OBAMA, NETANYAHU HOPE TO MOVE PAST DIFFERENCES IN MEETING
Both sides say they can find common ground
WASHINGTON As the White House prepares for a meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, there’s one thing Obama administration officials concede from the outset: They’ve had their differences.
“Obviously there have been occasions when we’ve had disagreements, and that’s well-known,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro told reporters at the start of a press briefing previewing the visit. But he insisted those disagreements wouldn’t prevent the two leaders from making progress on a wide range of security issues involving Iran, Syria and the Palestinian conflict.
The main area of disagreement has been on Obama’s decision to sign a nuclear deal with Iran. The agreement, which was formally adopted last month by the U.S., Iran and five other nations, will lift sanctions in return for assurances by Iran that it will scale down its nuclear weapons program. But there’s also tension over Netanyahu’s tepid support of the two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict that has long been at the heart of U.S. foreign policy in the region.
And that means Obama has had to accept that there will be no resolution to the conflict for the remainder of his presidency, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
But that “in no way diminishes our very fervent belief that the two-state solution is the one way to achieve the lasting security, peace and dignity that the Israeli and Palestinian people deserve.”
The two leaders will also hammer out a new 10-year framework for security cooperation, including some talk of specific weapons systems.
The meeting also comes in the wake of a kerfuffle in the Israeli media over the opinions of Netanyahu’s new communications director.
In a posting on Facebook, Ran Baratz said Obama’s response to Netanyahu’s last visit “is what modern anti-Semitism looks like in Western liberal countries.” He also said Secretary of State John Kerry had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.
Netanyahu has called those comments “inappropriate” and has apologized.
Rhodes said he wouldn’t expect the issue to come up when the two leaders meet in the Oval Office on Monday morning.
“President Obama will have a very substantive agenda to pursue with the prime minister.”