US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
US House Speaker Mike Johnson confirms the legislative chamber’s Republican caucus is considering inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, amid a deepening divide between the premier and Democrats over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“It’s one of the things that we have in mind, and we may try to arrange for that,” Johnson tells reporters. “I think it’s very important for us to show solidarity and support for Israel right now in their time of great struggle, and we certainly stand for that position and we’ll try to advance that in every way that we can.”
Johnson says he had a “lengthy conversation” with Netanyahu this morning “and reiterated to him the House Republicans’ strong support for Israel.”
Netanyahu addressed Congress in March 2015, in an appearance arranged behind the back of then-US president Barack Obama.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 3, 2015 (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
He used the speech to warn that the nuclear deal then taking shape between Iran and Western powers “paves the path for Iran” to a nuclear arsenal, rather than blocking it, and urged American leaders to walk away from what he called “a very bad deal.”
US President Barack Obama makes a statement to the press after a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, soon after Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, March 3, 2015. (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)
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