WASHINGTON — When it comes to the fraught relationship between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, even a single missed meeting is cause for grievance and accusations.
So it was Monday, when Netanyahu abruptly canceled a trip to Washington that was to have included a visit with Obama. The decision was quickly interpreted as the latest evidence of a lingering rift between two leaders whose public break last year over the Iran nuclear deal brought the U.S. relationship with Israel to a bitter low.
Netanyahu had long planned to travel to Washington next week to attend the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israeli group known as AIPAC.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Monday that he would not attend the conference because he had not been offered a meeting with Obama. The White House made a public denial, dispatching a spokesman for the National Security Council to insist that it was Netanyahu who had turned down a chance to meet with the president. The spokesman also noted pointedly that Israeli officials had not personally informed Obama's team of the prime minister's change of plans.
"We were looking forward to hosting the bilateral meeting, and we were surprised to first learn via media reports that the prime minister, rather than accept our invitation, opted to cancel his visit," the spokesman, Ned Price, said Monday. "Reports that we were not able to accommodate the prime minister's schedule are false."
Price said that the Israeli government had requested a meeting between the president and the prime minister on March 17 or 18, and that White House officials had offered one on the 18th. Obama is to travel to Cuba on March 20, just as the AIPAC meeting is beginning.
Israeli officials insisted that no snub was intended. They said that Netanyahu had merely wanted to stay away from the AIPAC conference at the height of the primary season, to avoid any perceived interference in U.S. politics.
The rationale echoed the one given by Obama a year ago when he declined to invite Netanyahu to the White House while the prime minister was in Washington to address AIPAC and speak to Congress to denounce the Iran agreement. That visit came a few weeks before Netanyahu faced re-election.
An official in the prime minister's office said that Netanyahu had decided to address the AIPAC conference this year via satellite. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy involved, said that Netanyahu appreciated Obama's willingness to meet with him.
The latest tension unfolded just as Vice President Joe Biden was to arrive in Israel on Tuesday for meetings with Netanyahu and Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, in Jerusalem. He also plans to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, in Ramallah.