“That’s a goal that I and the people of Israel will never give up on”. “These are challenging times”.
Advertisement
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has escalated as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been bullish in efforts to expand settlements in the West Bank. He thanked Obama for the recent US agreement on a 10-year, $38 billion military assistance package for Israel, the biggest military aid pact for a foreign country ever agreed to by Washington.
She notes that Obama’s aide didn’t discount the possibility of Obama making a push for peace before the end of his term, and says it will likely take the form of a speech or Security Council action.
“We’ll set up a tee time”, Obama quipped.
Israel Hayom’s Boaz Bismuth tells the free daily’s readers that the country will see plenty of Obama after he leaves office, as he promised to Netanyahu.
“It is a very hard and risky 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.
A letter sponsored by Israel lobby group AIPAC, and signed by 88 USA senators, is demanding that President Obama unconditionally veto any “one-sided” resolution on the Israeli peace process brought before the UN Security Council during the last four months of his term in office.
USA officials have held out the possibility Mr Obama could lay out the rough outlines of a deal – “parameters” in diplomatic parlance – after the 8 November presidential election and before he leaves office in January, but many analysts doubt this would have much effect.
At the U.N. General Assembly on September 20, President Obama called on several nations with which he has had contentious relations to abide by worldwide rules and do more to improve cooperation on a global level.
“It’s a very hard and unsafe time in the Middle East”, Mr. Obama said, noting the civil war in Syria and a surge in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Netanyahu complimented his host on “what I hear is a terrific golf game”, and invited Obama to visit Israel after leaving the presidency to play a round.
The two leaders have sparred over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and, most publicly, over Mr. Obama’s pursuit of a deal with Iran that curtails its nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. “Over the course of the last eight years, basically everything you could consider as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we have”, said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser.
Advertisement
Obama and Netanyahu have for years been at odds over settlements in the West Bank. “It is an unbreakable bond”.
