Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to go out of his way to attack the Obama administration, apparently just to make sure everyone involves knows what a terrible idea it was for House Republicans to invite him to speak before Congress. His running theme continues to be
threats to leak details of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations.
“We know that Tehran knows the details of the talks. Now I tell you that Israel also knows the details of the proposed agreement,” the prime minister said. “I think this is a bad agreement that is dangerous for the state of Israel, and not just for it.”
He added, “If anyone thinks otherwise, what is there to hide here?”
He probably thinks he has nothing more to lose, and he's probably right. The Obama administration has already publicly stated that they
would no longer be sharing certain information about the negotiations with Israel due to the suspicion that the hard-right Netanyahu was leaking that information for his own political gain, the upcoming Boehner-orchestrated address to Congress has turned
positively toxic in America, and Netanyahu's upcoming re-election bid is being complicated by his now openly dysfunctional relationship with American leaders.
The end result of all of this is that Netanyahu has effectively taken himself out of the picture when it comes to international efforts to de-nuclearize Iran. Given his apparent ability to make any situation worse just by weighing in on it, this is probably for the best.
1:29 PM PT: And now the White House is apparently contemplating possible additional actions to publicly snub Netanyahu.
Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America's leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.
