Netanyahu to meet Obama to discuss security aid

The Israeli premier has deemed the deal a “historic mistake” and argues that it will not block regional rival Iran’s path to atomic weapons.

The Israeli government now is prohibiting import of cement, steel, and wood into Gaza, materials needed to build new houses and apartments for displaced Gaza Palestinians, according to Donna Baranski-Walker, executive director of the Rebuilding Alliance, a non-profit group that organised a U.S. speaking tour for Israeli and Palestinian care providers in Gaza. White House officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have expressed displeasure over the appointment. “But they would be calmer right now if they were absolutely certain that Netanyahu had not brought a hat with him from Israel – and if he had, that it doesn’t contain another one of his peculiar and often rabid rabbits”. “And I was often the designated yeller”. Something would happen, a new settlement announcement would come, and I would call him up, ‘What are you doing?

Previously, he described U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as having the mind of “a 12-year-old” and, just a week ago, he described Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin as unimportant because he flew in economy class on a recent official visit to Europe. In that office, she worked hard to quell doubts about her pro-Israel bona fides and fought for causes like getting the worldwide Red Cross to include the Israeli equivalent, Magen David Adom, as a member.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Silvan Shalom, Netanyahu’s designated negotiator with the Palestinians, said in a radio interview that the prime minister would offer a number of confidence-building gestures toward the Palestinians, including easing restrictions on communications, water usage, work permits in Israel and Palestinian development in the West Bank.

Unusually, the focus of the trip is less likely to be two leaders’ meeting at the White House on Monday than a visit by Netanyahu to the Center for American Progress (CAP), a leading liberal thinktank, on Tuesday. “No transformational reset looms between the two leaders; but Obama and Netanyahu have more reasons to get along these days than not”.

Setting up a Democratic successor who will preserve his achievements on domestic and worldwide fronts is high on Obama’s list.

“2016 is part of the calculus here”, Makovsky said.

“So what ideas is he going to be putting through to the president so they can discuss what can be done in the absence of negotiations between the parties”, Malley said. While this might play well with the US media, most of the rest of the world, not to mention the Palestinian people, understand these as token gestures that mean very little. But I think the general appearance is quite negative. USA officials said that while they did not expect Monday’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. Yet a few moments are worse than others when it comes to offending the White House.

At least the United States has managed to formalize a nuclear accord with Iran. Israel will wait till after the 2016 elections, and then sometime in the following two years strike at Iranian sites where Iran is developing nuclear capacities for peaceful usage.

She added, “My approach will be distrust and verify”. Tell Netanyahu that the U.S.is not going to deliver any new military hardware till Israel stops all expansion of settlements and begins the process of dismantling the mechanisms of the Occupation of the West Bank 3.

Netanyahu arrives in Washington on Sunday and is expected back in Israel Thursday.

Hillary Clinton, the top contender for the Democrat presidential nomination penned an Op-Ed in the Jewish website Forward pledging to fix the US-Israel relationship if elected.