The entire spat with the White House over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invitation to speak to Congress was entirely manufactured by the White House.
The truth about the incident, in which the White House complained that it was terribly wrong for Netanyahu to accept House Speaker John Boehner's (R., Ohio) invitation without first notifying the administration, was made evident by a correction added to a New York Times article that greatly changed the timeline of events that effected the situation.
Here's the correction, added on Jan. 30, a day after the article was published:
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A. Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He accepted after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.
So the White House had actually already been informed that Netanyahu was invited to speak to Congress. The administration was in no way blindsided by the announcement, even though that is how they chose to frame it to the media.
The Times of Israel, which detailed the implications of the New York Times correction, explains that the White House said nothing until after Netanyahu accepted the invitation.
Of course, the truth is that the White House was never bypassed or circumvented. Netanyahu only accepted Speaker John Boehner’s invitation after he knew the White House had been informed and had a chance to object.
And if the Obama White House had some objection and had actually communicated it to Netanyahu, do you think that just maybe, he might have made decision not to accept the speaking invitation?
Instead, the Obama White House said nothing, and Netanyahu, whose country gets threatened with destruction by Iran about every other week decided to accept Boehner’s invitation to speak to congress and help provide an impetus for legislation on Iranian sanctions that’s in both Israel and America’s interest.