Player of the Week: Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday will deliver a highly anticipated speech to a joint session of Congress.

It comes just days after he and the White House clashed over President Obama’s recent focus on Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Obama last week said lines drawn before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war should be the basis for negotiations over a future Palestinian state.

{mosads}Netanyahu quickly criticized Obama’s proposal, and the two leaders engaged in what surely was a testy 96-minute private conversation last week at the White House. 

Appearing publicly with Obama later, Netanyahu said a return to the 1967 borders would be “indefensible.”

With Obama out of town for a weeklong trip to Europe, Netanyahu will grab Washington’s spotlight on Tuesday morning. 

It will be fascinating to see how aggressively he criticizes the administration’s new peace plan, which some say is not new at all.

During his weekend address at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama said, “What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately.”

That might be so, but the words of a sitting U.S. president should not be underestimated, least of all by the chief executive himself. Obama said he knew that his speech would be controversial, but it appears that the extent of the backlash caught him by surprise. 

The president has repeatedly stressed that the U.S. and Israel are strong allies, but his relationship with Netanyahu has been rocky. 

A year ago, the Israeli prime minister abruptly canceled his visit to the U.S. after an Israeli raid on a vessel headed for the Gaza Strip killed nine international activists. 

At the time, Obama put out a carefully worded statement stressing the need to learn all the facts and circumstances about the “tragic events.”

Months earlier, Vice President Joe Biden condemned an Israeli plan to build 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem. Biden was especially offended because he was traveling in the Middle East when the settlements were announced.

House Republican leaders, who invited Netanyahu to address Congress earlier this year, have criticized Obama’s dealings with Israel. And last November, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Netanyahu that the new GOP majority would “serve as a check on the administration.”

There will be no shortage of drama in the House chamber when Netanyahu speaks on Tuesday.