President Obama blamed the upcoming Israeli elections for why he’s choosing not to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March, saying such a meeting could create the appearance that the U.S. is interfering in Israeli political contests.
The elections are scheduled for March 17, while Mr. Netanyahu is slated to travel to Washington and address Congress on March 3. He has said his priority is to urge the U.S. and its partners to avoid any deal with Iran that could still allow the nation to continue its nuclear program and, subsequently, threaten Israel’s security.
While Mr. Netanyahu will make that case to Congress, he will not be making it to Mr. Obama.
“I’m declining to meet with him simply because our general policy is, we don’t meet with any world leader two weeks before their election,” Mr. Obama told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview taped before the president left India on Tuesday. “I think that’s inappropriate, and that’s true with some of our closest allies.”
Mr. Obama cited other instances of world leaders rearranging planned visits to the U.S. so they didn’t fall too close to elections back home. The most recent case, he said, was British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit earlier this month, which was hastily arranged to be far enough apart from May elections in Britain.
“He insisted that if he wants to come — and it was a very important meeting — he needs to be far away enough from the election that it doesn’t look like in some ways we’re meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale,” Mr. Obama said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.