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The Republican Speaker of the House plans to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, in a move likely to deepen tensions between the White House and Israel over the war in Gaza.
The speech would mark the first time Netanyahu has spoken to a joint session of Congress — an honour rarely extended to foreign leaders — since 2015, when the Israeli prime minister rebuked Democtratic President Barack Obama for pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran over Israel’s objections.
“I would love to have him come in and address a joint session of Congress. We’ll certainly extend that invitation,” said Speaker Mike Johnson in an interview on CNBC on Thursday. Netanyahu had already invited the Speaker to address the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, he added.
Netanyahu’s 2015 address marked a pivotal turn in US-Israel relations, with the Israeli leader abandoning a policy of seeking bipartisan support from the US, and focusing instead on the Republican party’s approval.
In the past few weeks, since President Joe Biden started voicing criticism of the toll on Palestinian civilians from Israel’s military assault, Netanyahu has once again turned to the Republican party — and the evangelical Christians that form its base — for full-throated backing.
Potentially adding to the tensions, the US will bring a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza of at least six weeks as part of a hostage deal to a vote on Friday, US officials said. The measure also warns against an offensive in Rafah.
Johnson’s invitation comes a week after Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a close ally of US President Joe Biden, declared Netanyahu to be an “obstacle to peace” who was weakening Israel’s “political and moral fabric”.
The speech from Schumer, the US’s most prominent Jewish politician, triggered a backlash in Israel and criticism from Republicans, with former president Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee for this year’s White House race, claiming the “Democrat party hates Israel”.
Biden later said Schumer’s “good speech” expressed “concerns” shared by many Americans over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza. The UN has warned of an unfolding human catastrophe in the enclave, which is now partially occupied by Israeli forces.
The Biden administration has become more publicly critical of Netanyahu in recent weeks, and urged him not to launch a ground assault on Rafah, a city in Gaza’s south where more than a million civilians have sought shelter from conflict in the enclave.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone on Monday, in their first known conversation in more than a month.
“During the war, it is no secret, there have been disagreements between us on the best way to achieve [the goal of defeating Hamas],” Netanyahu said on Wednesday night, describing his conversation with Biden. “There have been times when we have agreed with our friends, and there have been times when we have not agreed with them.”
Johnson did not say whether he had spoken to the White House about his intent to invite Netanyahu to Congress. A spokesperson for the US National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Schumer said on Thursday that the senator had not discussed the Netanyahu invitation with Johnson. But Schumer said in a statement that he would welcome Netanyahu to “speak to Congress in a bipartisan way”.
The senator’s statement added that Israel had “no stronger ally than the United States and our relationship transcends any one president or any one prime minister”.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu addressed a closed-door meeting of Republican senators via video link. Schumer indicated he declined an offer by the Israeli prime minister to address Democratic lawmakers.
“When you make these issues partisan, you hurt the cause of Israel,” Schumer said.
Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly critical of Netanyahu and the war in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 31,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces since they launched a war in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and took a further 250 hostage, according to Israeli officials.