Obama, Netanyahu Agree to Disagree on Iran - Jennifer Wishon CBN NEWS

Obama, Netanyahu Agree to Disagree 

on Iran

By Jennifer Wishon

CBN News White House Correspondent

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

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WASHINGTON -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the U.S. this week. He's fresh off a meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House where the two leaders worked to mend some badly damaged fences. 
        
With a handshake, they showed they were putting their solidarity on display for Israel's enemies.
      
The two men have always held vastly different world views. But their relationship has been particularly sour since the president feverishly pushed for a nuclear deal with Iran that the prime minister -- and others across the political spectrum in Israel -- adamantly opposed.

"It is no secret that the prime minister and I have had strong disagreement on this narrow issue, but we don't have a disagreement on making sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," President Obama said.

"And we don't have a disagreement about us blunting destabilizing activities that Iran may be taking," he continued. "And so we are looking to make sure that we find common ground there."  
     
The president tried to made it clear he stands with Israel, but the Israeli people may not buy it.

Some Israelis refer to the president by his middle name, "Hussein," a reference to his Muslim heritage. Polling earlier this year showed just 9 percent of Israelis described this White House as pro-Israel.
     
The president condemned recent Palestinian violence against innocent Israeli citizens.
     
And while peace talks are on ice, Netanyahu says he remains committed to a peaceful two- state solution with the Palestinians.

"I don't think anyone should doubt Israel's determination to defend itself against terror and destruction, but neither should anyone doubt Israel's willingness to make peace with any of its neighbors that genuinely want to achieve peace with us," Netanyahu said.
     
International analysts say it's important for Israel's enemies to see the U.S. and Israel stand together.

"There is a symbolic component that those enemies need to understand that there isn't any daylight between the United States and Israel as far as our alliance and our friendship and that message has to be put out there very strongly," Steve Bucci of The Heritage Foundation said.
    
While in Washington, Netanyahu is speaking both to conservative and progressive groups to make the case that the security of Israel isn't a partisan issue.

"Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East," Bucci said. "It's the most Western looking country for a lot of miles in that area and we really need that relationship almost as much as Israel does."

Netanyahu lands in Washington ahead of Obama meeting - RAPHAEL AHREN THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to board a plane headed to the US, November 8, 2015 (PMO)

Netanyahu lands in Washington ahead of Obama meeting

Talks expected to address military assistance for coming decade, Israeli goodwill gestures toward Palestinians

BY RAPHAEL AHREN November 9, 2015, 7:46 am THE TIMES OF ISRAEL 

WRITERS

Raphael AhrenRaphael Ahren is the diplomatic correspondent at The Times of Israel.

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MORE ON THIS STORY

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• Palestinian woman brandishing knife is shot dead at checkpoint

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed in Washington DC early Monday (late Sunday in the US), ahead of his meeting with US President Barack Obama.

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The two will meet in the White House on Monday for the first time in over a year. Ahead of his flight, the premier said he planned to focus on requesting a decade of American aid to Israel.

Netanyahu and Obama will discuss “recent events in the Middle East, including the civil war in Syria, and possible progress with the Palestinians, or at least stabilizing the situation with them,” Netanyahu said earlier Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting. He said they would also talk about “maintaining the State of Israel’s comparative advantage in the face of a changing Middle East.”

The prime minister is expected to ask for a significant increase in US military assistance to Israel, especially in light of increasing security threats as a result of Washington’s landmark nuclear pact with Iran.

Netanyahu is also set to appear at right- and left-leaning think tanks and will meet one of the only Democratic senators to go against Obama on the nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama is widely expected to ask Netanyahu about steps Israel could take to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, even if a final-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians seems currently out of reach.

The prime minister is reportedly planning to present a series of goodwill gestures to the Palestinians that Israel has been preparing ahead of the two leaders’ meeting.

