Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the second consecutive day on Tuesday that he will deliver his speech to Congress, acknowledging profound disagreements with Washington over Iran but stressing that policy differences with US presidents are not uncommon.
“Disagreements over Israel’s security have occurred between prime ministers in Israel from the left and from the right and American presidents from both parties,” he said. “None of these disagreements led to a rupture in the relationship between Israel and the United States. In fact, over time, our relationship grew stronger.”
Netanyahu, in a special videoed statement, cited as examples David Ben-Gurion's declaration of statehood in 1948 despite adamant opposition from the State Department; Levi Eshkol's decision to launch a preemptive attack in 1967 against the counsel of the White House; Menachem Begin’s decision to strike the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 despite Ronald Reagan's opposition; and Ariel Sharon's decision to press ahead with Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 even though George Bush told him to stop.
“We do have today a profound disagreement with the United States administration and the rest of the P5+1 over the offer that has been made to Iran,” he said. “This offer would enable Iran to threaten Israel's survival.”
Netanyahu said that the deal that was being discussed would allow Iran to “break out to a nuclear weapon in a short time,” and within a few years have the “industrial capability to produce many nuclear bombs for the goal of our destruction.”
With the controversy over the speech being framed in some circles as an outgrowth of deep personal dislike between the two men, Netanyahu said this was not a personal disagreement between the two.
“I deeply appreciate all that he has done for Israel in many fields,” Netanyahu said of Obama. “Equally, I know that the President appreciates my responsibility, my foremost responsibility, to protect and defend the security of Israel.”
“I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the President, but because I must fulfill my obligation to speak up on a matter that affects the very survival of my country,” Netanyahu said. He added that he intends to speak in Congress because Congress “might have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran.”
Meanwhile, the controversy over the speech refused to die, and on Tuesday the left-wing J Street lobby sent a letter to every member of Congress encouraging them to oppose Netanyahu's address next month.
The letter, shared online, links to a video from Israel's election cycle in 2013, in which a clip from Netanyahu's last address to a joint session of Congress was used in a Likud campaign ad.
"As the attached video clip clearly shows, this is exactly what happened in the last Israeli election two years ago," wrote Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, calling the move one of his "chief objections" to the event.
"Our Congress should not be used as a prop in another nation’s election," Ben-Ami said. "We urge you to convey to Speaker [John] Boehner that the speech should be postponed until after the election, when Congress could welcome Israel's next leader speaking on behalf of all of Israel's people."
On the other political side of the American Jewish spectrum, the right-wing Zionist Organization of America slammed ADL head Abe Foxman and the Union for Reform Judaism's president Rick Jacobs for calling on Netanyahu not to speak before Congress, likening this to efforts by the mainstream Jewish leadership in the 1930s and 1940s to keep Peter Bergson and Ben Hecht from speaking in Washington about the Nazi threat to European Jewry.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu's lawyers told the Central Election Committee on Tuesday that it was in the public's interest that the premier's planned speech to Congress be aired on television.
Lawyers David and Shaul Shimron responded to petitions from Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On and Zionist Union campaigner Eldad Yaniv, which called for the panel to block the speech's broadcast on grounds that it is illegal election campaigning.
It is illegal to broadcast campaign speeches for 60 days before an election. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress about Iran is planned for March 3, and the election is on March 17. The ban on speeches came into effect on January 16.
The rebuttal called Gal-On and Yaniv's claims "puzzling, ridiculous and even cynical, because of the fact that is clear to all that the initiative to make the speech came from the US Speaker of the House John Boehner and not the prime minister."
"Naturally, Netanyahu's speech to the American Congress in such an important matter which has great news value and the public has a right to watch it," the attorneys wrote.
"This interest in the public is especially acute in light of repeated reports of an agreement in principle that is being formed at this time and could be signed soon."