During a closed-door meeting with a select group of Jewish leaders in 2009, President Obama called for more distance between American and Israeli policies.
The president seems to have succeeded in that goal, creating awkward tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Democratic party.
The tumultuous Obama-era connection between the United States and Israel has put great strain on a special relationship between Israel and the Democratic Party that goes back to the founding of the Jewish state during the Truman administration. Obama and Netanyahu have taken turns publicly exposing the messy seams of their personal relationship.
The interactions between the two leaders hit a new low this week as the Obama administration sharpened its criticism against the Israeli prime minister ahead of his Monday speech to a joint session of Congress aimed at scuttling a possible nuclear deal with Iran.
Secretary of State John Kerry questioned the Israeli leader’s judgment during congressional testimony Wednesday, arguing that he is wrong on the Iran talks just like he was wrong on his support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice went further still, labeling Netanyahu’s plan to address a joint session of Congress next week on the topic of Iran “destructive” to the relationship between the two countries.
While more than a dozen House Democrats are boycotting the speech, their Senate counterparts are treading more carefully.
Senate Democrats emerged from a closed-door lunch with Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday parsing their words about the speech and Netanyahu carefully.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said the issue of speech came up during the lunch but declined to say exactly what Kerry told his former Senate colleagues about it.
“Maybe I’ll let the administration talk to you about that. I won’t try to represent his views,” he said, noting that he hasn’t publicly said whether he is going to the speech or not.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also declined to repeat Kerry’s message about the speech but said he’s definitely going to listen and decide for himself what he thinks about it.
“I’m not paying attention to anyone else’s rhetoric,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Intelligence panel, said he wished Netanyahu had approached the speech in a more diplomatic way.
“I personally think that the timing and process was very, very unfortunate,” he said. “But I’m going to go to the speech.”
Blumenthal, who is Jewish, also stressed the need to put the U.S.-Israeli relationship back on a strong, bipartisan footing.
“At the level of military-to-military, intelligence-to-intelligence, the relationship is unimpeded,” he said. “At a fundamental level our interests continue to align, our professionals continue to work together, and our people are united by tremendous bonds and strategic interests.”
Ultimately, he said any personal animosity between the two leaders will “yield to the longer-term strategic interests of both countries.”
Emerging from the Senate Democratic lunch, Kerry declined to elaborate on his private message to his former colleagues.
Asked if he asked them not to attend the speech on Monday, he said only: “That’s not my bandwidth. I encouraged people — I think people should obviously exercise their own judgment.”
Kerry’s main point on Iran, senators said, was to discourage any congressional effort to impose new sanctions on Tehran or pass any laws requiring congressional approval of any final nuclear deal.
“He didn’t express any wild optimism about Iran negotiations being successful, but he’s still very worried about the ways that Congress can undermine the negotiations,” Murphy told reporters.
Republicans were quick to blast the administration’s sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and the speech.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the Obama administration’s stepped up rhetoric against Netanyahu “shameful and virtually unprecedented.”
“I think the real underlying thing is they don’t want to hear what Bibi has to say about this fatally flawed Iranian nuclear deal. That’s what it’s all about,” he told reporters.
McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also poked a hole in the White House argument that Obama won’t meet with Netanyahu during his visit because it’s occurring two weeks before Israel’s general election and he doesn’t want to influence the election’s results.
In 1996, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was in a close campaign against Netanyahu, visited the Clinton White House on April 30, less than a month ahead of the May 29 Israeli elections.
The Obama administration has gone from arguing that it didn’t want to influence the Israeli election to undermining Netanyahu’s standing on the world stage. And in January, multiple media reported that a key political operative responsible for Obama’s South Carolina primary victory in 2009 was working for Likud’s opponents.
But Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said the White House criticism of Netanyahu is just deserts for his attempt to undermine U.S. negotiations with Iran.
“What does Mr. Netanyahu expect would happen when you blatantly challenge and American administration and president?” he asked. “I would argue that it’s Mr. Netanyahu who’s clearly intent on undermining the administration’s policy on Iran negotiations.
“Whatever his motivation — he may be sincere — but that’s what he’s doing,” Connolly added, “and it would be naïve to think that the administration wouldn’t have some response to that.”
Connolly also noted that he hasn’t publicly said whether he will attend Monday’s speech.