Ran Baratz (screen capture: YouTube)

Preparations for the trip were overshadowed by Netanyahu’s choice as a key media adviser of Ran Baratz, who turned out to have insulted Obama as “anti-Semitic” and Secretary of State John Kerry as childish in various Facebook posts. Netanyahu has distanced himself from the comments, but has not canceled the appointment. In an address to Reforms Jews Saturday night, Vice President Joe Biden became the most senior US figure to castigate the “terrible” comments.

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet the president on Monday morning Washington time. Later that day, he will meet Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the few Democratic lawmakers who voted against the Iran nuclear deal. Afterwards, he will visit the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, where he will deliver a speech and receive the 2015 Irving Kristol Award.

On Tuesday, the prime minister will address the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Opposition leader Isaac Herzog and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough will also speak at the convention.

Later that day, Netanyahu will appear at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, where he will be interviewed by the think tank’s president, Neera Tanden.

Netanyahu’s appearances at both left- and right-leaning institutions are likely intended to demonstrate the bipartisan nature of the Israel-US alliance.

On Tuesday evening, Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with the Senate leadership.

On Wednesday, the prime minister is to visit the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, before heading back to Israel.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Obama rules out Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before leaving office - TIMES OF ISRAEL

From left to right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama and PA President Mahmoud Abbas during a trilateral meeting in New York, September 22, 2009 (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90)

Obama rules out Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before leaving office

BY AP, TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF AND AFP November 6, 2015

US officials say president has made ‘realistic assessment’; will discuss steps to prevent further violence with Netanyahu on Monday.

US officials said Thursday that President Barack Obama has made a “realistic assessment” that a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians is not possible during his final months in office.

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The stark assessment comes ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday — the first meeting between the two leaders in more than a year. Preparation for that meeting has been overshadowed by Netanyahu’s appointment of a new media chief, Ran Baratz, who has previously branded Obama an anti-Semite and mocked Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu was Thursday night said to have told Kerry that he was reviewing the appointment.

Officials said the two leaders will discuss steps to prevent a confrontation between the parties in the absence of a two-state solution. They said that while Obama remains committed to a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, he does not believe it’s possible before he leaves office in January 2017, barring a major shift.

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told Israeli reporters that the president would want to hear from Netanyahu on Monday ways in which the prime minister will seek to keep a two-state solution viable even in the absence of direct negotiations. Rhodes said Obama regards a two-state solution as urgent, and reiterated the US stance that settlement building undermines faith in the diplomatic process and delays such a solution.

“The main thing the president would want to hear from Netanyahu is that, without peace talks, how does he want to move forward to prevent a one-state solution, stabilize the situation on the ground and to signal he is committed to the two-state solution,” said Rob Malley, the president’s senior adviser on the Middle East, according to Haaretz.

The president expects that Netanyahu will take trust-building steps that “leave the door open for a two-state solution,” Malley said, without elaborating. “We said for some time that we expect from both parties to show that they are committed to a two-state solution. We would expect they take steps that are consistent with that,” Malley said.

A wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, marked by dozens of Palestinian stabbing attacks on Israelis, broke out two months ago; clashes at Jerusalem’s contested Temple Mount have been followed by Palestinian terror attacks across Israel and into the West Bank, and Palestinian-Israeli clashes in the West Bank and at the border with the Gaza Strip.

At a press conference last month, Obama reiterated his long-held conviction that the only way Israel would be secure, and the Palestinians would meet their aspirations, was via a two-state solution. He indicated then, but did not spell out, that the US was not about to start a new peace effort, saying “it’s going to be up to the parties” to do that, “and we stand ready to assist.”

Kerry sought to broker an accord in 2013-2014, but the effort collapsed amid a stream of bitter accusations and recriminations between the sides.

With no realistic prospect of substantial negotiated progress, the Obama administration is said to remain determined to keep the idea of a two-state solution viable, and it is understood the president and the prime minister will discuss possible steps in that direction.

