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. ….more
