Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) of New York’s upstate 24th congressional district said that President Joe Biden is “not a strong supporter of Israel” because of his hostility to Israel’s democratically-elected government.
Tenney spoke to Breitbart News Sunday ahead of the visit Wednesday of Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, who will be addressing a special joint session of Congress. President Biden also invited Herzog to visit the White House — a courtesy he has yet to extent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the fact that Netanyahu was elected last year, and that Biden had quickly invited both of his predecessors to visit.
Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Joel B. Pollak asked Tenney about the perception that President Biden was trying to split Israelis, and to back the Israeli opposition over Netanyahu and his governing coalition.
She said:
“It’s very similar to what the Obama administration did. You know, the Obama administration — talk about interfering in elections — interfering to try to make certain that Netanyahu wouldn’t even get elected. … Biden’s doing the same thing. And by inviting the ceremonial president, he’s skipping out the man who’s actually running a coalition government … Prime Minister Netanyahu should be the one who’s invited.”
She said Biden’s approach signaled a “lack of belief in Israel, and a lack of support for our most important ally in the Middle East.” She called Biden’s complaints about Netanyahu’s judicial reforms a “fake complaint,” noting that the Israeli judiciary is unusually powerful, and that Netanyahu’s reforms were actually democratic.
“I think the reforms would be fairer to everyone in Israel,” she said, speculating that Biden was being influenced by members of the Obama administration, many of whom run foreign policy in the Biden administration, too.
She said that American enemies, like Iran, were “emboldened” when the U.S. did not stand with its alies.
The White House said Monday that Biden and Netanyahu had spoken by phone, and that they had agreed to meet sometime before the end of the year, though it was unclear where that future meeting would take place.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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