--- title: Barack Obama Aide Susan Rice Says Benjamin Netanyahu Plan 'Destructive' description: Says planned address to Congress has "injected a degree of partisanship" canonical: https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/ author: Dan Hirschhorn article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-25T12:33:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:36.518Z article:section: Politics og:title: Obama Aide Calls Israeli Leader's U.S. Visit 'Destructive' og:description: Says planned address to Congress has "injected a degree of partisanship" og:url: https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt155491c35a33e38c/698780e1e20a8705e1a85478/benjamin-netanyahu.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office on Feb. 8, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama Aide Calls Israeli Leader's U.S. Visit 'Destructive' twitter:description: Says planned address to Congress has "injected a degree of partisanship" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt155491c35a33e38c/698780e1e20a8705e1a85478/benjamin-netanyahu.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama Aide Calls Israeli Leader's U.S. Visit 'Destructive' > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=96e13eca-3424-43e6-81c3-679dd2741dad&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: From Ceasefire to Ground Invasion: One Day In the Life of Israel and Gaza Residents [Watch (HLS stream): From Ceasefire to Ground Invasion: One Day In the Life of Israel and Gaza Residents](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/nxtmNoqL.m3u8) (3:59)  _Published 2014-07-18. TIME asked residents of Gaza and Israel to chronicle their lives on Thursday - the day Israel's forces started a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory._ by [Dan Hirschhorn](https://time.com/author/dan-hirschhorn/) ## Dan Hirschhorn Feb 25, 2015 12:33 PM UTC  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office on Feb. 8, 2015. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office on Feb. 8, 2015. Sebastian Scheiner—AP by [Dan Hirschhorn](https://time.com/author/dan-hirschhorn/) ## Dan Hirschhorn Feb 25, 2015 12:33 PM UTC President Barack Obama’s top national security aide on Tuesday lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress as “destructive \[to\] the fabric of the relationship” between the two countries, as political fallout continued to mount ahead of Netanyahu’s controversial visit. National Security Adviser Susan Rice, delivering the Obama Administration’s strongest critique of the visit to date while speaking Tuesday night on PBS, said Netanyahu’s address next week has “injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it’s destructive \[to\] the fabric of the relationship.” Netanyahu’s visit has been sharply criticized in both Israel and the U.S. as overly political, coming just weeks before Israeli elections and after House Speaker John Boehner invited him without informing Obama or congressional Democrats. Obama will not meet with Netanyahu while he’s in town, and many Democrats, including Vice President Joe Biden, have signaled that they won’t attend his address to a joint session of Congress. “The relationship between Israel as a country and the United States as a country has always been bipartisan and we’ve been fortunate the politics have not been injected into that relationship,” Rice said. “It’s always been bipartisan. We need to keep it that way. We want it that way. I think Israel wants it that way, the American people want it that way, and when it becomes infused with politics, that’s a problem.” The Israeli leader has steadfastly defended the speech as an opportunity to voice his concerns over a potential nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran, and did so again Tuesday, saying he was coming to the U.S. to “do everything I can” to stop a deal with Iran, the New York _Times_ [reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/us/politics/susan-rice-calls-netanyahus-planned-visit-destructive-to-us-israel-ties.html)_._ “Therefore, I will go to Washington to address the American Congress, because the American Congress is likely to be the final brake before the agreement between the major powers and Iran,” Netanyahu said. Still, the trip risked coming off as more partisan when Netanyahu turned down an invitation to address Senate Democrats. “Thought I greatly appreciate your kind invitation to meet with Democratic Senators, I believe that doing so at this time would compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit,” Netanyahu said in a letter released by the office of Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. Dubin wasn’t pleased with Netanyahu’s response. “We offered the prime minister an opportunity to balance the politically divisive invitation from Speaker Boehner with a private meeting with Democrats who are committed to keeping the bipartisan support of Israel strong,” he said in a statement. “His refusal to meet is disappointing to those of us who have stood by Israel for decades.” ## Transcript As you see now, Gaza is totally in a blackout and there is ED drones are hovering over the sky. Hard