Addresses to joint sessions of the U.S. Congress are always high-profile speeches, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can expect to share the Jewish state’s views and priorities with an even larger audience than normal, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS on Thursday.
“The fact that it’s in the midst of an election campaign only makes it easier for the prime minister to amplify our messages,” Erdan told JNS during an impromptu gaggle at the Watergate Hotel in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood.
“I’m sure it’s going to get and draw the attention of everyone here better and even more than in regular times,” the Israel envoy added.
JNS asked what it meant to Israel for the prime minister to visit Washington during a time of such upheaval stateside, days after U.S. President Joe Biden announced that he would not seek re-election in November and, in short order, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.
“When America is stronger, we are stronger, and vice versa,” Erdan told JNS. “It’s for the United States to decide. We’re not going to intervene in their internal politics.”
The Israeli envoy told reporters at Watergate—the site of the famous break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters 52 years ago—that it is a “very exciting and important day” for Israel.
“Every speech of Israel’s prime minister addressing a joint session of Congress is important, but now it’s more important than ever, because we are fighting seven fronts and this is a time when there’s an election campaign in the United States,” Erdan said.
“It’s an opportunity for us to convey the messages about the importance of the close alliance between Israel and the United States, to make it clear to the American people that we are fighting together against the same enemy, which is Iran, that is behind all of the attacks against Israel—be it Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis,” Erdan said.
The Houthis, who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea nearly daily, often requiring U.S. forces to shoot down drones, symbolize “the hate toward the United States and Israel,” Erdan told reporters.
“It will be also an opportunity for the prime minister to meet both candidates and President Biden, who will continue to be president that will make the decisions until January,” the envoy said of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington.
“I know that he will also speak today about the ‘day after,’ but he will make it clear that the ‘day after’ means the day after we topple Hamas,” Erdan said. “The message that you cannot commit such atrocities against the Israeli people and stay in power is a powerful and important message that the whole region must understand.”
Asked about Democrats, including former House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), missing Netanyahu’s address to Congress, Erdan said that “be it Nancy Pelosi or whoever decided to boycott an important speech of one of the closest allies of the United States, I think this is not the way to behave.”
“I was a parliamentarian for many years, and I think that even if we do not agree on everything, showing respect, listening—this is what democracies are about,” the envoy added. “Listening to one another even when there are differences.”