The Obama administration on Wednesday accused the Israeli government of misleading the public over the Iran nuclear negotiations, using unusually blunt and terse language that once again highlighted the rift between the two sides, The Washington Post newspaper reported.
In briefings with reporters, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested Israeli officials were not being truthful about how the United States is handling the secretive talks.
“I think it is safe to say not everything you are hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks,” said Psaki, who acknowledged that the State Department is withholding some details from the Israelis out of concern they will share them more broadly.
Earnest said U.S. officials routinely speak with their Israeli counterparts. But, he added, the administration “is not going to be in a position of negotiating this agreement in public, particularly when we see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States.”
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
The immediate cause of the dual rebukes is the administration’s unhappiness over Israeli leaks of some details on the nuclear talks, shared by U.S. negotiators in private conversations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials.
For days, administration officials have denied reports that they were keeping Israelis in the dark about some aspects of the negotiations. On Wednesday, Psaki acknowledged that “there’s a selective sharing of information.”
Netanyahu considers a deal being worked on with Iran an existential threat to Israel and has made clear his intention to voice his concerns during an address to Congress on March 3.