Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein rushed to meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday trying to calm a furor created by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next month and quell a Democratic revolt that has dozens threatening a boycott.

It didn’t work.


If anything, Democrats finished the day more frustrated. According to a source in the room, one Jewish Democratic member of Congress even accused Dermer of being insincere when he claimed not to have anticipated the partisan uproar he’d ignite when he skirted protocol and went around the White House and scheduled the speech only with House Speaker John Boehner.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, meanwhile, dangled the possibility that the White House would have Vice President Joe Biden skip the speech in what the West Wing acknowledges would be a serious snub.

The U.S. and Israeli alliance is rooted in deep defense, security, economic and investment ties, and all sides insisted the U.S. commitment to defend Israel is unaffected by the unseemly dispute of the last two weeks. And with Netanyahu on course to be reelected in March, he and President Barack Obama will need to find a way to talk again.

But the ongoing dispute over the speech seemed likely to make that more difficult than ever.

Biden has to date missed only one speech by a foreign leader at a joint session of Congress, Earnest said. The vice president really likes his ceremonial duties, he added, but might be busy on March 3, when Netanyahu is scheduled to deliver his warning to Congress about U.S. negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. The Obama administration considers the talks an important diplomatic opening that could lead to the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Netanyahu believes Iran has no intention of holding to any deal and U.S. diplomats are being naive.

The speech, which would also come just two weeks before Israeli elections, was widely interpreted as an attempt to rally opposition in Congress, which is considering legislation to try to block a deal.

“The muddled manner in which this invitation to speak to Congress has been handled is striking,” said Edward Djerejian, a former ambassador to Israel and the founding director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “This is an unnecessary irritant in the basic U.S.-Israeli relationship and it couldn’t come at a more delicate time, where the Middle East region is in such turbulence and there’s so many challenges.”

Dermer and Edelstein running around the Hill on Wednesday is “symptomatic of what’s happened as a result of the speaker’s invitation and the prime minister’s acceptance of this speech,” said Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under Bill Clinton

If Dermer really wants to fix the problems created by the speech, goes the consensus among Democrats in Washington, he’ll need to do more than apologize: he and Netanyahu have to cancel or reschedule the speech.

Otherwise, Wednesday won’t be the lowest point of the relationship.

“It’s going to get worse, because Democrats, whether it’s Jewish Democratic congressmen, or Jewish voters for the Democratic Party — which is the majority of American Jewish voters … nobody wants to be put in the position of taking sides,” Indyk said. “Democrats who are supporters of Israel don’t want to have to choose between supporting Israel and supporting their president.”

Earnest ducked answering whether Obama would ask Biden to attend the speech; an Oval Office meeting with the president has already been ruled out. Earnest acknowledged that a Biden snub might hurt Netanyahu in the Israeli elections March 17.

“We’ll see,” Earnest said. “As we consider the vice president’s attendance, that’s one of the factors that will weigh on that decision.”

Seven Jewish Democratic members of Congress who met Wednesday in Rep. Steve Israel’s (D-N.Y.) office — Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch of Florida, Jerry Nadler and Nita Lowey of New York, Sander Levin of Michigan and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois — lit into Dermer. The invitation, they said, was making them choose between Netanyahu and Obama, making support for Israel into a partisan issue that they never wanted it to be, and forcing some Democrats to consider a boycott of the speech.

They suggested Netanyahu consider speaking to members of Congress privately, and not from the podium of the House.

“There were a wide range of views that were discussed, but one thing we all agreed on emphatically is that Israel should never be used as a political football,” Israel told POLITICO.

As that was happening, a new diplomatic rift was opening. The Israelis sent Edelstein, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, to meet with Boehner. Boehner’s office remembered to invite Pelosi’s rival, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), but left House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) out.

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy didn’t return a request for comment.

Hoyer and House Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Eliot Engel, who’d also been invited, both pulled out when they realized Pelosi was being left out.

“Had we been told that Rep. Pelosi wanted to attend, she certainly would have been welcome,” explained Boehner spokesman Michael Steel afterward.

By then the Israeli embassy was scrambling. Pelosi got her own meeting with Edelstein added to the schedule for Wednesday afternoon. She brought along Hoyer and Engel, as well as Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Pelosi’s office told POLITICO Tuesday that she’ll go to Netanyahu’s speech if it happens. But Wednesday, she used the Edelstein meeting to tear into the Israelis directly.

Pelosi “expressed her concern that casting a political apple of discord into the relationship is not the best way forward given the formidable challenges our two countries are facing together,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

Dermer, meanwhile, scheduled another rushed meeting with Engel for Thursday. Nothing that happened Wednesday seems to have calmed the revolt that has dozens of Democrats considering skipping Netanyahu’s speech. Earnest said that the White House can see why they might.

“Individual members of Congress will have to make their own decision, some of which I assume will be driven by their schedule and some of which will be driven by their own views about what has transpired over the last several weeks as it relates to this speech,” Earnest said.

Asked whether the president believes the America-Israel relationship would be harmed by Democrats skipping the speech, Earnest ducked again.

“The president believes that individual members of Congress will have to decide for themselves,” he said.

Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.

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