US unlikely to endorse Netanyahu's stance on Palestinian state


March 25, 2015
Sarah Benton
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White House Chief of Staff Says Netanyahu Declaration Could Not Be Ignored

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis, NY Times
March 23, 2015

WASHINGTON — Denis McDonough, President Obama’s chief of staff, said that the pre-election declaration by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that there would be no Palestinian state while he was in office raised questions about his commitment to a two-state solution that the White House could not ignore.

“We cannot simply pretend that these comments were never made,” Mr. McDonough told about 3,000 people during a speech to the annual conference of J Street, a Democratic Party-aligned pro-Israel group.

Calling Mr. Netanyahu’s rhetoric “very troubling,” Mr. McDonough was reiterating a message the White House has hit upon repeatedly in the days since Mr. Netanyahu’s victory last week in Israel’s election, exposing an increasingly bitter break between Mr. Obama and the prime minister.

The rift is “not a matter of personal pique,” Mr. McDonough said, but a fundamental difference on policy. He said the United States “will never stop” working for a two-state solution.

But in a 35-minute speech, Mr. McDonough did not hint at any new action the United States would take as a result of Mr. Netanyahu’s comments, including whether it would back a United Nations Security Council resolution pressing a two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders and mutually agreed exchanges of territory. He did, however, say such a solution should be part of any peace agreement, under which, Mr. McDonough said, “an occupation that has lasted almost 50 years must end.”

The two-state solution “remains our goal today, because it is the only way to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state,” Mr. McDonough said. “We will look to the next Israeli government to match words with action.”


Israel’s Netanyahu mired in post-vote crisis with US

By AFP/ Daily Mail
March 24, 2015 

Although Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack — emphatically denying he reneged on the idea of a two-state solution and offering an apology of sorts to Arabs — it appears the damage has been done.

The latest headlines concern a Wall Street Journal article in which US officials accused Israel of spying on nuclear negotiations with Iran aimed at reaching a deal that Netanyahu vociferously opposes.

“It is one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal US secrets and play them back to US legislators to undermine US diplomacy,” a senior official told the paper.

Current and former US officials quoted in the report said they believed Israel had passed on the information to US lawmakers in a bid to undermine support for the emerging deal, which has been championed by the White House.

Israel flatly denied the report, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denouncing it as “incorrect and inaccurate” and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz saying it was full of “lying allegations”.

“We categorically deny these allegations,” Steinitz said. “Israel does not spy on the United States, period.”

– ‘Unprecedented’ hostility –

The report came a day after US officials questioned Netanyahu’s reliability, indicating his attempts at backtracking had failed.

“After the election, the prime minister said that he had not changed his position, but for many in Israel and in the international community, such contradictory comments call into question his commitment to a two-state solution,” said White House chief of staff Denis McDonough.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations.”

The State Department echoed that message.

“When you say things, words matter. And if you say something different two days later, which do we believe? It’s hard to know,” deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said.

Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on US-Israel relations at Bar Ilan University, called the level of mutual animosity “unprecedented”.

“The public nature of the mutual hostility is a new low,” he told AFP.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had as bad a relationship between a president and a prime minister, and of course that has policy consequences — will the US always use its veto for Israel?”

Last week, the White House said it may withdraw crucial diplomatic cover for Israel at the UN Security Council as part of a policy re-evaluation.

The United States has traditionally used its veto to blocked UN resolutions seen as anti-Israeli.

Withdrawing that could prove tricky for Israel, especially if the Palestinians resubmit a resolution setting an end date for the occupation as they did late last year.

– Destabilising democracy? –

If Netanyahu angered the Obama administration this month by defiantly addressing Congress in a bid to scupper a White House-backed nuclear deal with Iran, his election comments added fuel to the fire.

What appeared to have rattled Obama most was Netanyahu’s attempt to mobilise rightwing voters by playing the race card, saying: “The rule of the rightwing is in danger: Arab voters are going to the polls in droves.”

“We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel’s traditions,” Obama told The Huffington Post.

But Israel HaYom, a freesheet seen as a Netanyahu mouthpiece, accused the Obama administration of undemocratic behaviour in refusing to accept the election results.

“It seems that the White House has crossed every boundary,” it said.

“The White House wants a Palestinian state now. The new government that was elected in Israel does not want that. The White House’s problem with Netanyahu is one thing, but they ought to respect the Israeli voter,” it said.

“Isn’t that democracy?”


Obama: Dim hope for end to Israeli-Palestinian conflict

By Deb Riechmann, AP
March 24, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the U.S. is weighing whether to back Palestinian efforts to seek U.N. recognition for an independent state and that recent remarks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dim hope for a negotiated two-state solution.

Obama’s comments at the White House did little to repair rocky U.S.-Israeli relations, which were aggravated by a Wall Street Journal report Tuesday alleging Israel spied on sensitive negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program. The report said Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings and other means and shared it with members of Congress to build a case against making a deal with Iran, which has threatened to destroy Israel.

Netanyahu is feuding with the White House over an emerging deal with Iran and also has come under fire for comments he made in the final days of Israel’s election last week. Netanyahu ha voiced opposition to Palestinian statehood and warned his supporters that Arab voters were heading to the polls “in droves.”

Netanyahu has since backtracked on his campaign statements, but the White House has reacted with skepticism.

