Obama May Find It Impossible to Mend Frayed Ties to Netanyahu

nytimes ^ | MARCH 18, 2015 | HELENE COOPER and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

[Dave346]

WASHINGTON — President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had a poisonous relationship long before Mr. Netanyahu swept to victory on Tuesday night in elections watched minute-by-minute at the White House.

But now that Mr. Netanyahu has won after aggressively campaigning against a Palestinian state and Mr. Obama’s potential nuclear deal with Iran, the question is whether the president and prime minister can ever repair their relationship — and whether Mr. Obama will even try.

On Wednesday, part of the answer seemed to be that the president would not make the effort.

In strikingly strong criticism, the White House called Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric, in which he railed against Israeli Arabs because they went out to vote, an attempt to “marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens” and inconsistent with the values that bind Israel and the United States. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on Air Force One on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu’s statement was “deeply concerning and it is divisive and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.”

And with Mr. Netanyahu’s last-minute turnaround against a Palestinian state alongside Israel, several administration officials said that the Obama administration may now agree to passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution embodying the principles of a two-state solution that would include Israel’s 1967 borders with Palestine and mutually agreed swaps of territory.

Those borders, the subject of contentious negotiations for decades, include the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. Most foreign policy experts say that Israel would have to cede territory to the Palestinians in exchange for holding on to major Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank.

Such a Security Council resolution would be anathema to Mr. Netanyahu.

[P.O.E.]

I’m sure our allies figured out a long time ago that they cannot trust this administration.

[hondact200]

Obama the Petulant Child could care less. He has decided to take his toys from the sandbox and move them to another sandbox and hopefully his friends will play with him now. He has moved everything from the USA friends to the USA enemies. Everything in Obama’s world is the opposite of reality. because basically Obama is nuts!

[sheikdetailfeather]

You hit the nail on the head. He thinks he can threaten and pressure Israel into agreeing to suicide. He specializes in thuggery but it does not work when survival is at stake. This is blowing his mind. He keeps stepping up the pressure to no avail and the more he says and does the more obvious it is becoming that he is an enemy of Israel. He likes to operate like a roach in the dark but he cannot do this anymore. He is calling attention to himself more and more as he gets resistance and threatens Israel. He looks like a hostile loon to a lot of people right now.