Boehner: White House Treatment Of Netanyahu ‘Reprehensible’

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, joined at right by Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., talks to reporters following a Republican strategy meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Boehner sai... Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, joined at right by Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., talks to reporters following a Republican strategy meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Boehner said he was just teasing when he recently ridiculed fellow House Republicans on their reluctance to act on immigration legislation. (AP Photo) MORE LESS
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Sunday defended his invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress ahead of the Israeli elections and criticized the way the Obama administration has treated Netanyahu.

“I think the animosity exhibited by our administration toward the prime minister of Israel is reprehensible. And I think that the pressure that they’ve put on him over the last four or five years have frankly pushed him to the point where he had to speak up,” Boehner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t blame him at all for speaking up.”

CNN’s Dana Bash asked Boehner if his upcoming trip to Israel was part of a “victory lap,” now that Netanyahu won re-election.

“My visit there was planned months ago, before the Prime Minister came here and before his re-elect. So, it’s not quite what I would describe as a victory lap,” Boehner responded.

Bash also asked Boehner whether’s Netanyahu’s comments walking back his opposition to a Palestinian state were “brazen.”

“I don’t think so,” Boehner responded. “He doesn’t have a partner. How do you have a two-state solution when you don’t have a partner in that solution, when you don’t have a partner for peace, when you’ve got a — when the other state is vowing to wipe you off the face of the earth?”

Boehner said that a two-state solution is an “aspirational goal.”

“But we’re nowhere close to having anything like it because you’ve got Hamas controlling what goes on on Gaza, and they don’t seem to be interested in peace,” he said.

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