President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday he had concerns about Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and hoped the United States could still help to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
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President Barack Obama speaks to media during a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016.
In Israel, such pressure would probably be seen as Obama’s revenge on Netanyahu, who a year ago slammed the president’s push to reach a deal with Iran to constrain its nuclear program during a speech to a joint meeting of Congress. Netanyahu’s address to Congress infuriated White House officials, who thought that the Israeli leader was improperly meddling in USA politics.
The two leaders have had a hard and often frosty relationship during Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Mr Netanyahu’s ardent opposition to Mr Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran – perhaps the biggest irritant in the relationship – did not arise during the meeting, said the officials.
The U.S. has also been dismayed at various times with Netanyahu’s comments suggesting he did not favor the two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
In his last speech to the United Nations plenum on Tuesday, the outgoing USA president touched briefly on the Middle East conflict, saying Israel would be better off if it did not “permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land”.
Obama also used the opportunity to complain about Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, commonly referred to as settlement activity.
The two-state solution is at risk of giving way to a “one-state reality of perpetual violence and occupation”, according to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, speaking recently, on the 23rd anniversary of the Oslo Accords.
Last week, Obama endorsed Israel’s record 10-year, $38 billion USA military aid contract – a predictable result of the talks, but one which emphasized tensions.
The result, they say, is likely to be a legacy of failure on an issue Obama made a priority when he came into office in 2009 and declared in his first U.N. General Assembly address: “I will not waver in my pursuit of peace”.
“We’ll set up a tee time“, replied Mr. Obama, in what appeared to be a mere pleasantry.
Netanyahu preferred to sign the deal now rather than wait till the next president is installed, even though Clinton and her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, are expected to be even more craven towards Israel.
The US and Israeli leader have been reported to have a tense relationship.
“I don’t think a USA president tends to take dramatic initiatives on foreign relations in his last few months”, Tamir Sheafer, a professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem told The Media Line.
“With respect to Middle East peace, I wouldn’t rule out the President taking any particular step on the issue”, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday.
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“Extrajudicial street killings are the direct outcome of inflammatory remarks made by Israeli ministers and officials, augmented by the general public atmosphere of dehumanization”, the Israel-based human rights group B’Tselem group has said. The West Bank is disputed territory the status of which, as Obama himself has recognized, must be resolved through negotiations between the parties. Israel has blamed accused Palestinian leaders of inciting violence – a claim the Palestinians reject.
