Susan Rice and Samantha Power to address Aipac in conciliatory move

The White House has decided against snubbing America’s leading pro-Israel lobby and will send Barack Obama’s national security adviser and UN ambassador to address its annual policy conference in an effort to ease simmering tensions with Israel over a potential Iran nuclear deal and to make its case for one.
Analysis Is Netanyahu out to foment war with Iran?
The Israeli prime minister’s attacks on the US government may be brinkmanship – but they could be genuine attempts to goad Obama into military action
Read more

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee announced on Thursday that the national security adviser, Susan Rice, and US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, will speak to its conference that begins this weekend.

US officials had floated the idea of sending a non-cabinet level official to show displeasure with the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next week in which he will argue against an Iran deal.

In a break with protocol, the invitation for Netanyahu to speak was orchestrated by Republican congressional leaders without input from the White House or State Department, angering senior administration officials who believe it was politically motivated.

No senior US officials will meet Netanyahu during his visit. The administration has said the visit is too close to Israel’s upcoming elections and it does not want to show any favouritism. Both vice-president Joe Biden and the secretary of state, John Kerry, will be out of the country for the visit’s duration on travel that was organised only after the prime minister’s trip was announced.

The administration’s choice of Rice and Power to address the Aipac conference, at which Netanyahu will also speak, is an apparent effort to try to tamp down an increasingly vitriolic back-and-forth between the US and its top Middle East ally. The two are expected to make their case for an Iran nuclear deal.

Just two days ago, however, Rice said that Netanyahu’s impending visit is “destructive” to the US-Israeli relationship. In an interview on Tuesday, she said plans for Netanyahu’s speech had “injected a degree of partisanship” into a US-Israel relationship that should be above politics.

“It’s destructive to the fabric of the relationship,” Rice told the Charlie Rose show. “It’s always been bipartisan. We need to keep it that way.”

And on Wednesday, Kerry openly questioned Netanyahu’s judgment on Iran, recalling his support for the 2003 Iraq war and prediction that it would bring stability to the Middle East. “He may have a judgment that just may not be correct here,” the secretary told a congressional hearing.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, the House speaker, John Boehner, rejected Rice’s criticism, arguing that a “bad deal” with Iran would be destructive.

“The president’s national security adviser says that it’s destructive for the prime minister of Israel to address the United States Congress next week. 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.”

“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 they’re facing,” Boehner said. “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.”