After snubbing Netanyahu, Biden meets with Israeli opposition leader Herzog

Growing number of voices in Israel and US urge Netanyahu to call off Congress address

Having snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress the previous day, US Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday met with Netanyahu’s main political rival, the leader of Israel’s center-left bloc Isaac Herzog, on the sidelines of the Munich security conference.

Biden on Friday announced that he will not attend Netanyahu’s address next month. “The Vice President’s office expects that the Vice President will be traveling abroad during the joint session of Congress,” an official said.

As president of the Senate, Biden would be expected to attend any joint meeting. Eight foreign leaders have addressed a joint meeting of Congress since Biden became vice president in 2009. He has attended all but one — that of then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2011.

The controversy surrounding Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress is refusing to subside, as multiple Israeli politicians urged Netanyahu to cancel his appearance.

Herzog decried Netanyahu’s decision to address the Congress on the issue of the Iranian nuclear program as being “born in sin,” meaning that the move ammoutns to little more than self-promotion ahead of an election.

The speech “endangers the security of Israel’s citizens and the special relationship between Israel and the US… with all due respect to (Netanyahu’s) campaign, this is the moment when you must act as an Israeli patriot and not throw Israeli security under the bus,” Herzog added.

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz reacted angrily to Herzog’s comments, saying the latter had crossed “red lines” by attacking the Israeli government abroad.

“Israel’s relations with the US are very strong and will remain that way even after the election,” Steinitz said, adding that Netanyahu “must do everything” to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state.

An Israeli official claimed on Friday that Netanyahu had been erroneously led to believe by House Speaker John Boehner, who extended the invitation to Netanyahu, that the invitation was a bipartisan move.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel Radio that the premier is mounting “a huge effort to clarify to the US this is not a move aimed to flout the president of the United States.”

Yair Lapid, former Finance Minister and chairman of the centrist of the Yesh Atid party, also slammed the decision to hold the address, saying “the prime minister is causing serious damage to Israel’s strategic relations with the United States.”

‘A tragedy of unintended consequences’
Meanwhile, one of the Jewish American community’s leading figures also called on the PM to cancel the appearance.

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Jewish Daily Forward the political bedlam caused by House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu is ultimately unhelpful and should therefore be called off.

“It’s a tragedy of unintended consequences,” Foxman told the Forward, adding that the whole issue had turned into a “circus.”

“One needs to restart, and it needs a mature adult statement that this was not what we intended,” Foxman said, noting that carrying on as planned would be counter-productive in that it would undermine addressing the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.

“It has been hijacked by politics,” Foxman was quoted by the Forward as saying. “Now is a time to recalibrate, restart and find a new platform and new timing to take away the distractions.”

Obama has said he will not meet Netanyahu during his visit, which comes a few weeks before the prime minister seeks re-election. The speech before Congress is expected on March 3.

It is a “matter of long-standing practice and principle” that the president does not meet foreign leaders engaged in an electoral campaign, the White House has said.

But Obama had also been irked by the subject of Netanyahu’s speech — Iran.

Obama’s allies fear the trip could be used by Israel and by US Republicans, who control Congress and issued the invitation, to undercut nuclear talks with Tehran just as they appear poised to bear fruit.

The West and Israel accuse the Islamic republic of trying to build a nuclear bomb, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

Democrats have suggested they may boycott Netanyahu’s address, prompting Israel to launch a diplomatic charm offensive, dispatching Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer and Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein in an effort to convince members of Obama’s party to attend.

Traditional allies of Netanyahu, including Fox News, have also called on him to cancel his planned speech