited as “a proud Irish American Zionist” by Netanyahu – for nearly 10 months as his genocide deputy.
Rather than criticize the war crimes and genocide of Netanyahu and the prime minister’s remarks condemning protesters as “Iran’s useful idiots,” Harris released a statement condemning a small group of demonstrators.
Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a Charleston chauvinist who thinks she knows better about Israel’s oppression of Palestinians than Tlaib, and misses it altogether, referred in a tweet to Tlaib as being “Iran’s useful idiot.”
She was not alone in her hubris and anti-Palestinian racism as even former Congressman Madison Cawthorn piled on for the war criminal visiting Washington.
A group of 84 anonymous congressional interns issued a press release denouncing Netanyahu’s address, insisting that he “must be held accountable for his crimes against humanity.”
In an email to The Electronic Intifada, the interns criticized the attacks on Tlaib, writing: “These attacks not only undermine the necessary decorum expected in political discourse but also distract from meaningful debates on policies impacting human rights and justice. We vehemently condemn these personal attacks, which have no place in our democratic discourse, and stand in full solidarity with Representative Tlaib.”
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie announced Wednesday morning he would not attend and was quickly criticized by Israel lobby group AIPAC.
Joe Biden, who at that time in 2015 was vice president and therefore president of the Senate, also did not attend the attempt to undermine the foreign policy of his boss.
Likewise, Harris did not attend Wednesday’s speech, but is expected to meet separately with Netanyahu on Thursday afternoon.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont did not attend the speech and called Netanyahu a “war criminal.” The term fits as Netanyahu has overseen genocide in the Gaza Strip and illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
Sanders added, “Netanyahu should not be welcomed into the United States Congress … In my view, his right-wing, extremist government should not receive another nickel of US taxpayer support to continue the inhumane destruction of Gaza.”
Sanders, however, leaves the door wide open to fund a different government violating Palestinian rights as Israel has done since the 1948 dispossession of 800,000 Palestinians.
The murder of these babies appears to be a new claim.
Nor has any credible source established that Hamas “burnt babies alive” as Netanyahu also put forward.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted in December that “Ten-month-old Milla Cohen was murdered in the massacre, along with the baby still in the womb of her mother who died after her mother was shot on the way to hospital. The police have no evidence showing that other babies were killed.”
The facts on infants as they are known today contradict the claims of the Israeli prime minister.
Netanyahu with his atrocity propaganda is stoking rage among the most powerful politicians in Washington and generating further congressional anger at the American protesters challenging the American and Israeli campaign of genocide in Gaza.
Amidst it all, he asked for “fast-tracking US military aid,” claiming “give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster.”
Faster genocide elicited audience applause.
And it’s the same talking point put forward today by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly,” Trump lightly quipped of the genocidal reality.
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