Obama, Netanyahu look past rocky relationship
NEW YORK — After eight years of tense meetings, awkward public encounters and disagreement over key issues, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are aiming to leave the impression that the relationship between their nations is on an even keel, much as they found it when they both came to office in 2009.
Each pointed Wednesday to the new deal guaranteeing the U.S. will spend $38 billion on military aid to Israel over the next 10 years as a sign of America’s commitment to its ally.
“The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable,” Obama said as the two shook hands on the pact at their meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“I don’t think people at large understand the breadth and depth of the cooperation, but I know,” Netanyahu said.
The united front, in their final planned get-together as leaders, papered over the tensions that have pervaded their tenure in office. As Obama prepares to leave office, he has built a record on Israel aimed at strengthening U.S. support but often overshadowed by his stormy personal encounters with Netanyahu.
Their relationship started off poorly at their first meeting in the spring of 2009, when Obama said he wanted to see a freeze on Israeli settlements in disputed territory. The request touched on a sore point for Netanyahu, though he relented that fall, imposing a 10-month moratorium of settlement housing starts as a gesture to the Palestinians.
Yet Obama spent much of the intervening months promising reconciliation with the Arab world and, on a trip to the Middle East, visited Muslim countries but skipped Israel, angering many there.
Obama has battled perceptions among many Israelis and some conservative American Jews that he lacked a true commitment to Israel. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has called Obama “the worst thing to ever happen to Israel.”
But that viewpoint is largely belied by Obama’s track record with the Middle East ally. In addition to increasing U.S. military aid to Israel to record levels and funding the Iron Dome missile defense system, the Obama administration has used its veto power at the U.N. to block Palestinian efforts to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Though Obama pushed aggressively for a peace pact in his first term, including pressing Netanyahu to temporarily halt some settlement construction, the administration all but abandoned efforts once it became clear that a deal was out of reach.
Even the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu vigorously opposed, eased the pressure on Israel— at least temporarily — to consider launching a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. And Syrian President Bashar Assad’s agreement in 2013 to give up his nation’s arsenal of chemical weapons to avert an impending U.S. airstrike allowed the Israeli government to terminate a yearslong program to distribute civilian gas masks.
Obama visited Israel in 2013 in an attempt to soothe Israeli sentiment, but tensions peaked when Netanyahu accepted an invitation from House Republicans to address a joint session of Congress last year, surprising the president with the news only after making plans to speak. The end-around to the administration flouted diplomatic protocol, and once in front of U.S. lawmakers, Netanyahu denounced the potential nuclear agreement with Iran as a poor deal that endangered Israel.