Herzog addresses US Congress amid tensions over Israel’s policies

WASHINGTON - Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed Congress on Wednesday at a fraught moment in the US’ relationship with his nation, and amid fresh signs of strain in the longstanding bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill to fervently support the Jewish state.

A day after 10 left-wing House Democrats declined to back a resolution declaring strong support for Israel, Mr Herzog sought to ease concerns that his country is losing its democratic, pluralistic tradition – a message equally aimed at members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government who wish to move towards a state where power is more centralised in the Prime Minister’s Office.

He also acknowledged the divisions that have appeared both in his country and among leaders in the US, but compared the relationship between the two countries to a family, where disagreement does not mean disunity.

“When the United States is strong, Israel is stronger,” he said. “And when Israel is strong, the United States is more secure.”

A handful of Democrats boycotted the speech, including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who last week said that Israel is a “racist state”.

The remark, which she later walked back, prompted Republicans to rush to the floor a resolution rejecting anti-Semitism and saying that Israel was neither racist nor an apartheid state.

Ms Jayapal voted in favour of the resolution – she had said she meant to criticise the Israeli government’s policies, not the idea of Israel as a state – but a small group of Democrats opposed it, and some of them joined her in skipping Mr Herzog’s address.

The Biden administration and a broader group of Democrats in Congress – including staunch supporters of Israel – have grown increasingly alarmed about

efforts by Mr Netanyahu to overhaul Israel’s judiciary

in ways that have been called undemocratic.

Members of Congress applauded Mr Herzog saying that Israel “takes pride” in its vibrant democracy including a “strong Supreme Court and independent judiciary”.

Israel’s treatment of Palestinians

– including settlement construction and

a recent air attack

in the West Bank city of Jenin – is the main reason that some lawmakers decided to boycott the speech.

Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman said Mr Herzog “hasn’t been outspoken and shown any real leadership with regard to ending the occupation”.

The invitation to Mr Herzog came from both Republican and Democratic congressional leaders.

He was seen as an innocuous choice for a speaker, an Israeli leader who would inspire bipartisan goodwill at a time when Mr Netanyahu has bitterly divided the two parties by

aligning himself with right-wing hardliners.

The dynamic was apparent on Tuesday, when Mr Herzog visited the White House: President Joe Biden greeted him warmly and with a fist bump,

calling the US-Israel bond “simply unbreakable”,

just days after telling CNN that some members of Mr Netanyahu’s Cabinet were “the most extremist” he had seen since the 1970s.

Mr Herzog was the ninth Israeli leader to address Congress, but only the second president of the country to have given such a speech – the other having been Major-General Chaim Herzog, his late father, in 1987.

Mr Netanyahu was the last Israeli leader to address Congress, in 2015. That address was an extraordinarily divisive event boycotted by more than 50 Democrats, in which Mr Netanyahu – who had been invited by Republican leaders without consulting then President Barack Obama – denounced the nuclear deal the Obama administration was negotiating with Iran. BLOOMBERG