Congress blindsides Obama, inviting Netanyahu to speak
Inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress on Iran sanctions without the White House’s knowledge was seen as an unprecedented slap at President Barack Obama.
“If we were, for a moment, to ignore the Pollard incident, the American administration has never been so humiliated by Israel.” I was told this on the evening of Jan. 21 by a senior Israeli diplomat currently serving. He told me so after having learned through the media — much like President Barack Obama — that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had arranged an invitation for himself to address both houses of Congress on Feb. 11, just five weeks before the Israeli elections on March 17.
The release of the invitation, which was concocted, planned and delivered in secret after weeks of surreptitious contacts, without Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro even knowing about it, had a dramatic effect. It was unlike anything that ever happened before in the bilateral relationship between the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. Soon after the invitation hit the news, an Israeli diplomatic source in Washington described its effect as “shock and awe.” Another senior official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry told me, “Today, more than ever, I would like to be on the line during the phone call between Ambassador Shapiro and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his staff.”
