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 His visit to Washington in March has opened up a rift with the
White House and has drawn accusations in Israel that Netanyahu is
undermining the country's core foreign alliance in an effort to win
an election due two weeks after the trip.
Briefing his cabinet on the March 3 speech to a joint meeting of
Congress, Netanyahu said his priority was to urge the United States
and other powers not to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal that might
endanger Israel.
"In coming weeks, the powers are liable to reach a framework
agreement with Iran, an agreement liable to leave Iran as a nuclear
threshold state," he said in remarks carried by Israeli
broadcasters.
"As prime minister of Israel, I am obligated to make every effort to
prevent Iran from getting nuclear weaponry that will be aimed at the
State of Israel. This effort is global and I will go anywhere I am
invited to make the State of Israel's case and defend its future and
existence."
John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of
Representatives, invited Netanyahu without informing the Obama
administration, in what the White House deemed a breach of protocol.
Barack Obama, who has a testy relationship with the right-wing
Netanyahu, will not meet the Israeli leader during the visit to
Washington, his office said. This decision was widely portrayed in
the Israeli media as a snub.
The White House has cited the proximity of Israel's March 17
election and a desire to avoid the appearance of influencing the
poll as reason for withholding an Oval Office invitation.
There had also been contacts for a possible meeting between Obama
and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who is visiting the United
States this week to address a United Nations Holocaust
commemorations event.
But Rivlin's spokesman Jason Pearlman and White House National
Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said there would be no
meeting, citing scheduling conflicts.
The Israeli presidential job is largely ceremonial rather than
political, and Rivlin is not up for re-election in March.
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White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, asked on CNN's "State of
the Union" program on Sunday about the controversial Congress
invitation to Netanyahu, said the Obama administration did not want
to get into a "blame game" over the issue.
"Let's take a step back: This is the most important relationship we
have in the world. This is something that ought to be and will
continue to be, as far as we are concerned, above partisan
politics," he said, referring to U.S. ties with Israel.
The relationship, McDonough said, "stretches across many different
things: from values, straight through intelligence cooperation, to
defense and security assistance."
Six world powers -- the United States, Britain, China, France,
Germany and Russia -- have given themselves until the end of June to
produce a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran and end a long-running
dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Republican Senator John McCain said on the CBS program "Face the
Nation" that Israeli-U.S. ties were "never worse," suggesting that
for these reasons he thought "it's important that Prime Minister
Netanyahu speak to the American people."
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Doina Chiacu in
Washington; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Gareth Jones and Crispian
Balmer and Michael Urquhart)
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