Talk Toughens as U.S.-Israel Relations Fray

By PETER BAKER and JODI RUDORENFEB. 25, 2015

WASHINGTON — When President Obama’s national security adviser sat down with her Israeli counterpart at the White House last week, she upbraided him over leaks in Jerusalem that the Americans interpreted as an attempt to undermine nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The meeting, shielded from the public but fraught with tension, brought home the depth of the frustration between Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is a mutual enmity that has only grown in recent days as Mr. Netanyahu prepares to address the Republican-led Congress next week about the dangers of a possible nuclear deal with Iran.

What started out last month as a dispute over a speech has consumed the two sides ever since, threatening long-term consequences and possibly fracturing America’s tradition of bipartisan support for Israel. The president’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, evidently was not mollified by the meeting with Yossi Cohen, her Israeli counterpart, since she said in a television interview on Tuesday night that Mr. Netanyahu’s actions were “destructive” because they were injecting partisanship into the relationship.

Her comment came even as Mr. Netanyahu turned down a new invitation to meet separately with Senate Democrats while in Washington, further fueling the partisan flavor of the dispute. For their part, as of Wednesday afternoon, administration officials had not told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a bipartisan pro-Israel lobby, who — if anyone — it was sending to its annual conference in Washington starting Sunday.

The relationship “has never been so terrible as it is today,” said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser. “Nobody even tries to use any diplomatic words.”

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on Israeli-American relations at Bar-Ilan University, called Ms. Rice’s comment “unprecedented” and told Israel Radio that it was clear the longstanding bipartisanship that underpinned the alliance “has now been badly broken.”

The polarization seems to be growing. J Street, a pro-Israel group more aligned with Mr. Obama’s positions on Iran, is running a full-page ad in Thursday newspapers attacking Mr. Netanyahu for coming to Capitol Hill just two weeks before his own election. “Prime Minister Netanyahu: Congress Isn’t a Prop for Your Election Campaign,” the ad declares.

On the other side, Republicans were happy to portray Democrats as insufficiently supportive of Israel. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, began selling $35 T-shirts that say “I Stand With Bibi,” using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname. “Obama and the Democrats refuse to stand with Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu,” her political action committee said in an email to supporters. “Will you?”

For many Israel supporters, including those at AIPAC who have labored to maintain support across the aisle, the splintering represents a profound danger. AIPAC will try to counter the trend by sending supporters to all 535 congressional offices during its three-day conference.

But critics and even some supporters of Mr. Netanyahu were dismayed by his decision to decline an invitation from Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, two of Israel’s strongest Democratic supporters, to meet with Democrats while in town.

“Since when does an Israeli prime minister say no to a meeting with Democrats?” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. He added: “By the way, their Israeli voting record is impeccable. Not good, not very good, impeccable. The Democrats extend a hand of sorts and he says no? This defies explanation.”

An Israeli official said Mr. Netanyahu turned down the Democrats because he also declined an invitation to meet separately with congressional Republicans. While he accepted an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress from Speaker John A. Boehner, a Republican, that was extended on behalf of the Congress as a body and both parties are invited. The partisanship has been created by others, the Israeli official said.

“It was important to try to keep this as bipartisan as possible,” said the official, who asked not to be named in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “That’s why he rejected both requests he had for meetings from Republicans and Democrats.” Instead, Mr. Netanyahu will focus on the speech to Congress. “From his perspective, it’s the last chance he has to voice the deep concerns he and many others in Israel have as we see this agreement with Iran taking shape.”

Other efforts by the Israelis to reframe the debate have fallen short. Ron Dermer, the ambassador to Washington and a close ally of Mr. Netanyahu who helped arrange the congressional invitation, emailed Arab ambassadors to encourage them to come to Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to make the point that Arab nations are also worried about a nuclear Iran, the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported on The Atlantic’s website. At least two envoys, from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, turned him down.

At a campaign event in Israel on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu stood firm, ratcheting up his criticism of the developing deal with Iran. Referring to the world powers negotiating with Tehran, he said “it seems they have given up on that commitment” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

“I respect the White House and the president of the United States,” he was quoted as saying. “But on such a critical topic that could determine whether we exist or not, it is my duty to do everything to prevent this great danger to the state of Israel.”

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry rejected the criticism. Mr. Netanyahu considered the interim agreement reached with Iran that opened the talks for a longer-term deal as “the worst thing that ever happened,” Mr. Kerry said during a House hearing. “Well guess what? Every aspect of the interim agreement has been complied with.”

Mr. Kerry also needled Mr. Netanyahu by recalling that the prime minister supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, “and we all know what happened with that decision.”

During her meeting last week with Mr. Cohen, the Israeli adviser, Ms. Rice expressed the administration’s pique at leaks by the government in Jerusalem about the Iranian talks, the kinds of leaks she said had not happened in the past.

To the Americans, it seemed an intentional effort to torpedo the negotiations with one-sided information, and it undercut trust. “We shared with them that this causes us great concern,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Israeli officials have complained that the Americans are freezing them out, which the White House has denied.

Ms. Rice raised the stakes in her interview with Charlie Rose on PBS on Tuesday night when she said Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to speak to Congress two weeks before Israeli elections has “injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the relationship.”

With the exception of that one word, she was following the standard script that the White House has used recently. The White House strategy has been to sit back and let Mr. Netanyahu endure the criticism he has generated. White House officials said she was not trying to escalate by using the word “destructive” — no talking points were sent in advance to American officials — but she clearly felt license to say it, and it reflected the lack of any imperative on the part of the White House to try to smooth over the clash.

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Thursday, February 26, 2015