Washington (CNN)The White House is extending a decidedly icy welcome to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of his controversial speech to Congress this week. And it has nothing to do with the weather in Washington.
Expecting Netanyahu to issue withering criticism of President Barack Obama's moves toward a nuclear deal with Iran, the White House is going on the offense, dispatching two high-profile officials -- U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and National Security Adviser Susan Rice -- to rebut the prime minister in speeches Monday to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby holding its annual conference in Washington.
The full court press will also include Obama himself, who sits down for an on-camera interview Monday afternoon with the Reuters newswire.
However, the debate over negotiating with Iran will play out on television and in the media: Obama is refusing to meet with Netanyahu when he's in Washington, the White House said, because Israeli elections are just around the corner. The two leaders won't even exchange a phone call, one senior administration official added.
Susan Rice: Netanyahu visit 'destructive' 02:56
Rice last week warned that Netanyhu's speech would be "destructive" to U.S. Israeli relations. But in a sign the administration may be lowering its rhetoric, Secretary of State John Kerry declined to use such harsh language Sunday, saying in an interview with ABC's "This Week" only that the logistics behind the prime minister's speech were "odd."
Publicly, administration officials are seeking to highlight what they say is the long history of U.S. support for Israel's interests. For his part, Netanyahu may seek to be less confrontational and more "conciliatory" in his own remarks, a source at the AIPAC conference said. The prime minister gave a separate speech at AIPAC Monday morning.
"From meeting frequently with Israeli leaders to ensuring that Israel remains the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, the President is deeply committed to helping Israel maintain its strength and security," National Security Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a White House blog.
In Switzerland, Secretary of State John Kerry defended Israel at a meeting of the Human Rights Council, a session officials say was meant to showcase a long record of U.S. support of Israel at international bodies like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
Ahead of his remarks, a senior administration official said Kerry would highlight "the extraordinary lengths" that Obama's administration -- and Secretary Kerry in particular -- "have gone to to stand up for and defend Israel's interests in international institutions," The official noted the speech came "in light of the heavy focus" on Israel-U.S. ties.
While his speech to the Human Rights Council was meant as a sign of support, Kerry's trip to Switzerland for another round of Iran nuclear negotiations only highlighted the underlying tension between the U.S. and Israel.
Regardless of the controversy in Washington, the nuclear talks in Switzerland are accelerating. Kerry will meet with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif multiple times beginning Monday night through Wednesday.
There's been a significant narrowing of differences over two key issues standing in the way of a deal: the duration of the agreement and the enrichment capacity Iran will be permitted to retain.
Netanyahu: U.S.-Israel alliance 'stronger than ever' 03:34
The two sides are discussing a 10-year timeline with Iran maintaining several thousand centrifuges. Iran would ship a significant portion of its enriched uranium to Russia for reprocessing into fuel for nuclear power. At issue remains how quickly the West lifts economic sanctions on Iran, with Iran wanting immediate lifting of all sanctions, a price the Obama administration opposes.
"We are moving in the right direction but nothing is certain. I'm not pessimistic. However, there are a number of issues that need to be nailed down soon, hopefully in Switzerland," a senior Iranian diplomat tells CNN.
The disagreement between Obama and Netanyahu over the administration's push for a nuclear containment agreement with Iran, negotiated by the U.S. and other major world powers, has gotten personal. Simply put, the two men, and their respective teams, don't seem to care for each other.
In Washington this week, Netanyahu is just making himself the center of attention, said one senior administration official who asked not be quoted or named. The goal of the nuclear negotiations, the official added, is not to placate the Israeli prime minister, but to make the U.S. safer.
Netanyahu, however, has repeatedly warned that the deal would leave too much of Iran's nuclear capabilities intact, allowing them the possibility of quickly breaking out to build a bomb, which would gravely threaten Israel.
The decision by Netanyahu and Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio to arrange this Tuesday's address to Congress, without tipping off the White House first, has set a bad precedent, injecting partisanship into a critical relationship, the administration and its defenders charge.
"It's the Republicans and Bibi (Netanyahu) who are putting their partisan political interests ahead of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and potentially creating long-term problems for short-term personal political benefit," said a senior Democratic official.
