Pezeshkian on Netanyahu’s Congress speech:
Criminal cannot be absolved with standing ovation
Protesters rebuke Israeli PM outside US Capitol
Iran’s President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian denounced frequent applause from US lawmakers for the Israeli prime minister during his address to Congress which was met with protests, noting that applauding a criminal will not result in his absolution.
“The crime of killing innocent people and homeless children cannot be overlooked, nor can the criminal be absolved with a standing ovation,” Pezeshkian wrote in a post published on X on Friday in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress.
In an address to Congress on Wednesday, American lawmakers applauded in multiple intervals Netanyahu’s recount of the regime’s genocidal war in the Palestinian territory over the past ten months.
Israel has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians – mostly women and children – in the Gaza Strip after it launched its devastating war on the Palestinian territory on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.
The regime has been also enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory to a trickle.
Netanyahu’s ‘lies’
The Palestinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad denounced the Israeli prime minister’s speech as “full of lies and slander”.
“Netanyahu’s speech is full of lies and slander,” the statement said. “Netanyahu’s lies that his army did not kill a single civilian in the attack on Rafah, and is not waging a war of starvation and genocide against the Gaza Strip, indicate his mockery of the world and his shameless indulgence in lies.”
Earlier, Hamas also termed the Israeli prime minister’s so-called ideas about a “future” for the Gaza Strip that excludes the resistance from the territory’s rule as mere “delusions.”
“We in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirm that the war criminal Netanyahu’s visions for the future of the Gaza Strip are mere delusions and fantasies he is trying to market,” the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement said.
On Wednesday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei underscored the Israeli regime’s utter failure to defeat the Palestinian resistance, despite receiving enormous support on the part of the United States and others.
“The strength of the resistance becomes more and more evident every day,” read a Hebrew-language post published on Ayatollah Khamenei’s official X account on Wednesday.
“A huge military, political, and economic system, like the United States, is standing behind the Zionists in the fight against Hamas, but they have failed to bring them to their knees,” it added.
Protests against
Netanyahu
Thousands of protesters opposing the Israel’s onslaught on Gaza descended on Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to condemn Netanyahu’s address to Congress. With chants of “Free, free Palestine,” they marched toward the Capitol before some clashed with police and were pepper-sprayed.
Pro-Palestinian activists, who promised a “day of rage” ahead of Netanyahu’s visit, filled the streets of the nation’s capital, many carrying Palestinian flags and signs calling for an end to US aid to Israel and to “arrest Netanyahu.”
Outside the fenced-off Capitol, the scene was most tense at Washington’s Union Station as pro-Palestinian demonstrators removed American flags and hoisted Palestinian ones in their place. At one point, an American flag was set on fire alongside an effigy of Netanyahu, prompting cheers from the crowd.
“Netanyahu, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide,” protesters shouted. Protesters also spray painted graffiti on a monument to Christopher Columbus and an adjacent Liberty Bell replica, including the words “Hamas is coming” and “All Zionists are bastards.”