Four progressive US lawmakers have announced their intentions to boycott Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to a joint session of Congress next week in protest against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
The three representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush declared their intentions to join Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who earlier announced that there would be “no way in hell” she would be in attendance.
Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri affirmed that she would not be attending saying that “Congress should not be giving a platform to the president of a country that shows no respect for human rights.”
“There is no way in hell I am attending the joint session address from a president whose country has banned me and denied Rashida Tlaib the ability to see her grandma” US lawmaker Ilhan Omar wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread.
The congresswoman was referring to a 2019 decision by Israel to bar her and fellow US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from entering the occupied Palestinian territories.
Omar said that “we should not be inviting the president of Israel – a government which under its current prime minister barred the first two Muslim women elected to Congress from visiting the country – to give a joint address to Congress.”
“Herzog’s address comes on behalf of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history” said the lawmaker.
“The United States can and should use its diplomatic tools to engage with the Israeli government but giving the current government the honor of a joint televised address sends the absolute wrong signal at the wrong time” she wrote.
