More than two dozen prominent Israelis sent a letter to U.S. Congressional leadership on Tuesday, July 23 warning of their “grave concerns about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the United States.” The signers include former top-level officials from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Mossad, and National Security Council, among other highly-accomplished Israeli individuals and executives.
The three points they emphasize in the letter are: “This visit prioritizes his personal political survivability over our shared interests”; “Congress will be hosting a leader without a mandate and one who is facing prosecution for major crimes”; and, “He remains unwilling to conceptualize a post-war plan, and continues destabilizing the national security of both Israel and the U.S.” They conclude by stating that “Netanyahu poses an existential threat to the State of Israel” and also “severely harms the U.S. national security interests” through the current war’s effects throughout the Middle East. Stopping short of calling for his rejection from Congress, the signers call on the Congress to “encourage Prime Minister Netanyahu to put the safety, security and future of Israel and the Israeli-U.S. strategic relations before his own political and personal interests.”
