The recent invitation extended by House Speaker John Boehner to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to address a joint session of Congress this March was welcomed by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04).

“Israel completely shares the U.S. commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law,” said Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This makes it nearly unique in the Middle East, and it is only right that Congress hear a direct report from the leader of our closest ally in the region. I strongly support Speaker Boehner’s invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu. In order to perform its oversight responsibilities over our own government, Congress needs input from all sides–but above all from the elected leader of free and democratic Israel. No one has more experience in dealing with genocidal Iran and its terrorist proxies. The invitation to Prime Minister Netanyahu also signals that the American people will stand with our Israeli friends, without any ‘ifs’ or ‘buts.’”

Rep. Smith has long been a congressional leader in the fight against anti-Semitism. He is the author of the provisions of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004 that created the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism within the U.S. State Department. In 2009, he delivered the keynote address at the Interparliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism London conference. As a result of his landmark 2002 hearing, “Escalating Anti-Semitic Violence in Europe,” he led a congressional drive to place the issue of combating anti-Semitism at the top of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agenda. As a result, in 2004 the OSCE adopted new norms for its 56 member states on fighting anti-Semitism. In the early 1980s, his first trips abroad as a member of Congress were to the former Soviet Union, where he fought for the release of Jewish “refuseniks,” and in the 1990s, he chaired Congress’s first hearings on anti-Semitism.

March 3 will be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s third appearance before a joint meeting of Congress, and his second during Boehner’s speakership. His previous addresses were on July 10, 1996 and May 24, 2011. Other Israeli prime ministers to address Congress include Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin.

Smith is co-chairman of U.S. Helsinki Commission and an Executive Member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

[TLS]