Top Obama Advisers Sharply Rebuke ‘Destructive’ Netanyahu Speech

The strain between the U.S. and Israel deepened Wednesday, as top advisers to President Barack Obama sharply rebuked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress as “destructive” and challenged his judgment on the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Netanyahu countered by accusing the U.S. and its negotiating partners of having “given up” on stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“They might accept this, but I am not willing to accept this,” Netanyahu said Wednesday night at a meeting of his Likud Party outside Jerusalem.

Tensions between the U.S. and Israel have been on the rise since Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican leaders to address Congress on March 3. The speech was arranged without White House or State Department involvement, and the Obama administration blasted that as a breach of diplomatic protocol.

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AP writers Donna Cassata and Matthew Lee in Washington and Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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