Obama, Netanyahu emphasize need for Mideast peace

Following a key meeting between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, the White House said that it was unlikely that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would be achieved, or that peace talks would even be renewed, in the last 14 months of Obama’s term.

The two leaders met Monday afternoon at the White House for the first time in more than a year and appeared before the cameras without exhibiting any of the mutual frustration or political and ideological discomfort that has been impossible to miss in several previous encounters. Netanyahu, looking at the president more than the cameras, thanked Obama repeatedly for his commitment to Israel’s security, while Obama reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself.

Obama declared U.S. support for the Israeli military “not only an important part of our obligation to the security of the state of Israel, but also an important part of USA security infrastructure in the region”.

Mr Netanyahu made no mention of the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers, nor did he mention the deep differences between the president and him.

Netanyahu has stridently criticized the deal as a move that threatens safety on a global scale.

US officials said that while they were not expecting yesterday’s talks to result in a final agreement, it was significant that the leaders planned to discuss the matter given that Netanyahu had refused to do so in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear agreement. Much of the discussion Monday is expected to center around the renewal of an expiring memorandum of understanding on billions of dollars of USA security assistance to Israel. “We’ll never give up our hope for peace”, Mr Netanyahu said.

“I want to make it clear we haven’t given up on our hope for peace”, he said, telling the Obama that “our friendship is strong and our alliance is strong with shared interests and values”.

Netanyahu assured Obama that he remains committed to see “two states for two peoples, a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes a Jewish state”.

Obama administration officials said last week that the US president no longer believes that agreement on creation of a Palestinian state can be reached before he leaves office in early 2017. Netanyahu was an outspoken critic of the deal, and in March he angered the White House by delivering a speech to the Republican-led Congress to rail against the impending agreement. Ran Baratz, a conservative commentator, has suggested in Facebook posts that Obama is anti-Semitic and that Secretary of State John Kerry can not be taken seriously.

“Sometime in the following two years” of the 2016 USA presidential elections, Israel wants to use the weapons it will receive from the United States to target the nuclear “sites where Iran is developing nuclear capacities for peaceful usage”, he noted.