US-Israel relations back on track
RELATIONS between the United States and Israel have rebounded to their best levels in over a year-and-a-half following Tuesday's meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington DC .
RELATIONS between the United States and Israel have rebounded to their best levels in over a year-and-a-half following Tuesday’s meeting between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington DC .
US and Israeli officials heaped praise on one another at meetings throughout the day. And at a joint press conference at the White House, Obama and Netanyahu played down recent tensions and concentrated on the future, including a shared vision to advance the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians away from current indirect proximity talks and towards direct talks.
Sidestepping the contentious issue of whether Israel’s self-imposed 10-month settlement moratorium would be extended, Obama on Tuesday appeared to apply pressure to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by urging him to engage in direct talks with Netanyahu before the settlement moratorium expires in September. The implication was that the momentum such a move would create would become political justification for the Israeli Prime Minister to extend the freeze — unofficially or officially.
The warm meetings between US and Israeli officials, complete with an abundance of photo opportunities, was the culmination of months of efforts in Washington and Jerusalem to rehabilitate US-Israel ties that had come under strain in varying degrees throughout the Obama Administration’s tenure. The rocky relationship had reached a low point following a rebuke of Israel’s East Jerusalem housing policy by US Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Israel earlier in the year and a reported presidential snub of Netanyahu during his subsequent visit to Washington.
Video: President Obama Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
AHRON SHAPIRO
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