The two leaders will likely discuss means to prevent a further deterioration on the ground, including how to thwart further terrorism; tackle incitement more effectively; deal with the strained Palestinian Authority; and safeguard Israeli-Jordanian relations.

No meeting is known to be scheduled for the near future between Obama and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The two leaders are also expected to announce that their allied countries are at work on a new long-term agreement for US defense assistance to Israel. The current 10-year framework, which provided for over $30 billion in US military aid, expires in 2018, and there has been talk of a new 10-year framework valued at $40-50 billion in total.

Obama and Netanyahu are expected to discuss commitments that could see Israel get more than the 33 hi-tech F-35 jets already ordered, precision munitions and a chance to buy V-22 Ospreys and other weapons systems designed to ensure Israel’s military edge over its neighbors.

The weapons said to be under discussion reflect the prominence of Iran in US and Israeli military thinking.

The F-35 is the only aircraft able to counter the S-300 surface-to-air missile system that Russia has suggested it may sell to Tehran.

Officials said Israel may also seek to ensure that other US allies in the region do not get the F-35.

The White House has so far rebuffed Arab Gulf states’ requests to buy the planes.

But while Israel has been offered some bunker-busting bombs, divisions over how to handle Tehran may put the sale of 30,000 pound “Massive Ordnance Penetrators” that could be used to target Iranian nuclear sites off the table.

“This is not something that has been raised in the context of the MoU discussions,” said senior Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes, referring to the deal, known formally as a memorandum of understanding.

Military experts say Israel’s lack of bunker-busting capability has limited Netanyahu’s ability to launch a unilateral strike against Iran, effectively giving Washington a veto over military action.

The visit, Rhodes said, “would be an opportunity to discuss and hear from Israel its assessment of its security challenges and the related security needs it has… whether it is something like the F-35 or a variety of others.”

Obama and Netanyahu will be meeting face-to-face for the first time since the US and its partners reached a nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu has been a chief critic of the deal.

On that vexed issue, the meeting could mark the day when Netanyahu finally engages with the administration on the practical implications of the deal, enabling the two sides to get down to work coordinating their positions on countering the threats posed by an emboldened and soon-to-be wealthier Iran, and on the appropriate responses to possible Iranian violations of the deal.

Love For His People Editor's Note: Good! It is about time Obama has quit trying to split up the Lord's land!

Steve Martin

Canada to reach out to Arab states in bid for ‘efficient’ foreign policy - THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Canada's new Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion (screen grab YouTube)

Canada to reach out to Arab states in bid for ‘efficient’ foreign policy

Israel is a friend, but to be an effective ally, Ottawa needs to bolster ties with ‘other legitimate partners,’ new FM says

BY RAPHAEL AHREN November 5, 2015 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

WRITERS

Raphael AhrenRaphael Ahren is the diplomatic correspondent at The Times of Israel.

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Canada will strive for a more balanced policy regarding the Middle East, including active outreach to the Arab world, the country’s new foreign minister said Wednesday.

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“Israel is a friend, it is an ally but for us to be an effective ally we need also to strengthen our relationship with the other legitimate partners in the region,” Stéphane Dion said in an interview hours after being sworn in. “For example, we need to strengthen our relationship with Lebanon and this will help Lebanon but also Israel. To be helpful, you need to strengthen your relationship with the other legitimate partners and that is what we will do.”

Ottawa strives to be more balanced, “more open” and more “efficient” in its foreign policy, he told Radio Canada in a separate interview. Siding with Israel only, as the previous governments under prime minister Stephen Harper did, is ultimately in nobody’s interest, he argued.

“We can say the things Israel wants to hear but to helpful to Israel we also need to be helpful to other states in the region, to Lebanon among others, with which he should establish excellent relations,” he said. Preventing states surrounding Israel from becoming completely dysfunctional like Syria will ultimately be beneficial to all parties, he indicated.

