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Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, July 22 (Xinhua) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the United States this week. According to the schedule, he will meet with US President Joseph Biden to discuss a new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues. He will also deliver a speech to the US Congress. However, with Biden's announcement on the 21st that he would withdraw from the 2024 presidential election, Netanyahu's trip has an unexpected "highlight".

According to AFP, the outside world will closely watch whether Netanyahu will meet with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump or someone close to Trump during his visit to the United States.

According to the visit schedule announced by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, he will meet with Biden on the 23rd and deliver a speech at a joint meeting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on the 24th. According to AFP, this will make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to deliver four speeches to both houses of the U.S. Congress, breaking the record of three speeches by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

However, there are differences of opinion within the Democratic Party of the United States over the military action of the Netanyahu government in the Gaza Strip. Brian Schatz, a Jewish Democratic U.S. Senator from Hawaii, said he would boycott Netanyahu's speech to Congress, saying he would not listen to "political rhetoric that cannot bring peace to the region."

As Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip continue to cause heavy casualties, the American people's anti-war voices are growing louder, creating public pressure on the US government, which insists on "supporting Israel". US Democrats' support for Netanyahu is weakening, while Republicans are actively pushing for an invitation for Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress.

On May 20 this year, Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, issued a statement saying that he was applying for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and three Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) leaders, including Yahya Sinwar. This move triggered a fierce reaction from the United States, and the Republican-dominated House of Representatives called for sanctions against the International Criminal Court.

On June 18 this year, Netanyahu publicly accused the Biden administration of "withholding weapons and ammunition from Israel" in a video statement, calling the US move "incredible."

Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP on the 21st of this month that the "atmosphere in U.S.-Israel relations has never been so tense," "especially between the White House and the Israeli prime minister."

Cook believes that one of the main purposes of Netanyahu's visit to the United States is to prove that he has not "damaged" the relationship between Israel and the United States. Another purpose is to "shift the focus of the dialogue between the two sides from the conflict in the Gaza Strip to the threat posed by Iran and its proxies to both the United States and Israel."

After former US President Trump was formally nominated as a presidential candidate by the Republican National Convention on the 15th, he chose 39-year-old Ohio Senator James David Vance as his running mate. Vance said in an interview with the media that Israel "can't find a better friend than Trump" and Biden's policies make it increasingly difficult for Israel to win military operations in the Gaza Strip. (Zheng Hao Ning)