House Speaker John Boehner blasted National Security Adviser Susan Rice Thursday for calling a scheduled speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress next week ‘destructive’ to relations between the United States and Israel.
‘I couldn’t disagree more,’ Boehner told reporters. ‘The American people and both parties in Congress have always stood with Israel. Nothing and no one should get in the way of that.’
Boehner invited Netanyahu to address members of the House of Representatives and the Senate as the administration is in the throes of nuclear negotiations with Iran. And Netahyahu’s talk Tuesday comes ahead of Israel’s March 17 elections.
Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats have blasted Boehner’s invite, saying it breached protocol. Rice strongly criticized the upcoming speech during an interview Tuesday on PBS’ ‘Charlie Rose.’
‘The relationship between Israel as a country and the United States as a country has always been bipartisan,’ Rice told Rose. ‘What has happened over the last several weeks, by virtue of the invitation issued by the speaker and the acceptance of it by Prime Minister Netanyahu two weeks in advance of his election, is that on both sides there has now been injected a degree of partisanship which is not only unfortunate, I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the relationship.’
Boehner said ‘what is destructive in my view is making a bad deal that paves the way for a nuclear Iran.’
‘That's destructive and that's why it's so important for the American people to hear what Prime Minister Netanyahu has to say about the grave threats that we are facing,’ he added. ‘So I'm glad the prime minister is coming and I'm glad that most of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, will be there to hear what he has to say.’
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