Washington (CNN)U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power on Monday sought to quash any doubts over the United States' continued commitment to a strong alliance with Israel, amid tensions over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to address Congress on Tuesday.
Power directly addressed the controversy swirling around Netanyahu's visit to Washington, downplaying talk of tensions between the U.S and Israel and insisting that the U.S.-Israel relationship "transcends politics." Her remarks came at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual, high-profile conference, just moments before Netanyahu took over the podium.
"We believe firmly that Israel's security and the U.S.- Israel partnership transcends politics. It always will," Power said. "This partnership should never be politicized and it cannot and will not be tarnished or broken."
Who is Benjamin Netanyahu? 02:31
Netanyahu's plans to address the Iranian threat at a joint session of Congress on Tuesday has sparked a political fight in Washington, with a few dozen Democrats planning to skip Netanyahu's speech and Republicans seizing on the opportunity to question the Obama administration's commitment to Israel's security.
Power insisted that the "bond between the United States and Israel is still a national commitment," amid concerns that the controversy over Netanyahu's visit was revealing a partisan divide on Israel.
"It should never be a partisan matter," Power said. "we cannot and we will not lose sight of that."
Power vehemently dismissed talk of a rift between the U.S. and Israel, pointing to her work at the United Nations defending Israel against biased attacks, the Obama administration's more than $20 billion in military assistance to Israel -- "far more than any president in U.S. history," she said -- and President Barack Obama's commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Power pointed to Obama's repeated insistence that the U.S. will "never" allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, whether or not the diplomatic talks are successful.
"We will not let it happen," Power said. "Talks, no talks. Agreement, no agreement. The United States will take whatever steps are necessary to protect our national security and that of our closest allies," Power said.
"There will never be a sunset on America's commitment to Israel's security," Power said, appearing to refer to suggestions that the U.S. might broker an agreement with Iran that would expire in 10 years.
Power also trained in on the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, honing in on anti-Semitic rhetoric masquerading as anti-Israel demonstrations.
Addressing the most prominent pro-Israel body in the U.S., Power also highlighted her work at the United Nations to fight anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, citing a decrease in the percentage of resolutions targeting Israel in the organization's human rights body -- from half to one-third -- though she said more work still remains.
Power also did not shy away from reaffirming the U.S.'s position that "Israeli settlement activity hurts prospects for peace," but insisted that that is by no means the only roadblock to peace.
"It is a false choice to tell Israel that it has to choose between peace on the one hand and security on the other," Power said, adding that no other country would face that choice and "it should not be asked of Israel."
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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Photos: Netanyahu's life in pictures
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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