MEDIA ADVISORY AND PUBLIC NOTICE

Congressman Al Green’s Statement on His Not Attending Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Address to Congress

(Washington, D.C.) — On Wednesday, July 24, 2024, Congressman Al Green delivered a powerful one-minute House floor speech explaining why he will not attend Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress. You can access and listen to the one-minute speech online here. Congressman Green also extended his floor remarks with the message below:

     Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. Mr. Speaker I cannot in good conscience attend the Netanyahu address to Congress for the same rationale that caused me to vote against “The Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024.” The entirety of my rationale, explicated below, was published in a Houston Chronicle full page ad on April 25, 2024:

RE: Why I voted no on The Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024

     Israel suffered a tragic loss on October 7, 2023. The people of Israel are in mourning. The lives of innocent civilian Israeli men, women, and especially children matter. They must be protected. This includes the hostages, all of whom must be immediately returned in tandem with a lasting ceasefire as the genesis of a two-state solution. 

     After the horrific human rights violations committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the Netanyahu administration had just cause catalyzing a de jure right to pursue justice as it did by declaring war on Hamas, not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, and especially children.

     To the contrary, and shamefully, Prime Minister Netanyahu has engaged in an unjust, revengeful, might-makes-right offense, creating more enemies than have been killed. He has engaged in lethal atrocities wherein the ends of destroying Hamas justifies:

• Killing thousands of innocent civilian Palestinian children;
• Collectively harming thousands upon thousands of innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, and especially children;
• Failing to properly aid hundreds of thousands of food-deprived Palestinians; and
• Committing domicide by destroying approximately 62% of Palestinian homes in Gaza, as well as damaging at least 84% of Gaza’s health facilities, together with over 275 schools.

     It has become intuitively and painfully obvious to me that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s definition of “the right to defend” embraces an invidious ends-justifies-the-means strategy. This imprudent and unjust strategy of domicide, collective harm, and failure to feed the hungry, in tandem with the killing of thousands of innocent Palestinian children, cannot in good conscience receive a blind eye. 

     No one, no political entity, no country can commit such atrocious injustices in the name of justice and expect the blessings of people of good will. Injustice in the name of justice is still an injustice. Israel’s de jure right (in the hands of Prime Minister Netanyahu) to defend itself in the name of justice has metamorphosed into unconscionable de facto human rights violations that offend the conscience and grievously tarnishes Israel’s global image. In truth, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s might makes right, by any means necessary - war - is making Israel an existential threat to Palestinians living in Gaza.

     I cannot in good conscience oppose the above-cited atrocious transgressions and contemporaneously provide the munitions which can beget more of these God-awful inhumanities. Sadly, but righteously, I cannot vote to send the pending billions of supplemental funds to the opprobrious administration of Prime Minister Netanyahu. To do so would allow those funds, or free up other funds in their treasury, to purchase the lethality to kill more innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, and especially children, which I oppose.

     Palestinians (like Israelis) are in mourning, and the lives of innocent civilian Palestinian men, women, and especially children matter. They too must be protected.

     For the reasons enumerated above, I voted no on The Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024.