Hello and welcome to Background Briefing available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news. We'll begin with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's fourth addressed today to a joint session of Congress

and speak with a former State Department official who recently quit over the war in Gaza

and President Biden's apparent inability to influence Israel's massively destructive response

to the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli civilians.

Joining us to discuss Biden's one-sided loyalty to Netanyahu, who clearly wants Trump re-elected,

is Anel Shiline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft,

and an expert on religious and political authority in the

Middle East and North Africa. She has worked as a journalist in Egypt and Yemen and was recently a fellow

at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. She served for a year as a foreign affairs

officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor,

until recently resigning over U.S. policy on the war in Gaza.

And we will discuss her article at Responsible Statecraft,

BB's bullying visits to Congress never end well.

Then we'll speak with Sarah Lee Whitson,

the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World now Dawn,

who was formerly the Executive Director of Human Rights Watchers

Middle Eastern North African Division,

where she oversaw 19 countries with staff located in 10 countries.

Dawn released a letter yesterday,

urging Congress to boycott and protest Netanyahu's invitation,

and we will discuss today's boycott inside Congress and demonstrations outside.

Then finally we'll examine how much Netanyahu's address was aimed at his domestic audience

...