House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama’s administration of increasing animosity with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his visit to Washington this week.
“The animosity between the White House and the prime minister is no secret in this town. But they’ve certainly made it worse in the last five weeks,” Boehner said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Netanyahu is headed to Washington to deliver a speech to Congress just two weeks before Israeli voters head to the polls to determine whether he remains on as prime minister.
He’s expected to lobby against a deal with Iran to thwart that country’s nuclear ambitions — which the Obama White House has played a leading role in negotiating.
Netanyahu was in route to Washington on Sunday morning. A senior State Department source said Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken with him Saturday about the Iran negotiations.
Obama has criticized Netanyahu’s visit, and some Democrats are skipping the speech in protest. But Boehner said Netanyahu remains a hot ticket.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Everybody wants to be there,” he said. “What I do wonder is why the White House feels threatened because the Congress wants to support Israel and wants to hear what a trusted ally has to say.”