The White House has still not invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the President of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, said he would invite the Prime Minister if American President Joe Biden did not.
“Israeli leaders have a long tradition of visiting Washington. President [Joe] Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu have known each other for a long time. I hope the prime minister will visit us at some point,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing on Monday, adding that nothing had been scheduled yet.
Kirby said the US president wants Israel’s judicial reforms to pass with a broad consensus and checks and balances to be maintained.
“We are having frank discussions about our concerns,” Kirby said.
Biden has spoken out several times in recent months against the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan and said, in this context, that he would not invite Netanyahu to the White House.
McCarthy said hours earlier in the Knesset that if Biden does not invite Netanyahu to Washington, he will.
“I hope that the White House invites the prime minister to a meeting, especially with the 75th anniversary [de Israel]McCarthy said.
The spokesperson also invited President Isaac Herzog to address a joint session of Congress. He clarified that Netanyahu’s invitation would be to meet with members of Congress, not for a speech before the legislature.
Asked about negotiations to avoid reaching the debt ceiling, McCarthy joked: “The president hasn’t talked to me yet; I’m a bit like Netanyahu.”
Hours later, Biden invited McCarthy and other congressional leaders to meet to discuss the debt ceiling, but Netanyahu’s invitation did not come through.
As for judicial reform, McCarthy said: “Israel is its own nation. They can decide what they want to do, but democracy wants checks and balances and separation of powers… We have to let the countries figure it out.”
National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said last week: “It is clear to me that if there were no judicial reform, the prime minister would already be in the White House.” Does this affect their relationship? Is this type of visit important? The answer is no. The relationship is as close as ever.”
“There have never been such close ties between Israel and the United States in the field of intelligence and security, as it is today. I see that the American president is always sending his high officials here,” Hanegbi said.
Also on Monday, US Congress members Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) released a letter of support for “protesters defending Israeli democracy.” Netanyahu is accused of having an “extreme plan to destroy the independence of the Israeli judiciary” and “doing serious damage to Israel’s democratic institutions.”
“As we face challenges to our democracy at home, we admire the courage you have shown in confronting the efforts to erode Israeli democracy,” they wrote.
Proponents of judicial reform argue that it will improve Israel’s democracy by giving members of the Knesset, the people’s representatives, a greater role in selecting judges, and by reining in the exceptionally broad powers of the Supreme Court.
“One thing I guarantee you is that at the end of this process, Israel was a democracy, it is a democracy. [y] it will continue to be a strong democracy,” Netanyahu told CNN on Sunday.
The protests “are not a sign of the collapse of democracy, but of the strength of the public debate, which I am working to resolve with the greatest possible consensus,” he said.
