In this Oct. 22, 2020 file photo, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite File)
The number 2 Democrat in the Senate, Illinois’s Dick Durbin, says he will boycott tomorrow’s speech to Congress by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he supports Israel but not its premier.
In a short statement, Durbin, the Senate majority whip, calls Israel’s execution of its war against Hamas in Gaza “a brutal strategy beyond any acceptable level of self-defense.”
He also accuses Netanyahu of refusing to “consider any peace plan that gives Israelis and Palestinians a guarantee of security.”
“I will stand by Israel but I will not stand and cheer its current Prime Minister at tomorrow’s Joint Session,” he writes.
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) departs after viewing graphic footage from the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel, shown by the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP)
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes also says she will boycott Netanyahu’s speech, calling him a war criminal.
“It is a dark day in US history when an authoritarian with warrant requests from the International Criminal Court is allowed to address a joint session of Congress,” the progressive Democrat tweets.
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