There is tension among the crowds of protesters gathered outside the White House to deliver a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his address to Congress on Wednesday: they don't want him here, and they're not happy he was invited, CNN reports.

Amid heavy security, those gathered from many coalitions with a variety of messages are giving speeches, carrying posters and waving flags.

“We are here today because Congress has extended a bipartisan invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, the war criminal who presided over more than nine months of genocide and crossed every red line in international humanitarian law,” Kaleem Hawa of the Palestinian Youth Movement told CNN's Brian Todd on Wednesday.

“It's essentially political theater,” he said. - Netanyahu knows how to play to the public in Congress. He's here to assure them that everything is under control, but people around the world can clearly see that things are not under control."
Israeli and Jewish American protesters also positioned themselves a few blocks away from the pro-Palestinian protesters, with similar appeals to Netanyahu.

“It was important for us to be here today, mainly to let lawmakers and everyone else know that Netanyahu does not represent Israel and is doing everything he can to derail the deal for his own political survival,” an organizer of Israeli and Jewish Americans told CNN.