Netanyahu’s Lobbying Campaign Against Iran Nuclear Deal Has Infuriated White House and Worries Israeli Defense and Intelligence Officials

Adam Entous

September 5, 2015

Inside Israel’s Bid to Derail Iran Pact

JERUSALEM—In early August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of 22 Democratic U.S. lawmakers. He closed the door and instructed an aide to clear his schedule for the afternoon. There was nothing more important, he told the members of Congress, than answering their questions on the Iranian nuclear deal, however long it took.

For the next two hours, the prime minister worked the room, according to many of the lawmakers present. His props included a large white board on which he wrote their questions. At one point, he drew what he called a “nuclear gun” to underline his fears. Although Mr. Netanyahu didn’t explicitly tell them to vote against the deal, his feelings were clear. It would seriously jeopardize Israel’s security, he told them.

“They weren’t twisting my arm but they were certainly trying to convince me,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat, one of the House freshmen attending the meeting. “What a showman!” another lawmaker said.

The Aug. 9 session in the prime minister’s office was a telling moment in an extraordinary campaign by Mr. Netanyahu to scuttle the agreement. Both supporters and opponents say they can’t recall any other foreign government inserting itself so directly into an American political debate, especially against a deal the White House considers a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s legacy.

The high-stakes Israeli campaign has left the White House infuriated and many Democrats resentful. It also appears to have failed to secure the votes which Mr. Netanyahu needed to block the agreement. The Obama administration cleared an essential obstacle this week by securing more than 34 votes in the Senate, the minimum needed to sustain a presidential veto of a resolution seeking to undo the pact. A vote on a resolution approving or disapproving the deal is expected in coming weeks.

But even if they lose that vote, Mr. Netanyahu and his allies could still try to find other ways to threaten the agreement down the road.

It is common for foreign governments to lobby U.S. lawmakers on a wide range of issues. But administration and congressional officials said the Israeli effort, and its partisan nature, went far beyond the norm.

“What you’re seeing with the Israelis, with the way they have inserted themselves into the debate publicly, is without parallel,” said Daniel Harsha, a veteran Democratic House national security staff member now at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

On the subject of the Iran pact, congressional aides said there have been meetings between European ambassadors and members of Congress and more are scheduled. British and French ambassadors have so far spoken to more than 80 members of Congress to urge support for the agreement, embassy officials said.

To counter Mr. Netanyahu’s appeals, the White House mounted its own aggressive campaign for votes, which included a flurry of presidential phone calls to lawmakers and Situation Room briefings. Congressional aides said they have rarely, if ever, seen the Obama administration mount such intensive outreach.

Mr. Netanyahu’s approach scored points with Israelis who agree with his decision to challenge Mr. Obama, but within Israel’s security establishment, some officials privately said they are deeply worried about the consequences of Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign on U.S.-Israel relations. Public criticism in Israel of Mr. Netanyahu’s intervention in Congress has come mainly from former security officials, who say they aren’t afraid to speak their minds.

“I’ve never seen such an effort, almost in broad daylight, to involve ourselves in internal American politics, to work on the ground to try to effect a political outcome,” said Ephraim Halevy, who served as director of Israel’s spy service, the Mossad, from 1998 to 2002. Added Meir Dagan, who succeeded Mr. Halevy: “Friendly countries are not supposed to do this to each other.”

U.S. administration and congressional officials said no other country in the world would be able to pull off a similar campaign, because no other country hasIsrael’s access or deep well of domestic support, led by the powerful pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as Aipac.

A former aide to Mr. Netanyahu said he and his ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, who has held similar meetings with lawmakers in Washington, don’t see themselves as foreigners intervening in the U.S. political process because of their backgrounds in the U.S. and close contacts in Congress.

“They think it’s their home turf,” the aide said. Mr. Netanyahu spent years as a youth in the U.S. and then returned later for university. Mr. Dermer was born in the U.S., moved to Israel as an adult and formally renounced his American citizenship in 2005 when he began serving the Israeli government in the U.S.

A senior Israeli official said Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer have been meeting with members of Congress because they are the ones who will ultimately decide the issue.

“The ambassadors of the other P5+1 countries have met with scores of senators and congressmen in order to express their support,” the Israeli official said, referring to the countries that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. “Obviously, it is perfectly legitimate for Israel, whose national security is directly threatened by Iran and this deal, to present its views before the very body that will vote on the deal.”

“We want to make sure that they hear Israel’s concerns directly. On this matter, which touches on Israel’s most vital interests, Israel has a moral obligation to make its case,” the official said.

Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, the co-chair of the House Republican Israel Caucus, said House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, opened the door for Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer when earlier this year he invited the prime minister to address a joint session of Congress.

“I view all the subsequent communiqué as a follow-up to that invitation,” said Mr. Roskam.

Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) said he normally wouldn’t want to see such a high level of involvement by a foreign government in a U.S. congressional debate over foreign policy. But he added: “It is fair game in this case. Israel’s our strongest ally in the Middle East. Their very survival is at stake.”

In one July meeting in Washington with around 40 conservative Republicans, Mr. King said he urged Mr. Dermer and other Israeli officials to lobby more, not less. “Go door to door, office to office, on the Hill to save Israel,” Mr. King said he told Mr. Dermer.

Israeli prime ministers have been active on Capitol Hill for decades. Neal Sher, who in the mid-1990s served as Aipac’s executive director, recalls telling Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “there is no more respected lobbyist on the Hill than he.”

Mr. Sher said the difference was that Mr. Rabin and President Bill Clinton saw eye to eye on the Middle East peace process then under discussion, whereas Messrs. Netanyahu and Obama have staked out opposite sides in the Iran debate.

