“I deeply appreciate President Obama’s commitment to bolstering Israel’s security at a time” of increased turmoil in the Middle East, Netanyahu said. Perhaps the announcement of preliminary approval of another 2,000 new settlement homes near Ramallah was released just as the Netanyahu Obama meeting took place to emphasize to the U.S. the reality of the situation.
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Equally, I want to make it clear that we have not given up our hope for peace.
Netanyahu was said to be offering a series of confidence-building measures toward the Palestinians, including easing restrictions on communications, water usage and work permits in Israel and on Palestinian development in the West Bank. Netanyahu leaned forward listening intently as Obama spoke, sometimes nodding. But it seems clear that if Netanyahu expressed such a change of heart to Obama, he probably wasn’t buying.
I also will discuss with the Prime Minister his thoughts on how we can lower the temperature between Israelis and Palestinians, how we can get back on a path towards peace, and how we can make sure that legitimate Palestinian aspirations are met through a political process, even as we make sure that Israel is able to secure itself.
Netanyahu noted that Israel is making use of the USA assistance on a daily basis in intelligence and other security-related areas. “There has been a meltdown of nation states around Israel and Iran now has more access [to arms] at its disposal”, Makovsky said.
“1995 was a reset moment in Israel’s history, a shift from secular pragmatists to ideologues”, says Dan Ephron, author of “Killing a King: the Assassination of Rabin and the Remaking of Israel”. “For Israel, that is a serious challenge”.
Netanyahu’s recommitment to the two-state solution, the bedrock of USA diplomacy on the conflict for decades, could satisfy the Obama administration’s desire that he must clarify his position after Netanyahu appeared to backtrack on his pledge during a hard-fought re-election campaign earlier in 2015. Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is politically weak and could not in any event bring along Gaza, against which Israel maintains a major economic blockade, thus inhibiting the emergence of any political rival to Hamas.
Settlement growth has convinced most Palestinians that Israel wants to keep the West Bank, while terror and missile attacks have convinced most Israelis that peace is a mirage. President Obama wrote letters to members of Congress to drum up support for the nuclear deal in which he committed to base-line support for Israel, as well as additional, targeted military aid packages.
Do not expect the United States to propose any of these three steps this week. Netanyahu thanked Obama for his commitment to Israel’s security. However, in a statement read out to the press by White House spokesman Josh Earnest as the leaders held their two-and-a-half-hour meeting, the two were said to be focused on developing future strategies on issues of common concern, including Iran, and on growing United States military assistance to Israel.
As the meeting approached, the Americans lowered expectations, nearly brutally.
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A few of Obama’s aides believe, however, that beyond working to firm up security cooperation, Netanyahu is content to wait out the final stretch of Obama’s presidency, hoping for a better reception for his hard-line approach from the next occupant of the White House. He was Senior Advisor to the RAND Corporation from 1998 to 2011, and Director of the Center for Transatlantic Security Studies at the National Defense University, 2011-2012.
