President Obama will not meet with Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the United States in March, a White House official said Thursday.
{mosads}”As a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections, so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had originally invited Netanyahu to speak early next month, but the Israeli leader asked to push back the address to coincide with his appearance at AIPAC. Netanyahu’s trip to the U.S. will come just two weeks before the Israeli elections.
Aides to Boehner have indicated they expect the Israeli leader to criticize Obama’s efforts to broker a deal to ease sanctions in exchange for ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program in his address to Congress.
Netanyahu has denounced the negotiations in the past, saying Tehran lacks credibility. And the Israeli leader stands to benefit domestically by showing distance from Obama.
The Speaker cast the invitation as a repudiation of the president’s threat to veto legislation that would impose additional sanctions on Iran if they walk away from the nuclear negotiations.
Meehan said Obama had “been clear about his opposition to Congress passing new legislation on Iran that could undermine our negotiations and divide the international community.”
“The President has had many conversations with the Prime Minister on this matter, and I am sure they will continue to be in contact on this and other important matters,” she added.
White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on Thursday declined to weigh in on the political motivations behind Netanyahu’s travel plans, saying the administration was evaluating its diplomatic and security relationship “without regard of the partisan political game.”
McDonough said at a Politico lunch that the White House would “make sure we’re focused on addressing this from the facts that we have and the very deep relationship” that exists.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said earlier Thursday that the administration had “been expressing our displeasure pretty clearly publicly” over the invite, which she cast as a breach of protocol.
“There’s no question the process here was a bit bizarre and certainly a bit unusual,” she said in an interview with CNN.