Story highlights
Netanyahu to speak to members of Congress on Tuesday
Netanyahu to warn of making bad deal with Iran, source says
Congress has "no understanding" of the deal shaping up, source says
(CNN) —
During his upcoming speech to Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lay out the details of what he understands to be the nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran, hoping it will prompt lawmakers to question the administration and delay the March 24 deadline for a political agreement.
A senior Israeli official traveling in Netanyahu’s delegation, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the Israeli government had “a good understanding of the agreement we can draw conclusions from.”
“We know what we know. And believe me, we know a lot of information about this agreement,” the official told reporters aboard the flight to Washington. “The Prime Minister is going to Congress to explain what they don’t know about this agreement that it is a bad agreement.”
Will speech backfire?
The official said Congress has “no understanding” of the deal shaping up. He described the Prime Minister’s speech as a “last chance” to speak directly to Congress before a March 24 deadline for a political framework agreement about the elements believed to be in the deal.
The official would not disclose how the Israeli government reportedly had more information on the deal than the U.S. Congress, but noted that many of the parties were leaking details of the talks. However, in congressional testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee last week, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “Anybody running around right now jumping in to say, ‘Well, we don’t like the deal’ or this or that, doesn’t know what the deal is. There is no deal yet. And I caution people to wait and see what these negotiations produce.”
The official suggested Netanyahu would urge lawmakers in his Tuesday address to pressure the Obama administration to push the deadline so more discussion can take place about what he perceives is a dangerous deal that leaves Iran with the ability to develop a nuclear weapon down the line.
“There is no sacred date,” the official said of the March 24 deadline. “It can be put off. It is not fixed. They can change it”
The official said that as the March 24 deadline approaches, Netanyahu will warn “be careful of giving up compromises. They are compromises and they are not good.”
Obama hinted last week that he did not see the need for any additional extensions, saying the talks have, “sufficiently narrowed and sufficiently clarified that we’re at the point where they need to make a decision.”
That deadline was agreed to by the five parties and Iran, which is why Kerry is having marathon meetings with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Geneva beginning again this week.
6 questions about Netanyahu’s visit
Netanyahu spoke with Kerry on the eve of his trip, the official said, adding that despite the fraught political tone of Netanyahu’s visit, the United States and Israel continue to communicate through intelligence channels. Intelligence and national security officials, this official said, met last week with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator for the Iran talks.
“The objective of Israel is to get a better agreement,” the official said. “We want a good agreement. We are not against all agreements and the Prime Minister never said we were.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on October 27.
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Netanyahu, right, sits with a friend at the entrance to his family home in Jerusalem on July 1, 1967. The Israeli prime minister was born October 21, 1949.
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Netanyahu, right, with a friend in the Judean Desert on May 1, 1968.
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Netanyahu serves in the Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit of the Israeli army, in 1971. He spent five years in the unit.
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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Zalman Shazar during a November 1972 ceremony honoring the Sayeret Matkal soldiers who freed hostages in a hijacking earlier that year.
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Netanyahu and his first wife, Miriam, in June 1980.
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Netanyahu and his daughter, Noa, in June 1980.
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Netanyahu speaks in July 1986 with Sorin Hershko, one of the Israeli soldiers wounded in Operation Entebbe. It was the 10th anniversary of Operation Entebbe, a dramatic rescue of Jewish hostages at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. Netanyahu's brother, Yonatan, was killed leading Operation Entebbe in 1976. Affected by his brother's death, Netanyahu organized two international conferences on ways to combat terrorism, one in 1979 and another in 1984.
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From 1984 to 1988, Netanyahu was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.
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Netanyahu talks to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on a stroll in New York's Central Park in November 1987.
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Netanyahu, as Israel's deputy foreign minister, goes through some papers as Government Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein recites morning prayers on a flight from New York to Washington in April 1989.
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Shamir speaks with Netanyahu at a Middle East peace conference in Madrid in October 1991.
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Netanyahu celebrates after being elected chairman of the right-wing Likud party on March 21, 1993.
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Netanyahu and former foreign minister David Levy sit in the Knesset during the vote for a new Israeli President on March 24, 1993.
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Netanyahu meets with King Hussein of Jordan, center, and Crown Prince Hassan in December 1994. It was Netanyahu's first visit to Jordan.
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Netanyahu shakes hands with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres before taking the office himself in June 1996.
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Netanyahu meets with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the first time on September 4, 1996, at an Israeli army base at the Erez Checkpoint in Gaza.
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Netanyahu meets with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington in February 1997.
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Netanyahu spends the day on the beach with his wife, Sara, and son Avner in Caesarea, Israel, on August 16, 1997.
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Actor Kirk Douglas holds the King David Award, presented to him by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah during a dinner in Beverly Hills, California, on November 17, 1997. Douglas was honored for his inspirational commitment to Israel and the Jewish people and in recognition of his new book "Climbing the Mountain." Netanyahu is on the left. To the right is Rabbi Nachum Braverman, director of the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah.
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Netanyahu looks through binoculars during a tour of the West Bank with the Israeli Cabinet on December 28, 1997.
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Netanyahu and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan meet in Annan's office in New York on May 15, 1998.
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From left, Arafat, King Hussein, US President Bill Clinton and Netanyahu sign an interim Middle East peace agreement in October 1998.
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Netanyahu thanks a crowd of supporters in Tel Aviv, Israel, at a Likud party meeting in May 1999. The outgoing Prime Minister announced that he was quitting the Knesset and stepping down as party leader 10 days after being defeated in elections.
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Netanyahu testifies before the US House Government Reform Committee on September 20, 2001. The committee was conducting hearings on terrorism following the September 11 attacks.
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Netanyahu, as Israel's foreign minister, laughs with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the start of a Likud convention in Tel Aviv on November 12, 2002.
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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are seen at a polling station in Jerusalem on August 14, 2007. He was re-elected as head of the Likud party.
