Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to speak at a pro-Israeli group’s conference Monday in Washington, one day ahead of his address to the U.S. Congress that has caused friction with the White House.
Netanyahu spoke at the policy meeting for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last year, but this time will do so before going in front of Congress under circumstances that Secretary of State John Kerry described as “odd, if not unique.”
Republican House Speaker John Boehner invited the Israeli leader to give his Tuesday address, breaking with historical protocol of coordinating with the White House.
Kerry has sought to downplay any rift, and is due to support Israel in an appearance Monday before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, officials said.
“The prime minister of Israel is welcome to speak in the United States obviously, and we have a closer relationship with Israel right now in terms of security than in any time in history,” Kerry told ABC television’s This Week program on Sunday.
Poll results
The invitation by Republicans in Congress has divided Americans. Nearly half (48 percent) surveyed said lawmakers should not have invited Netanyahu to speak without notifying the White House, according to a poll by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal. Thirty percent of respondents thought the invitation was acceptable, while 22 percent were unsure.
Netanyahu has disagreed with the negotiations the United States and a group of five other world powers have held with Iran over that country’s nuclear program, saying an agreement would be too lenient and allow Iran to make a nuclear bomb that would endanger Israel.
Iran has long insisted it is not trying to develop nuclear weapons, while those involved in the talks have sought to keep any details of the negotiations private.
“We are going to test whether or not diplomacy can prevent this weapon from being created, so you do not have to turn to additional measures including the possibility of a military confrontation,” Kerry told ABC.
“Our hope is that diplomacy can work. And I believe, given our success of the interim agreement, we deserve the benefit of the doubt to find out whether or not we can get a similarly good agreement with respect to the future,” he added.
The group that includes Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the U.S. are facing a June 30 deadline for a deal that cuts Iran’s uranium enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions that have destroyed the Iranian economy. The two sides want an interim framework agreement by the end of this month.
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