“It’s gone on before,” Mr. Sher said of the lobbying efforts. “But never like this.”

White House lunches

Administration officials said the White House decided early on not to mount a high-level effort within Israel to try to drum up support for the nuclear agreement, mostly because they concluded it wouldn’t be successful. In their calculation, the audience that mattered was the roughly 60 Democrats in the House and the Senate whose votes could go either way, the same group Messrs. Netanyahu and Dermer have been courting.

Mr. Obama and his top advisers have invited lawmakers to private White House lunches, golf dates and Situation Room briefings. Mr. Obama made personal calls to junior House Democrats while on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, while Secretary of State John Kerry invited others to his home in Nantucket.

Despite the ill feelings between Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu left by the competing campaigns, administration officials said they still planned to put together a new package of assistance to bolster Israel’s missile defenses and other capabilities, in a bid to mitigate Israel’s security concerns after the nuclear deal takes effect. Mr. Obama has publicly said he would remain committed to Israel’s security going forward.

Mr. Netanyahu could try to “reset” the relationship after the vote, a position that the White House could embrace, at least publicly, a senior U.S. official said. But, the official said, “the damage is done.”

“They’ve broken all the rules. People are angry,” a senior administration official said.

Many Democratic lawmakers also resented the partisanship of the Israeli campaign for putting them in the difficult political position of having to choose “who do you love more,” a senior congressional aide said.

The U.S. lawmakers’ August visit to Israel was sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, an Aipac affiliate, which paid for business-class tickets and accommodations at Jerusalem’s historic King David Hotel.

An Aipac official said there was “absolutely no lobbying on the trip,” which he said was scheduled before anyone knew there would be an Iran vote.

At the outset, the senior-most Democrat in the delegation, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, asked his fellow lawmakers not to disclose how they would vote while they were in Israel. Trip participants said he wanted to avoid further politicizing the visit.

Two members had already declared their positions. Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a former Marine Corps officer, said he would support the deal; Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York said she would oppose it.

One lawmaker called the setting of the August meeting “intimate,” with Mr. Netanyahu alternating between a podium, a table and his white board.

Mr. Netanyahu answered lawmakers’ questions, and outlined his main concerns, the first being Iran’s ability to continue reprocessing uranium, followed by fears that Iran will have more resources to build up its conventional arsenal and to support terrorist groups in the region.

At one point, Mr. Netanyahu drew a gun on the white board. This is no regular gun, he told the lawmakers. He called it a “nuclear gun” which shoots “nuclear bullets,” lawmakers said. Mr. Netanyahu has used illustrations in previous presentations, including at the United Nations, to underline his points.

“This deal will bring war, more rockets, more aggression. It will start a nuclear arms race,” Mr. Netanyahu told the lawmakers, according to notes taken by a member of the U.S. delegation.

A ‘moral’ choice

At no point during the presentation did Mr. Netanyahu tell the members how he thought they should vote, suggesting to lawmakers in the room he appreciated the sensitivities. The closest Mr. Netanyahu came was when he told them that they faced a “moral” choice on an issue that would determine Israel’s security. Some lawmakers said later they didn’t appreciate that comment.

Mr. Netanyahu told lawmakers an alternative for the nuclear deal would be to require Iran to dismantle its nuclear facilities in exchange for the gradual dismantlement of the sanctions.

Mr. Netanyahu was asked to describe his “Plan B” if the nuclear deal cleared Congress. “We will figure out what we do if we lose the vote,” one of the delegation members quoted him as saying.

The senior Israeli official declined to discuss the contents of the meeting.

Mr. Moulton said the meeting reaffirmed his decision to support the deal. “Here we listened to the harshest critic of the deal in the world, and there’s no clear alternative,” he said.

“Where he lost me was where I thought he was trying to provoke fear,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier of California, citing a warning by Mr. Netanyahu to the group that Iran would soon have intercontinental ballistic missiles able to reach the U.S.

Mr. Netanyahu held similar meetings with Republican lawmakers, including a delegation of about 35 members, who also visited Israel over the summer. The Republicans already opposed the agreement.

On the night of Aug. 9, after the Netanyahu session, the Democratic lawmakers and members of a Republican delegation also in Israel met with the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, who told them that they faced a choice between the agreement on the table and what amounted to “chaos,” according to lawmakers in the meeting. If the agreement collapsed, Mr. Shapiro said, there would be no regime of sanctions or constraints on Iran’s nuclear work.

After the weeklong trip to Israel, the 22 Democrats returned to their districts. One, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, said he was already “leaning heavily against the deal” before the trip based on his own analysis of the agreement. He said the security briefings he received during the visit underlined for him the growing dangers Israel would face once the agreement took effect, particularly from Iranian-backed forces in Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. He announced his opposition to the deal on Aug. 23.

Ms. Watson Coleman estimates that she attended about 10 briefings on the agreement before and after the trip. She met on Aug. 25 in New Jersey with representatives from Aipac. “No deal is better than a bad deal. And this is a bad deal,” representatives of the group told her, according to Ms. Watson Coleman.

She also met with activists from her district. “Nobody is saying it’s perfect,” Rev. Bob Moore, executive director of the regional Coalition for Peace Action, told the congresswoman on Aug. 26. “But we can’t solve everything in one agreement.” Ms. Watson Coleman announced her support for the agreement on Aug. 27.

Of the 22 Democrats who met with Mr. Netanyahu on Aug. 9, seven have so far declared their support for the nuclear deal and two have said they would oppose it.