"The Administration will not play defense or allow the Republicans to shape this as somehow Obama's snub," the official added.
The Israeli government, however, denies that there was any partisan motive in the trip. Since an Iran deal seems to be nearing, Netanyahu's backers say, it was incumbent that he come to Washington at this time to make his case.
Still, the hyper-partisan tone to the prime minister's visit will be palpable. Netanyahu's speech will undoubtedly garner an enthusiastic response from a mostly Republican audience in the House of Representatives Tuesday.
Boehner said in an interview Sunday that he's "never seen" the demand for tickets that Netanyahu's speech to Congress is receiving. "Everyone wants to be there," the speaker said in an interview on CBS' "Face The Nation."
That does not include the dozens of Democrats who are threatening to boycott the prime minister's speech Tuesday. Netanyahu is expected to reiterate his message that the current negotiations with Iran will backfire, clearing a path for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons.
"We're not going to resolve this issue by sticking our heads in the sand. The prime minister can talk about this threat, I believe, better than anyone," Boehner added.
The hard feelings expressed by both camps threaten to unleash what may become a new, more adversarial chapter in U.S. Israeli relations.
"We can never allow Israel to be political wedge issue, it's too important to the United States, it's gotta be off limits," Democratic Maryland Senator Ben Cardin told the AIPAC conference Sunday.
Photos: Netanyahu's life in pictures
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks in Jerusalem during a weekly Cabinet meeting in November 2013. Click through to see more photos from his life and career.
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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 U.S. 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 Aish Ha Torah 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 Braverma, director of the Jerusalem Fund Aish Ha Torah.
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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 U.N. 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, U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres in February 2009 after Netanyahu won backing from the Israeli parliament to become Prime Minister again. A close election between Netanyahu and rival Tzipi Livni had left the results unclear until the parliament's decision.
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From left, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II walk to the East Room of the White House to make statements on the Middle East peace process on September 1, 2010.
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Obama meets with Netanyahu at the White House in September 2010.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on as Abbas and Netanyahu shake hands in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on September 14, 2010, during a second round of Middle East peace talks.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomes Netanyahu to 10 Downing Street in London on May 4, 2011.
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Netanyahu address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on May 24, 2011. He said that he was prepared to make "painful compromises" for a peace settlement with the Palestinians, but he repeated that Israel will not accept a return to its pre-1967 boundaries.
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Netanyahu uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran's nuclear program while delivering an address to the U.N. General Assembly on September 27, 2012. Netanyahu exhorted the General Assembly to draw "a clear red line" to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
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Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman of the Likud-Beiteinu coalition party greet supporters as they arrive onstage on election night in January 2013. The Likud-Beiteinu won 31 seats in the Knesset.
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Netanyahu speaks at the U.N. General Assembly on October 1, 2013. He accused Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and described him as "a wolf in sheep's clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community."
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In December 2014, Netanyahu called for early elections as he fired two key ministers for opposing government policy.
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Netanyahu is greeted by members of US Congress as he arrives to speak in the House chamber in March 2015. He warned that a proposed agreement between world powers and Iran was "a bad deal" that would not stop Tehran from getting nuclear weapons -- but would rather pave its way to getting lots of them and leave the Jewish State in grave peril.
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Netanyahu and his family take a vacation in southern Israel in April 2015.
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Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel talk in Berlin in October 2015.
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Netanyahu speaks to the press in Tel Aviv, Israel, in June 2016. A day earlier, two attackers identified as Palestinians opened fire at a popular food and shopping complex near the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis and sending other patrons scrambling to safety.
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Netanyahu stands next to US President Barack Obama as they attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in September 2016.
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Netanyahu visits Moriah College in Sydney in February 2017. It was the first time an Israeli prime minister had visited Australia.
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Netanyahu speaks to US President Donald Trump in May 2017. Trump visited Israel and the West Bank during his first foreign trip as President.
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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, pose for a photo at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, in January 2018.
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Netanyahu, speaking at a security conference in Germany in February 2018, holds up what he claimed is a piece of an Iranian drone that was shot down after it flew over Israeli territory.
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