-Israeli alliance as “unbreakable”.
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“We’ll set up a tee time”, Obama quipped amid laughter.
The ensuing years saw another election and another Israeli offensive in Gaza; in 2013, Obama got what was arguably his last chance to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement when Secretary of State John Kerry launched nine months of shuttle diplomacy.
As many as 230 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed since October 2015, according to an AFP count.
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. Netanyahu challenged that notion, said one official, adding that the two leaders had not “papered over” their differences.
Netanyahu was in the USA for the United Nations general assembly in NY this week.
Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.
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.
During the encounter, Netanyahu thanked the President for the recently signed military aid package that will give Israel $38 billion for defense over a decade beginning in 2019 and said it will ensure that Israel can defend itself against any threats.
Netanyahu said the agreement “fortifies the principle that…”
Israel said incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a main cause of the violence.
The aid, Obama said, “allows the kind of certainty in a moment where there’s enormous uncertainty in the region”.
Before the meeting, Mr. Obama said he would determine from Mr. Netanyahu whether there is any chance to make progress on the Middle East peace process in coming months. This comes on the heels of his approval of Israel’s $38bn military aid package, the largest in USA history, which many regard as a means to placate Netanyahu over the nuclear agreement the USA signed with Iran.
Obama said he hopes that former prime minister Shimon Peres, hospitalized with a stroke, has “a speedy recovery”.
Netanyahu concurred with the president on the relationship between the two countries, saying that “Israel has no bigger friend than America, and America has no bigger friend than Israel”. “I never say never with respect to future meetings with the Israeli prime minister”, Rhodes said.
If the West Bank were simply Israeli-occupied Palestinian land, in particular sovereign territory belonging to another state and acquired by aggression, then Israel would be required to withdraw and no negotiations would be necessary. “We’ve tried multiple tactics, none of them have succeeded, given the fact that the parties themselves have been unable to come together”.
Ironically, it is that very deal, a symbol of the power of global diplomacy, that should serve as an example of how to craft a successful peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. Following previous failed attempts to broker peace, the Obama administration has opted against a new major diplomatic push.
In December 1988, weeks before leaving office, President Ronald Reagan broke with Israel to authorize the start of talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
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Running contrary to assurances from Netanyahu’s people that everything was hunky-dory, Bismuth writes that during “their last meeting it was possible to see that the conflicts between the two still exists, and one can assume that even if Obama was in office another eight years they would remain”.
