Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday opened his high-profile visit to the US capital by playing down any personal dispute with president Barack Obama. However, he said he had a "moral obligation" to warn against the dangers of a US-brokered nuclear deal with Iran.
Previewing his hotly disputed address to Congress, scheduled for Tuesday, Mr Netanyahu said at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that he was grateful to Mr Obama and the United States for their support over the years and never meant to inject partisan politics into the relationship.
“My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to president Obama or the esteemed office that he holds,” Mr Netanyahu told the estimated 16,000 people gathered. “I have great respect for both.”
He added: “The last thing anyone who cares about Israel, the last thing that I would want, is for Israel to become a partisan issue, and I regret that some people have misperceived my visit here this week as doing that. Israel has always been a bipartisan issue. Israel should always remain a bipartisan issue.”
But Mr Netanyahu said he would not remain silent over what he saw as the perils of a negotiated agreement with Iran that does not adequately cripple its nuclear program.
Mr Netanyahu’s address came shortly after a top adviser to Mr Obama reassured the same audience that the United States would never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, even as she warned that Israeli-American ties should not be politicised.
Appearing at a fraught moment in the relationship between the two allies, Samantha Power, the president's ambassador to the United Nations, rebutted criticism from Mr Netanyahu even before he delivered it Monday.
“The United States of America will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Ms Power told the audience. “Period.”
Ms Power was dispatched to deal with the fallout from the dispute over Mr Netanyahu's visit to Washington shortly before Israeli elections to address a joint meeting of Congress. On Monday, Mr Obama will address the issue directly in an interview with Reuters, and his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, will address the conference.
The series of public comments will be as close as the US president and the Israeli prime minister come to a real-time debate over how to address the nuclear threat from Iran, and they are likely to highlight the deep rift between the two on the issue.
New York Times