The White House is hoping the unprecedented aid will curb the perception among Israel’s supporters that Obama has been insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state.
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“It is a very risky and hard time in the Middle East and we want to make sure that Israel has the full capabilities it needs in order to keep the Israeli people safe”, Obama said.
“The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable”, Obama remarked.
A US official who tracks the issue said he does not expect the White House to decide whether Obama might make a speech on the issue or seek to pass a new U.N. Security Council resolution, until Americans elect his successor.
Netanyahu said he planned to thank Obama for the military aid.
“We’ll set up a tee time”, replied Mr. Obama, in what appeared to be a mere pleasantry. -Israeli cooperation: A 10-year, non-binding “memorandum of understanding” that includes support for missile defense, more F-35 joint strike fighters and other military equipment. The memo, signed a week ago, provides Israel with the largest single pledge of military assistance in USA history – $3.8 billion per year over a decade.
The Iran deal was a historic effort that mitigated Iran’s chances of obtaining a nuclear bomb, a risky development many believed was imminent.
President Barack Obama calls the US Men’s National Team captain Clint Dempsey and goalkeeper Tim Howard, on Wednesday, July 02, 2014 to commend them on their leadership and the team’s performance during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
“That issue has been less of an area of tension in our relationship”, Rhodes said.
Palestinian security forces have recently detained an unspecified number Palestinians suspected of being hired by Israel to “escalate violence”, according to the mayor of the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, amid a spike in unrest that has seen seven Palestinians and one Jordanian killed by Israeli forces since Thursday. “So that has not been the issue of prominence that it was a year or two ago”.
When Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sits down today with President Obama for the 17th (and last) time, he is likely to hear a rebuke of Israel’s continued building in the West Bank.
Obama and Netanyahu have often had a contentious relationship, the low point of which occurred in 2015 when Netanyahu, without informing the White House ahead of time, arranged a trip to Washington to tell Congress why Israel opposed the worldwide agreement that the Obama administration was negotiating with Iran to curb Tehran’s nuclear weapons development.
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.
The President told Netanyahu that he plans to visit Israel many times after he leaves office, where Netanyahu said he would be “a welcome guest”.
Haaretz said Obama’s comments reflected the view of the American administration that the two-state solution is in real danger of becoming irrelevant in the near future, mostly because of the construction in the settlements and the diplomatic freeze between Israel and the Palestinians.
Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations’ General Assembly. “We all have to do better as leaders in tamping down, rather than encouraging, a notion of identity that leads us to diminish others”. The question, however, is whether the President will go public with a new Middle East plan, either in a speech or via a Security Council resolution, in the lame-duck period between the November election, and when the next President takes office in January.
So is this the last meeting in this complicated and closely watched relationship?
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“I don’t think a U.S. 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.
