AWKWARD OBAMA-NETANYAHU MOMENTS
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were all pleasantries and respectful body language on Monday, when they met at the White House to make a last-ditch effort to improve a personal and political relationship badly damaged by their disagreement over the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran.
“It was one of my best meetings ever with President Obama, and I think he would say the same,” Netanyahu said later, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The bar was low. Several of their 12 previous meetings were visibly uncomfortable. Some of their indirect exchanges were even chillier.
March 2010: Obama’s revenge
Weeks after Netanyahu’s government snubs Obama by announcing the construction of new Jewish apartments in East Jerusalem while U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden is visiting Israel, Obama retaliates when Netanyahu visits Washington. While it is not exactly clear what happened — some foreign newspapers say Obama walked out of a meeting with Netanyahu to have his own private dinner — the two do not pose for photographs.
One Israeli pundit concludes, “Bibi received in the White House the treatment reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea.”
May 2011: Netanyahu’s history lesson
Obama becomes the first U.S. president to publicly call for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, plus some extra territory from land swaps, as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians. This irks Netanyahu, who is meeting with him the next day. The prime minister lectures the president as they sit for television cameras in the Oval Office, calling the 1967 lines “indefensible” and suggesting Obama does not understand recent Jewish history.
November 2011: Hot mic, hot water
At a G20 summit in France, French President Nicolas Sarkozy tells Obama, “I cannot bear Netanyahu. He’s a liar.” Obama responds, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.” Their remarks are caught on a meeting-room microphone they didn’t know was live. Obama declines to apologize. “He has a very close working relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” a spokesman says.
September 2012: The campaign gets in the way
A month and a half after Netanyahu meets in Jerusalem with Obama’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney, an old friend, Israeli officials tell reporters that Obama is refusing to meet with Netanyahu during the Israeli’s visit to a UN meeting in New York. The White House denies the claim. Netanyahu begins appearing in pro-Romney campaign ads.
March 2014: A mid-flight surprise
While the Israeli leader is en route to the U.S., an interview is published in which Obama says Netanyahu “needs to articulate an alternative approach” if he doesn’t believe a peace deal with the Palestinians is the best option. Netanyahu is “surprised and angered,” according to the New York Times. In their joint appearance for the cameras, Obama says peace “requires compromise from both sides”; Netanyahu differs. “Israel has been doing its part, and I regret to say that the Palestinians haven’t,” he says. “Now, I know this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but it’s the truth.”
October 2014: A good meeting gone bad
Netanyahu and Obama are polite and mutually complimentary in Oval Office remarks before their meeting. The veneer doesn’t last the day. An Israeli activist group reveals Netanyahu’s plans to permit a 2,500-unit housing project in East Jerusalem; Obama’s spokesman issues a sharp rebuke; Netanyahu responds. By the end of the month, a senior Obama official is quoted calling Netanyahu “a chickens---.”
March 2015: Netanyahu seizes U.S. perch
Netanyahu takes up House Republicans on their unusual invitation to speak to Congress on the impending Iran deal. As expected, he uses the platform to challenge Obama’s pro-deal arguments. Obama refuses to meet with him during the visit, citing a “long-standing” policy of refusing to appear with foreign leaders soon before their elections.