Ottawa will strive to become an honest broker in the Middle East and seek to avoid turning Israel into a partisan issue, Dion said.

Canadian Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau arrives to give a press conference after winning the general election, October 20, 2015. (AFP Photo/Nicholas Kamm)

On October 19, the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau won the national elections, replacing Harper’s Conservatives, who had ruled the country for nearly a decade. The various Harper administrations were among Israel’s staunchest supporters on the international stage. Trudeau isconsidered a friend of Israel as well, but widely expected to adopt a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not shying away, for instance, from criticizing Jerusalem’s settlement policies.

In a telephone conversation between Trudeau and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, the new Canadian leader “explained there would be a shift in tone, but Canada would continue to be a friend of Israel’s,” Trudeau’s spokesperson said.

Dion, a veteran politician whose previous roles included head of the opposition and environment minister, is known as sympathetic to the Jewish state.

“On Israel, Dion is indeed a friend,” said Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University and longtime observer of Canadian politics. “But he will also be influenced by less friendly voices.”

Will Netanyahu's Government Survive? - Ryan Jones, ISRAEL TODAY

Will Netanyahu's Government Survive?

Monday, November 02, 2015 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

Many say the Likud won the last election in spite of Netanyahu because most Israelis understood the vote was really about the identity and future of the State of Israel. But is that enough?

The full article appears in the November 2015 issue of Israel Today Magazine.
CLICK HERE to read it all

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When Obama hosts Netanyahu, it won’t be pleasant, but it might be productive - THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

When Obama hosts Netanyahu, it won’t be pleasant, but it might be productive

Op-ed: The Iran deal is done. The peace process is a nonstarter. Which means there might be less than usual to argue about when the two leaders hold their first meeting after a year of bitter disconnect

BY DAVID HOROVITZ October 29, 2015,THE TIMES OF ISRAEL


David Horovitz 

David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel. 

He previously edited The Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and The …[More]

On November 9, US President Barack Obama will host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for the first time in more than a year. They’ll probably — though not certainly — put on a professional, perhaps even a friendly show. Leaders of two closely allied states. Shared interests and values. Unshakable partnership. You know the script.

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And the stuff about an enduring, vital relationship between the two countries is absolutely true.

But the Obama-Netanyahu personal relationship has long since fractured beyond the point of no return. The events of the past year plunged it to new lows. Netanyahu is convinced that Obama sealed a dreadful deal with Iran — entrenching an evil regime, giving it the hard cash to wreak havoc and leaving Israel horribly exposed — and has made no secret of his dismay. Obama was left absolutely seething by Netanyahu’s failed public effort to turn members of his own party against him on his key foreign policy objective, notably in that March speech to Congress. 

Netanyahu thinks Obama gives Mahmoud Abbas a free pass, even when the Palestinian leader is inciting terrorism. Obama is convinced that Netanyahu’s backing for settlement expansion is central to the failure of peace efforts. Netanyahu thinks Obama doesn’t “get” the ruthless Middle East. Obama made his displeasure with Netanyahu known when he took the prime minister to task for his election day assertion that Arab voters were streaming to the polls.

We could go on. Hopefully, for the interests of both of their countries, the two leaders themselves won’t want to.

November 9 will likely mark the day when Netanyahu implicitly acknowledges defeat by finally engaging with the administration on the practical implications of the Iran deal

The visit to Washington this week of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (himself hardly a figure beloved to the Obama administration) seems to symbolize a return to closer cooperation. The new chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, was in Israel last week — less than a month after taking office. Obama and Netanyahu will never put the past behind them, but the White House meeting will likely mark a renewed effort to see out the final year-plus of the Obama presidency in less discordant tones.

Helping that cause is the fact that, in the two key areas where they have so frequently clashed, matters have reached a stage where their scope for sniping at each other would appear to have been much reduced: The Iran deal is done. And any realistic notion of a Palestinian deal is done too for the foreseeable future.

