Thousands of protesters demonstrated around Capitol Hill voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who was set to addresses a joint session of the US Congress.
With tensions over Israel’s 10-and-half-month war in Gaza running high, police mounted a major security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters.
Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself was ring-fenced off.
“Shut it down,” a large group of protesters chanted as they marched toward the Capitol after blocking a nearby intersection. “Bibi, Bibi, we’re not done!”
Netanyahu’s speech – arranged weeks ago and instigated by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson – comes at a singularly dramatic moment in US politics, days after the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race and less than two weeks after a failed assassination attempt on the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
But the fevered domestic backdrop has done little to reduce the furore surrounding Netanyahu, seen as a renegade figure even among some pro-Israel Democrats for prosecuting a war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
The military offensive was launched in response to a bloody assault by the Palestinian group Hamas last October that left at about 1,200 mostly civilians dead in Israel and saw another 250 taken hostage.
Netanyahu’s presence was protested by demonstrators coming from a broad range of mostly leftwing groups, some of them Jewish, and many of them having travelled from as far as Indiana, Georgia and Illinois, according to protest organisers.
Among those organising the main rally were Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, the US Palestinian Community Network, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), the People’s Forum and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Speakers lined up to address the crowd included Jill Stein, the Green party presidential candidate, and the actor Susan Sarandon.
Protesters demanded Netanyahu’s arrest, as requested by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in May. The request was later denounced by Biden.
“If Biden were fit to lead, he would stop funding genocide and turn Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over to the ICC,” Ahmad Abuznaid, an executive director at the USCPR, said in a statement.
Separate protests were staged by Israeli groups angered that Netanyahu has failed to secure the release of more hostages. Pro-Israel counter-protesters were also present.
The demonstrations started on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu’s arrival in the US on Monday night, when members of the Jewish Voice for Peace group occupied the rotunda at the Cannon building, where many members of Congress have office space. Police carried out arrests and the group said about 400 of its members were detained.
Several Democratic members of Congress, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, have said they will boycott Netanyahu’s speech.
Some made statements of condemnation on the eve of its delivery. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor” of addressing a joint session of Congress, Sanders said on Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor.
Jerry Nadler, a senior Democratic House member from New York, also issued a withering denunciation, calling the Israeli prime minister “the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago”. However, he said he would be present during the speech out of respect to the state of Israel.
He called the speech “the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicise the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home. There is no question in my mind it should not be happening.”