to hear. Some sirens going off. One bomb went off. There's another one. And we'll start our day. [ MUSIC ] Good morning, it is about 8 o'clock in the morning on Thursday. We're here in Tel Aviv. Sort of the cultural heartbeat of Israel. There's suppose to be a six hour humanitarian. Cease fire this morning so hopefully things will remain quiet. If you can hear this, this is my friend's cell phone. It's beeping right now every time there's a siren somewhere in Israel it goes off and it's been beeping like crazy. It's a little fuzzy here but in in the south. And north all over Israel, missiles are dropping. Yeah, [ UNKNOWN ] leave their homes. To bring the necessities during the ceasefire. Hello, my name is Basel, I'm 19 years old from Gaza strip. I lived once in the States, in the state of Oregon. It was a heck of an experience to me. It actually spoiled me because we had electricity in the states all the time. And when you get back to Gaza it's only 8 hours. And it's [ INAUDIBLE ] of 8 hours. Here we are in Tel Aviv. It's about 12: 30 pm, about 2 1 / 2 hours after. The ceasefire was begun Hamas broke about half an hour ago but nevertheless this is life here. Barely minutes after the end of that truce two rockets were fired, headed for Israel. I'm pretty bored so I'm gonna make a lot of these videos. Just for the heck of it. I certainly have nothing to do sort of sitting down reading something and waiting for the first day of the internet to come back. Israel and Tel Aviv. You have to understand. People aren't out jogging and in cafes because they're casual about conflict. It's because one of the amazing things about people in this country. Is that with all the wars this country's been through and the struggles and the conflict it's been through, and the struggles and the conflict, people have learned to be pretty resilient. And they live life to the fullest. So we just received word that Israel has started their ground operation. And as you can see, the streets of Tel Aviv are very concerned with the updates, [ NOISE ]. As you hear, there is a lot of bombing there. [ NOISE ] And the light flares are falling from the sky. [ NOISE ] To light the whole area. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/"},"headline":"Obama Aide Calls Israeli Leader's U.S. Visit 'Destructive'","datePublished":"2015-02-25T12:33:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:49:36.518Z","description":"Says planned address to Congress has \"injected a degree of partisanship\"","url":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","keywords":["Foreign Policy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt155491c35a33e38c/698780e1e20a8705e1a85478/benjamin-netanyahu.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dan Hirschhorn","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/dan-hirschhorn/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt155491c35a33e38c/698780e1e20a8705e1a85478/benjamin-netanyahu.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office on Feb. 8, 2015.","caption":"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem office on Feb. 8, 2015.","creditText":"Sebastian Scheiner—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/foreign-policy/","name":"Foreign Policy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","name":"Obama Aide Calls Israeli Leader's U.S. Visit 'Destructive'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Know Right Now: Netanyahu's Visit Causes Tensions Between Israel and the U.S.","description":"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak before a joint session of Congress on March 3rd, and the upcoming speech is having an affect on politics worldwide.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/1r3FQru4/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-02-25T22:46:40.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/1r3FQru4.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","duration":"PT1M3S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Netanyahu: \"Israel Will Not Allow Iran to Get Nuclear Weapons\"","description":"At the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will stand alone if it must.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/I4eGZU73/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2013-10-01T19:08:51.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/I4eGZU73.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","duration":"PT1M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"From Ceasefire to Ground Invasion: One Day In the Life of Israel and Gaza Residents","description":"TIME asked residents of Gaza and Israel to chronicle their lives on Thursday - the day Israel's forces started a ground invasion of the Palestinian territory.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/nxtmNoqL/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-07-18T21:39:43.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/nxtmNoqL.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/","duration":"PT3M59S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3721797/benjamin-bibi-netanyahu-barack-obama-susan-rice-israel/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```