On Iran, therefore, they could choose to batter away some more at each other on whether there was a better alternative, and on what constitutes acceptable conduct when an embattled nation lobbies against a core policy of a superpower ally. But, more likely, November 9 will mark the day when Netanyahu implicitly acknowledges defeat by finally engaging with the administration on the practical implications of the deal. 

If so, the two leaders and their teams can then get down to work coordinating their positions on countering the threats posed by an emboldened and soon-to-be wealthier Iran, and on the appropriate responses to possible Iranian violations of the deal. The latter is an issue on which Israel could have played more of a role in recent months, had it not been opposing the deal so insistently and thus staying out of the loop.

In similar cooperative vein, it’s likely that the two leaders will announce that they’re now hard at work on a new long-term agreement for US defense assistance to Israel. The current 10-year framework, which provided for over $30 billion in US military aid, expires in 2018. Behind the scenes, the respective teams will be assessing potential threats to Israel over the next decade, and Israel will be finalizing a “shopping list” that ensures its qualitative military edge is maintained — something to which this and previous US administrations have long been committed. 

Israel has already contracted for more than 30 F-35 multirole fighter planes; it may ultimately want 50, or even 75. Missile defense systems are funded from a separate budget, and the US is well aware of the imperative to maintain and improve the Iron Dome and the Arrow systems, and to deploy David’s Sling, to ensure Israel can counter threats from neighboring Gaza, south Lebanon and Syria, as well as from an Iran that is relentlessly developing its ballistic missile systems. The increasing involvement of Iran and Russia across Israel’s northern border raises new challenges on which Israel and the US largely see eye-to-eye.

A new Obama-led bid to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in the limited time he has left in office, is a non-starter

As for the Palestinians — while nobody should underestimate Secretary of State John Kerry’s readiness to invest considerable effort in dragging the parties back to the table, in even the least propitious circumstances — the president has likely had more than his fill. There is little chance of the two sides agreeing on terms for a resumption of talks and even less chance of any such talks making headway, and the president is well aware of this.

At a press conference on October 16, Obama reiterated his long-held conviction that the only way Israel would be secure, and the Palestinians would meet their aspirations, was via a two-state solution. But “it’s going to be up to the parties” to achieve that, “and we stand ready to assist,” he said — which was tantamount to spelling out that he is not about to launch a new peace effort.

Netanyahu will presumably rejoice at not being pressured for concessions to enable new negotiations. Obama would doubtless want to tell him that such rejoicing is short-sighted, but the fact is that a new Obama-led bid to solve the conflict, in the limited time he has left in office, is a nonstarter. The president has no shortage of other challenges, domestic and foreign. He can more effectively devote his attentions elsewhere.

They’ll disagree. It was ever thus.

Nonetheless, the two leaders will need to discuss how to prevent a further deterioration on the ground — how to thwart further terrorism; how to tackle incitement more effectively; how to deal with the fracturing PA and its weakening leader; how to safeguard Israeli-Jordanian relations; and how to retain some credibility for a two-state solution that Netanyahu and Abbas both continue to insist that they seek.

Obama would want Netanyahu to halt settlement building, to give the PA more authority in Area C of the West Bank, and to try to utilize the Arab Peace Initiative to warm ties with other Arab governments and possibly defang anti-Israel efforts by the PA at the UN. The prime minister will be reluctant; the president will warn against deepening the sense of hopelessness on both sides and highlight the dangers exposed by the terrorism and the violence of recent weeks. The prime minister will blame Abbas; the president will ask him to be constructive.

They’ll disagree. It was ever thus.

But they’ll have met. A year’s personal disconnect will be over. They’ll have recommitted to tolerating each other for the good of their countries for another 15 months.

Still, for Netanyahu, the end of Obama’s second term can’t come soon enough. And for Obama, not having to host Netanyahu will be a post-presidential pleasure.