May 1 (UPI) — U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will make a rare address to Israel’s Knesset on Monday afternoon as the country is embroiled in controversy over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s attempt to reshape the judiciary.
McCarthy, R-Calif., arrived on Sunday with a bipartisan group from Congress as he will become just the second U.S. speaker to address the Israeli parliamentary body since fellow Republican Newt Gingrich did so in 1998.
Visiting on the heels of Isreal’s 75th anniversary, McCarthy said that relations between the two countries have “grown each and every year” in a joint statement with Netanyahu.
“I look to the next 75 years,” he said.
“The world is better when America and Israel are tighter. The world is safer.”
Netanyahu said he was pleased to see that an effort to recognize Israel’s 75th anniversary that was approved by an overwhelming majority of U.S. representatives.
“To get 95 percent agreement on anything today is no mean matter and I think it expresses the strength of that alliance and the strength of that support,” Netanyahu said.
McCarthy’s visit also came as Netanyahu’s planned judiciary overhaul, which would revoke the Supreme Court‘s ability to overturn laws passed by the Israeli parliament and allow for high court decisions to be overturned by a simple majority in the Knesset, caused a rift between Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Biden in March said that Netanyahu should “walk away” from the proposal, which has sparked mass protests in the country, adding he “cannot continue down this road” that would grant the conservative government full control over the judiciary.
Netanyahu responded by asserting Israel’s independence as “a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
Biden has said he had no current plans to invite Netanyahu to the White House amid the tensions but McCarthy told reporters he would follow through with the invitation if Biden continues his stance against Netanyahu.
“I’ll invite the prime minister to come to meet with the House,” McCarthy said. “He’s a dear friend, as a prime minister of a country that we have our closest ties with.”
Domestically, Biden and McCarthy are at odds over the federal government’s debt ceiling. McCarthy wants cuts to some of Biden’s signature legislation before he agrees to increase the debt ceiling while Biden wants an increase without conditions.