President Obama, facing criticism for not meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits Washington in March, said Wednesday that it would be “inappropriate” to host the leader so close to Israel’s elections.
“I’m declining to meet with him simply because our general policy is, we don’t meet with any world leader two weeks before their election,” Obama said in an interview with CNN. “I think that’s inappropriate, and that’s true with some of our closest allies.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has invited Netanyahu to address Congress in March, when he is expected to lobby lawmakers for new sanctions against Iran.
Senators late Tuesday introduced a sanctions bill against Iran, but Democrats are vowing to hold off on the legislation as the Obama administration pursues nuclear negotiations with Tehran.
The White House previously dismissed the Boehner invite to Netanyahu as a “breach of protocol,” saying the president should have been notified first.
Obama, who recently met with British Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of his re-election fight, said Wednesday that Cameron’s visit was expedited so as to not interfere with Election Day — the British people head to the polls May 7.
“He insisted that if he wants to come — and it was a very important meeting — he needs to be far away enough from the election that it doesn’t look like in some ways we’re meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale,” Obama explained of the Cameron meeting.
As for new sanctions, Obama said he hasn’t heard “a persuasive rebuttal of my argument that we crafted very effective sanctions against Iran specifically to bring them to the negotiations table.”
“For us to undermine diplomacy at this critical time for no good reason is a mistake,” he added, saying the U.S. should “put the pressure on Iran to say yes to what the international community is calling for.”
