US vice-president Joe Biden will not attend Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s controversial address to Congress next month because he will be travelling abroad, Biden’s office said on Friday.



The announcement marked the latest snub by the Obama administration, which has done little to hide its displeasure with Netanyahu for accepting an invitation from the Republican House speaker, John Boehner, to discuss their shared concerns over the US administration’s negotiations with Iran.

The White House said it had not been consulted over the invitation, which it called a breach of diplomatic protocol, and said Barack Obama would not meet with the Israeli leader during his trip.

As president of the Senate, the vice-president normally sits behind visiting heads of state when they make a joint address to both chambers of Congress.

But on Friday, an official at Biden’s office said: “The Vice President’s office expects that the Vice President will be traveling abroad during the joint session of Congress.”

It was unclear where Biden plans to travel, though his office said the unspecified trip had been in the works before the prime minister’s trip was announced.



Biden’s announcement makes him the latest Democrat to declare he or she would not attend Netanyahu’s speech. On Thursday, three congressmen announced their intention to stay away, and the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, warned that others may discover similar “diary clashes”.

The growing controversy prompted Abrahm Foxman, national director of the Anti Defamation League, to call on the Israeli prime minister to cancel the speech. Foxman told the Forward that Netanyahu should “recalibrate, restart and find a new platform and new timing to take away the distractions”.

He said: “One needs to restart, and it needs a mature adult statement that this was not what we intended.”

In Israel, a senior official suggested that Netanyahu had been misled into thinking an invitation to address the US Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.

“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 characterisation Hanegbi did not contest.

Asked whether the prime minister should cancel or postpone the speech, Hanegbi said: “What would the outcome be then? The outcome would be that we forsake an arena in which there is a going to be a very dramatic decision [on Iran].”

Netanyahu has denied seeking electoral gains or meddling in internal US affairs with the speech, in which he is expected to warn world powers against agreeing to anything short of a total rollback of Iran’s nuclear programme.

A Netanyahu spokesman declined to comment on Hanegbi’s comments on Friday. Hanegbi is a senior member of Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Acknowledging that Democrats had been “pained” by the invitation, Hanegbi said Netanyahu and Israeli emissaries were making “a huge effort to make clear to them that this is not a move that flouts the president of the United States”.

Yet Hanegbi said the address to Congress could help pass a bill, opposed by Obama, for new US 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. So if the prime minister can persuade another one or two or another three or four, this could have weight,” he said.

Hanegbi said he was not aware of any Israeli polling that showed the speech would help Netanyahu in the 17 March election, in which Likud is running neck-and-neck against the centre-left.