By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have invited Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu To address a joint session of Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Friday, although the date of the speech has not yet been set.
The letter inviting Netanyahu was signed by Johnson, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
It was first reported by the news website The Hill.
Johnson had said the Israeli leader would soon address a joint meeting of Congress amid heightened tensions with President Joe Biden’s administration over Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war.
The Republican chairman, a critic of the Democratic president’s Israel policy, had said he would invite Netanyahu regardless of whether Democratic leaders in Congress signed the letter.
Netanyahu, who has long aligned himself with the US Republicans, addressed members of the party in the Senate via video link in March, almost a week after Schumer gave a speech in the Senate in which he described the prime minister as an obstacle to peace and pushed for new elections in Israel.
Speeches to joint sessions of Congress by foreign leaders are a rare honor usually reserved for America’s closest allies or major world figures. Netanyahu has already given three such speeches, the most recent in 2015.
The speech would make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to address joint sessions of Congress four times. He is currently tied with Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; additional reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Rami Ayyub and Jonathan Oatis)
