On Wednesday July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint session of Congress. As he was speaking, the war in Gaza was continuing, with more than 39,145 Palestinian killed at the time of writing this piece, 89,800 injured, with 70 percent of all casualties being children, women, and old men. 129 people were killed just over the past 5 days. 1.9 million people have also become internal refugees, since 80 percent of Gaza has been destroyed by Israel.
Never mind the report by the Lancet, the prestigious medical journal, which declared that the true number of people killed directly and indirectly in Gaza is actually close to 190,000, because for every person killed directly by Israel, at least 4 other people have died due to a variety of reasons caused by the war, from hunger, to disease that are spreading, and lack of medicine.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees has reported that between 7 October 2023 and 8 July 2024, at least 553 people have been killed, including 131 children, in Netanyahu’s second war front with the Palestinian people in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, in Netanyahu’s third war – this time in Lebanon – as of July 9 at least 98,002 people have been displaced, with the total casualties standing at 1904 in southern Lebanon. Israel’s bombings have also killed at least 800 farm animals.
The International Criminal Court has been seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu, as well as Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, has stated that the Court is also seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
At home, the trial of Netanyahu, charged for corruption in three separate cases, which originally began in 2020, resumed last December, after a two-month pause due to the war in Gaza. The war has provided him with a reprieve and has distracted attention from the charges that he is facing. Like everything else that he does, Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.
Given this background, how was Netanyahu greeted by Congress? As he walked onto the floor of the House, he was greeted with roaring applause that lasted more than 5 minutes. As he dismissed the protestors at the Capitol, which included family members of Israeli hostages who are being held in Gaza who wore shirts inside the chamber during his address that said, “Seal the Deal Now,” the majority in the audience clapped repeatedly. Overall, Netanyahu was applauded 79 times, of which 58 were standing ovations.
During his speech, Netanyahu fiercely attacked those Americans, including many Jewish Americans, who have been protesting his war in Gaza. He accused them of “standing with evil,” and declared that “they should be ashamed of themselves.” This is not surprising. After all, this is the same man who back in April, at the height of college students protests against the war, declared that the protestors are all antisemitic.
He also gave U.S. leaders their marching orders for putting down the protests when he declared, “What is important now is for all of us, all of us who… cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and to say, ‘enough is enough’… it is unconscionable; it has to be stopped…” Yes, if there is only one man in the entire world who is completely qualified to talk about civilization and civility, it is Netanyahu.
But Netanyahu did not even stop there. He accused anti-war protestors of being agents of a foreign government. Guess which government did he have in mind? Surprise! Iran, his punching bag for the last 25 years. Netanyahu said, “For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building… well, I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.”
This is yet another lie about Iran by Netanyahu. There is no evidence that Iran, besieged by all sorts of economic and political problems, has provided funds to anyone in the United States to protest Israel. To the contrary, as Politico reported in May, “Two of the organizers supporting the protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros and was previously supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
At the same time, for at least 15 years, ever since the Green Movement in Iran in 2009, Iran’s hardliners have accused Soros of trying to ignite a “velvet revolution” to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
As Politico reported, in addition, “Another notable Democratic donor whose philanthropy has helped fund the protest movement is David Rockefeller Jr., who sits on the board of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. It has given nearly $500,000 directly to Jewish Voice for Peace.”
Netanyahu shed crocodile tears for Iranian women and for its LBGTQ community. How many Palestinian women, with or without Islamic Hijab, have been murdered by his American-made bombs? Thousands. How many gay men in Gaza have been killed by the same bombs? Probably a large number.
Only the United States overthrows democratically elected governments around the world, from Iran to Chile, but preaches democracy.
Only the United States supports fascists, such as Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt whose regime has 65,000 political prisoners, and the religious dictatorship in Saudi Arabia that beheads 81 people in a single day, but preaches human rights around the world.
And, only the United States gives the honor of speaking to a joint session of Congress to a war criminal who is also on trial at home for corruption.
Muhammad Sahimi, a Professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, analyzes Iran’s political developments, its nuclear program, and its policy in the Middle East.
