In a bipartisan nod to genocide, US lawmakers welcomed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a genocidal war criminal, into Congress yesterday, making him the first foreign leader to address Congress four times. It was the most shameful and dystopian congressional address in US history.
Speaking through unending applause, Netanyahu asked Congress for more funds and weapons and a license to massacre more Palestinians. In a tacit nod to US complicity in the Gaza genocide, Netanyahu told Congress, “Our fight is your fight.” He vowed a “total victory,” praised IDF soldiers despite their numerous war crimes, and cast anti-genocide protesters as “Iran’s useful idiots.” He claimed, amid roars of cheers, that the number of civilians who have been killed in Gaza is “practically none,” echoing the genocidal mantra “There are no innocents in Gaza” that Israel has repeated throughout the war. Emboldened by the unquestioning crowd, Netanyahu told lie after debunked lie.
A dazzled Congress gave Netanyahu fifty-eight standing ovations, lasting about half of the speech’s duration and marking a record in US history, or perhaps any country’s history, at more than 400 percent the number Kim Jong Un receives in North Korea, thus breaking Netanyahu’s own record from 2015, when his forty-three-minute speech received forty-three standing ovations and rounds of applause from nearly every single US lawmaker. After a long, torturous hour of cheering and clapping, lawmakers scrambled on the House floor to shake Netanyahu’s hand.
The circus was incredibly undignified. Even former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a staunch Israel ally and longtime AIPAC darling, described Netanyahu’s address as the “worst” speech to Congress given by a foreign leader.
But if there’s a silver lining to Netanyahu’s noxious speech, it’s surely that the address was a gift to historians of genocide. Looking back on this dark day, the culmination of…
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Auteur: Seraj Assi
