President Barack Obama shakes hands with US troops at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Sunday, May 25, 2014.
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NEW YORK-President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu capped years of frayed ties with a meeting on Wednesday that was meant to highlight a $38 billion military aid agreement between the two allies. “This is something he should have done at the start of his time in office and not at the end”, she said. Obama, while hoping that his country will pave a path to Israeli-Palestinian peace, clarified that he wouldn’t be launching any new peace initiatives personally. “These are challenging times”. “… Israel must recognize that it can not permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land”, President Obama said in a speech to the United Nations.
“We’ll set up a tee time”, replied Mr. Obama, in what appeared to be a mere pleasantry.
Most US-based analysts say they do not expect President Obama to waste his political capital on trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which have been frozen for years now. Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have no plans to meet this week at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders.
Whatever happened behind the scenes, it was clear both sides were eager to put on a show of getting along really well in the wake of signing a record military aid deal last week, in which the U.S. will be giving Israel $38 billion in arms over the next decade.
Netanyahu thanked the President for the military aid deal which provides Israel with $38 billion over the next ten years, saying “Israel has no greater friend than the United States and the United States has no greater friend than Israel”. “That’s a goal that I and the people of Israel will never give up on”.
“Clearly there is great danger of not just terrorism but also flare-ups of violence”, the US President said. He also raised US concerns about Israeli settlements, a sore spot between the two leaders. It will be the final meeting between the two leaders before Obama leaves the White House. Israel has already secured United States military aid for the next decade, and Netanyahu has a long track record of overseeing continued construction of settlements and destruction of Palestinian villages, despite USA admonishment.
Netanyahu didn’t concur with the American president’s assertion that continuing construction in the hotly-contested region poses a risk to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
In the meeting Wednesday Obama raised “profound USA concerns about the corrosive effect that that is having on the prospects of two states”.
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“Surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it can not permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land”, Obama said in his lone direct reference to the conflict during the 48-minute speech. 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. The Hebron area in particular grew as the epicenter of upheaval, with Israeli authorities severely restricting the movement of Palestinians in parts of its Old City as a “closed military zone” for several months, while July’s closures on Hebron saw the most widespread restrictions on movement in the occupied West Bank in two years.
