Harris to skip Zionist PM’s address to US congress

According to IRNA, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller made the revelation on Tuesday local time but quickly rejected any notion that her absence means sending a message to Israel.

Miller also gave a vague argument while referring to the planned meeting between Harris and Netanyahu later in the week. "The reality is that the vice president's office made it clear that she had a pre-planned trip before the announcement of the date of the Israeli prime minister's speech at Congress."

A Harris aide said she will miss Netanyahu's address due to a previously scheduled event where she will address the historically black Zeta Phi Beta sorority's “Grand Boule” in Indianapolis, CNN reported. 

The Axios website wrote in a report on Tuesday local time that weeks of political turmoil, accompanied by Joe Biden's surprise decision to withdraw from the election, have made Netanyahu's speech not an important issue for many Democrats.

"Honestly, I think some members almost forgot this speech was going to happen," a senior House Democrat was quoted as saying.

More than 12 Democrats in the House of Representatives, with different views on Israel, said that in their party's view, Netanyahu's speech was much less important than in previous months.

The speech will be subject to widespread boycotts by many Democratic lawmakers, as well as protests and other plans against the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza and the Israeli premier’s defiance of all international laws, including recent verdicts by the World Court in a genocide case.

Netanyahu was originally invited by Republican leaders who later pressured Democrats to agree with it despite an American public outrage and political divisions on the Zionist regime’s massacres of innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

Democrats are worried that the stance of the Biden administration toward the Gaza war and its support for the Israeli regime would have major impact on the upcoming elections as voters, especially Arabs and Muslims in some swing states have decided not to cast their ballots over Gaza.

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