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Is Israel throwing House Speaker John Boehner under the bus in the wake of the growing controversy over Boehner’s decision to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the U.S. Congress without first informing the White House or authentically informing Congressional Democrats? Boehner’s letter claimed it was a “bipartisan” supported invitation. Not true. What is true is the fact that Israel now seems to be trying to say: “Well, it wasn’t our fault!”

Politico reports:

A senior Israeli official suggested on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been misled into thinking an invitation to address the U.S. Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.

Netanyahu was invited by the Republican speaker of the house, John Boehner, to address Congress on March 3, an invitation Boehner originally described as bipartisan.

The move angered the White House, which is upset about the event coming two weeks before Israeli elections and that Netanyahu, who has a testy relationship with Democratic President Barack Obama, is expected to be critical of U.S. policy on Iran.

“It appears that the speaker of Congress made a move, in which we trusted, but which it ultimately became clear was a one sided move and not a move by both sides,” Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told 102 FM Tel Aviv Radio on Friday.

The interviewer asked if that meant Netanyahu had been “misled” into believing Boehner’s invitation was bipartisan, a characterization Hanegbi did not contest.

He also made it clear that Netanyahu has no intention of not doing the speech at that specific time.

(So there.)

The White House has nixed meeting with Netanyahu, Vice President Joe Biden it turns out will be (conveniently) out of town and “Bibi” is doing well in his political polls at home.

What continues to be amazing is how some (in some articles on the web, comments on websites and even a Facebook page) continue to suggest that this is not a fiasco — not of the White House’s doing but because Boehner broke precedent and protocol. Even more amazing: there are quite a few who will now insist that historians won’t look upon this as a major blunder.

Having the Foreign Minister quote clarify unquote suggests that Israeli policy members know that they have now stepped in it — and Boehner shoveled the pile in place that they stepped in. It’s clear that the attempts by Israel to sooth the anger of Congressional Democrats during a visit didn’t exactly succeed.

Because this is NOT just over policy: it’s over Boehner wanting to show Obama that he and Congress have power and, in the process, trampling over the way things have been done when it comes to foreign leaders addressing Congress.

The second component is how, in 21st century America, those then supporting Boehner, his party and his action will repeat like a looped bit of tape the mantra over and over again that nothing untoward happened here.

If that was the case, Hanegbi would not feel compelled to clarify.

Some reaction:

Booman:

In other words, it’s not Netanyahu’s fault that the Democrats don’t want him to address Congress and he’s going to do it anyway. If you’ve got a problem with that, blame John Boehner because he’s not very good at his job.

It’s an all-weather excuse, but it isn’t going to unruffle any feathers.

Talking Points Memo:

Nonetheless, Hanegbi indicated that Netanyahu would still make the March 3 speech, which also comes two weeks before Israeli elections. He said that the speech could still help secure the two-thirds vote needed to override President Obama’s promised veto on any new sanctions on Iran.

“The Republicans know, as the president has already made clear, that he will veto this legislation. So in order to pass legislation that overcomes the veto, two-thirds are required in the Senate,” Hanegbi said. “So if the prime minister can persuade another one or two or another three or four, this could have weight.”

Boehner’s office didn’t immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.

Politics USA’s Jason Easley:

The claim that Israel was misled is dubious from every angle. There is no doubt that Speaker Boehner would play fast and loose with the facts. Pressure has been growing on Boehner domestically as President Obama’s popularity has surged after the Democratic midterm election defeat. Obama has taken a series of steps that seized the agenda and momentum away from the new Republican congressional majority.

It is likely that Boehner and Netanyahu viewed a speech before Congress as both an opportunity to divide Democrats at home while helping Netanyahu secure reelection in Israel. The plan has completely backfired. Netanyahu has been heavily criticized in Israel while congressional Democrats are in complete revolt in the United States.

The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister’s comments were the first sign that the rats are fleeing the sinking ship. The finger pointing has begun.

The scheme to humiliate a sitting president has unraveled, as Obama remains stronger than ever.

Balloon Juice’s Tim F:

It appears that gut check time has arrived for the geniuses behind Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprise visit to Congress. The move struck me as a hail mary pass from the beginning – the Israeli Prime Minister took Republican support for granted, as he should, but clearly expected Democrats to panic and participate in humiliating their own President. One can imagine what a coup that would have been for Netanyahu and his Republican allies. It must have come as a surprise when even Democrats as far out on the fence as Joe Manchin instead reacted as one might hope they would when a dependent client state takes a piss on the carpet.

With no bipartisan cover and little support in the press*, Boehner and Bibi might want to think about why teams only throw a hail mary in desperation. Among other reasons it gets intercepted a lot. And so now we have reached the inevitable prisoners’ dilemma stage of a failing gambit. Will the parties stick to their story or start tossing blame to save themselves?

–If Netanyahu is as smart as people say (and for many years growing up in New Haven, Ct I knew people who had known him as a young man and they had great things to say about him) I suspect Doug Mataconis is correct:

Whatever else you might say about him, Netanyahu is obviously an intelligent man and, more importantly, he’s someone whose experiences have given him insights on how politics works in the United States that many foreign leaders likely don’t have. It’s simply not plausible that neither he nor his advisers would be aware enough of the political situation in Congress to realize that accepting this invitation to address Congress regarding sanctions legislation that the White House has already publicly stated that it opposes due to the fact that it interferes with the ongoing international negotiations with Iran would set off the very partisan battle that we are seeing right now. Indeed, given the fact that Israeli leaders have historically been very careful about not wanting the issue of U.S, support for Israel to become a partisan issue, one would think that Netanyahu and his advisers would have been even more acutely aware of the consequences of allowing the Prime Minister to be pulled into a partisan dispute on Capitol Hill.

Now that they are in the middle of a dispute they probably would have preferred to avoid, though, the Israelis find themselves in a quandry. Go forward with the speech and risk poisoning the well of U.S.-Israeli relations or cancel the speech and admit that it was wrong to accept the invitation to begin with. The fact that Vice-President Biden has announced that he will not be attending the speech due to “overseas travel,” a move that is likely to lead many other Democrats to feel free to skip the speech or at least announce that they are doing so. If nothing else, this indicates that keeping the speech as scheduled will just guarantee that it becomes more and more partisan. Given that, I suspect that we’ll be seeing an announcement in the near future that the speech has been “postponed” or rescheduled.

—The Daily Kos’ Hunter:

We just agreed to go around the standard protocol for these things because Boehner told us we were throwing a surprise party for the president and we didn’t want to spoil the surprise. So … surprise!

You know, I’m not sure I’d put a lot of faith in the competence of any foreign diplomat that trusts John Boehner not to make them look bad. I’m just saying. It doesn’t show a lot of knowledge of the country they’re diplomating in.

Meanwhile, it looks like Vice President Joe Biden himself will be among those sitting out Netanyahu’s speech. He’ll be on a previously scheduled trip, you see. Possibly to a popcorn factory.

graphic via shutterstock.com

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JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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