WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech next week to Congress, expected to assail U.S. policy on Iran's nuclear programme, injects a "destructive" partisanship into U.S.-Israeli ties, President Barack Obama's national security adviser said.
Susan Rice's remarks late on Tuesday to the PBS television programme "Charlie Rose" were some of the most critical to date. The planned March 3 speech, deepening tensions between Israel and its closest ally, has divided Washington, Israelis and American Jews.
Obama, a Democrat, has said he will not meet Netanyahu when the Israeli leader addresses Congress at the invitation of John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, because it is too close to Israel's March 17 elections.
"What has happened over the last several weeks by virtue of the invitation that was issued by the speaker and the acceptance of it by Prime Minister Netanyahu two weeks in advance of his election is that on both sides there has now been injected a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think ... it's destructive of the fabric of the relationship," Rice said.
It was the latest in a series of increasingly terse exchanges between Netanyahu's right-wing government and Obama's administration that have brought U.S.-Israeli ties to one of their lowest points in decades.
Last week, White House spokesman Josh Earnest accused Israel of distorting details of the negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme in order to scupper the talks.
