Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said he will not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress, joining several other Democrats who have also vowed to boycott the speech.
“I will not attend that. I said that if he wants to come to speak to members of Congress about how to end the war and release hostages, I would be fine doing that. But I’m not going to sit in a one-way lecture,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He also agreed with Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on the issue, who recently said he would not attend the joint session either. Clyburn said in an interview last week on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday” that he would “treat him the same way he treated Barack Obama.”
“And I agree with Representative Clyburn. I mean, how he treated President Obama, he should not expect reciprocity. That said, I think it should be polite, and we’re not going to make a big deal about it. He’s obviously addressing the Congress, and there has to be decorum,” Khanna said.
Netanyahu and former President Obama had a long-running feud in 2015 over Israel’s position on Palestinian statehood and U.S. efforts to get a nuclear deal with Iran. More than 50 Democrats did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress in 2015 after then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited him without first telling the White House, according to CNN.
A growing number of Democrats have said they would not attend Netanyahu’s upcoming speech next month. Many of them are citing Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in 2015 as the reason, or the ongoing war in Gaza against the militant group Hamas.