Netanyahu accusation on Iranian nukes adds to U.S., Israeli tension

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media during a press conference at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday Aug. 2, 2014.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media during a press conference at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday Aug. 2, 2014.

WASHINGTON -- The strain between the U.S. and Israel deepened Wednesday, as top advisers to President Barack Obama rebuked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coming speech to Congress as "destructive" and challenged his judgment on the Iran nuclear negotiations.


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Netanyahu countered by accusing the U.S. and its negotiating partners of having "given up" on stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

"They might accept this, but I am not willing to accept this," Netanyahu said Wednesday night at a meeting of his Likud Party outside Jerusalem.

Tensions between the U.S. and Israel have been on the rise since Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress on Tuesday. The speech was arranged without White House or State Department involvement, and the Obama administration blasted that as a breach of diplomatic protocol.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in a television interview Tuesday that Netanyahu's planned speech had "injected a degree of partisanship" into a relationship that should be above politics.

"It's destructive to the fabric of the relationship," Rice said on the Charlie Rose show. "It's always been bipartisan. We need to keep it that way."

Her comments were followed by sharp words Wednesday from Secretary of State John Kerry, who said during congressional testimony that when it comes to the nuclear negotiations, Netanyahu "may have a judgment that just may not be correct here."

Rice and Kerry's statements were among the Obama administration's toughest public criticism of Netanyahu's speech and the negative effect his opposition to the Iran negotiations could have on the close alliance between the U.S. and Israel.

The invitation and Netanyahu's plans to speak have aggravated many Democrats on Capitol Hill. Compounding that, Netanyahu on Tuesday turned down an invitation to meet privately with Senate Democrats, saying such a meeting could "compound the misperception of partisanship" surrounding his visit.

"I regret that the invitation to address the special joint session of Congress has been perceived by some to be political or partisan," Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "I can assure you that my sole intention in accepting it was to voice Israel's grave concerns about a potential nuclear agreement with Iran that could threaten the survival of my country."

Feinstein was expected to attend the speech. More than a half-dozen Democratic lawmakers have said they will skip the address, with Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky becoming the latest to say so Wednesday.

Kaine said the scheduled speech is "highly inappropriate" given its proximity to Israel's coming elections.

Schakowsky said she is concerned that the speech could end up scuttling delicate negotiations with Iran.

"The prime minister wants the negotiations to end, and his purpose in speaking to the Congress is to convince us that the president is about to agree to a deal that threatens Israel's existence," Schakowsky, who is Jewish, said in a statement. "If the talks are to fail, let Iran be the party that walks away from the table rather than the United States."

U.S. officials believe Netanyahu's trip is aimed primarily at derailing a nuclear deal with Iran, Obama's signature foreign-policy objective. While Netanyahu has long been skeptical of the negotiations, his opposition has increased over what he sees as Obama's willingness to make concessions that would leave Iran on the brink of being able to build a nuclear weapon.

U.S. and Iranian officials reported progress in negotiations this week on a deal that would clamp down on Tehran's nuclear activities for at least 10 years but then slowly ease restrictions. Israeli officials warned this week that such a deal would allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state.

Netanyahu and many other Israelis view a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to Israel's existence, citing Tehran's repeated calls for Israel's destruction and its support for groups like Hezbollah.

Netanyahu said Wednesday that the greatest challenge Israel faces is "the threat of Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons with a declared goal of annihilating us."

"From the agreement that is forming it appears that they [the U.S. and its negotiating partners] have given up on that commitment and are accepting that Iran will gradually, within a few years, develop capabilities to produce material for many nuclear weapons," he said. "They might accept this, but I am not willing to accept this."

Adding to the tension between Netanyahu and the U.S., the Obama administration said last week that it is withholding from Israel some sensitive details of the nuclear negotiations with Iran because it is worried Israeli government officials have leaked information to try to scuttle the talks.

On Wednesday, Kerry told members of Congress that there's no Iran agreement yet for them to examine and that the Obama administration will keep Netanyahu and the Israeli government informed of developments in the talks.

"Of course" the U.S. will tell Netanyahu the details of any accord, Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, when pressed by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. He said, "I think even today, our department is on the phone" to Israeli national security officials.

Asked about Netanyahu's views on the talks with Iran, Kerry said the Israeli leader was "profoundly forward-leaning, outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq" under President George W. Bush.

"We all know what happened with that," said Kerry, who voted to authorize using military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but has said he opposed how Bush carried it out.

While Kerry said he couldn't tell yet whether "a diplomatic path" would solve the issue of Iran's disputed nuclear program, "it's worth trying before you go to more extreme measures" such as military actions that he said could put the lives of Americans at risk.

The U.S. and its negotiating partners -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- reached an interim agreement with Iran in late 2013 that froze key parts of the Islamic republic's nuclear program in exchange for some relief from Western sanctions. U.S. officials argue that even the interim agreement has slowed Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

"Israel is safer today with the added time we have given and the stoppage of the advances in the Iranian nuclear program than they were before we got that agreement, which by the way the prime minister opposed," Kerry said Wednesday, referring to Netanyahu. "He was wrong."

The White House has been weighing ways to counter Netanyahu's address to Congress, as well as a separate speech to the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The administration is still weighing whom to send to the conference, with some officials pushing for a lower-level representative than normal.

There are no plans for Obama to meet with Netanyahu next week, with the White House officially citing its practice of not engaging with world leaders in close proximity to elections.

Vice President Joe Biden and Kerry will be traveling abroad on trips that were announced after Netanyahu accepted lawmakers' invitation to speak to Congress.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Laurie Kellman, Donna Cassata, Matthew Lee, Aron Heller, Ian Deitch and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Calev Ben-David, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Kathleen Hunter and Jonathan Ferziger of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 02/26/2015

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