Power calls U.S. tie to Israel unbreakable

Declaring that “attacks on Israel’s legitimacy are biased, they are ugly, and the U.S. will not rest until they stop,” Samantha Power told AIPAC’s policy conference on Monday that “the stakes are too high” for partisan discord to interfere with American support for the Jewish state.

Power, the Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations, sought to deflect tensions over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, rejecting the notion that Netanuahu’s talk — arranged by Republican House Speaker John Boehner without White House involvement — had opened a serious partisan divide that threatened America’s support for Israel.

She said America’s “bedrock commitment” to Israel is “rooted in shared fundamental values … should never be politicized and will never be broken.

“There will never be a sunset to America’s commitment to the security of Israel,” she said. “The bond between the U.S. and israel is a national commitment. We cannot and will not lose sight of that.”

Regarding the threatened nuclear-weaponization of Iran — the subject of Netanyahu’s Congressional visit — Power told AIPAC’s 16,000 delegates, “The United States of America will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, period.”