“Netanyahu, in the election run-up, stated that a Palestinian state would not occur while he was prime minister,” Obama said. “And I took him at his word that that’s what he meant.

“Afterwards, he (Netanyahu) pointed out that he didn’t say `never,’ but that there would be a series of conditions in which a Palestinian state could potentially be created,” Obama said. “But, of course, the conditions were such that they would be impossible to meet any time soon.”

Obama said he is evaluating U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he said that in light of Netanyahu’s comments, the “possibility seems very dim” for the Israelis and the Palestinians to agree to live side-by-side in peace and security.

“We can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy on something that everybody knows is not going to happen, at least in the next several years,” the president said.

Obama also said his disagreements with Netanyahu over Iran and the Palestinians shouldn’t be framed as a personal issue. He said he has a “businesslike relationship” with Netanyahu and has met with him more than any other world leader.

“This can’t be reduced to a matter of somehow let’s all, you know, hold hands and sing `Kumbaya,'” Obama said. “This is a matter of figuring out how do we get through a real knotty policy difference that has great consequences for both countries and for the region.”

Fractures in the U.S.-Israeli relationship recently have been played out at the U.S. Capitol.

Obama was upset when House Speaker John Boehner didn’t consult with the White House before inviting Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress just as the Iran nuclear talks were approaching a critical juncture. Some Democrats skipped the speech in which Netanyahu boldly warned that an emerging nuclear deal with Iran would not prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, but pave Tehran’s path to the bomb.

The U.S. has been leading world powers in negotiations aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program. The so-called P5+1 group – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany – is rushing to craft a framework for a deal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for relief from sanctions before a deadline expires at the end of the month.

Netanyahu’s office called the spying report “utterly false,” saying Israel “does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel obtained information through other participants.

“All the information we obtained is from a different side and not through the United States,” Lieberman told Army Radio.

At a news conference on Afghanistan, Obama said he didn’t want to comment on other nations’ intelligence, but said, “We have not just briefed Congress about the progress, or lack thereof, but we also briefed the Israelis and our other partners in the region.”

When asked about the allegations that Israel spied on the nuclear talks, senior senators said they never gleaned any details from the Israelis that they didn’t already know or hadn’t learned in briefings by the Obama administration.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Israeli officials did not spy directly on American negotiators, but obtained details through other means, including close surveillance of Iranian leaders who were being told the latest deals being offered by U.S. and European officials. The paper said European officials, particularly the French, have been more transparent with Israel about the closed-door discussions than the Americans.

Lawmakers denied knowing anything about it. Boehner, R-Ohio, said he was “baffled” by the report and was not aware of any spying.


Republican who says Israelis don’t share info.

Sen. Bob Corker [above], R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he did not remember anyone from Israel ever sharing information with him that he didn’t already know or had surmised from news accounts.

“One of my reactions was, why haven’t they (the Israelis) been coming up here sharing information with me?” Corker said, smiling. “I haven’t had any of them coming up and talking with me about where the deal is. So I was kind of wondering who it was they were meeting with. I kind of felt left out.”

Asked whether he was ever briefed in greater detail by Israeli officials, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said: “Never. Oh no. I have talked to Israeli officials here and in Israel.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a critic of Obama’s foreign policy, said the same thing.

“No one from Israel has ever briefed me about the agreement. A bunch of us met with Mossad (Israel’s intelligence service). That was a bipartisan exercise,” Graham said, adding that he didn’t learn anything new except that the Israelis thought that legislation calling for imposing new sanctions could hurt the negotiations.

“I hope somebody is spying on Iran,” Graham said.

Associated Press writers Josh Lederman in Washington and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


Israel’s Netanyahu mired in post-vote crisis with US

By AFP / Daily Mail
March 24, 2015

The crisis between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that broke out anew after the Israeli election, worsens from day to day. At a press conference on Tuesday Obama said that there is “real policy difference” between himself and Netanyahu when it comes to the need to establish a Palestinian state. This dispute, Obama added, will have ramifications for U.S. policy regarding the Middle East peace process.

“The issue is not a matter of [personal] relations but a substantive challenge. We believe two states are the best way to preserve Israel’s security and that continues to be our view. Netanyahu has a different approach,” the U.S. president said at the White House, where he was hosting the Afghan president. “This is a matter of figuring out how we get through a knotty policy difference that has great consequences for both countries and the region,” he added.

A day before Israel’s March 17 general election Netanyahu declared that under his watch, a Palestinian state would not be established, sparking widespread criticism from the White House.

In the week since the election, not a day has gone by without critical comments from senior Washington officials against the position that Netanyahu expressed during his campaign – not only his declarations against the establishment of a Palestinian state, but also his “warnings” against the rising voter turnout in the Arab sector on Election Day.

“We can’t pretend there’s a possibility of something that is not there or premise U.S. diplomacy on something everyone knows isn’t going to happen,” Obama said, referring to efforts to convince Netanyahu to pursue a two-state solution.

“Up until this year the premise has been … [that] the possibility of two states living side by side in peace and security could marginalize more extreme elements, bring together folks at the center with some common sense, and we could resolve what has been a vexing issue and one that is ultimately a threat to Israel as well,” Obama said.

“And that possibility seems very dim, and that may trigger then reactions by the Palestinians that in turn elicits counter reactions by the Israelis and that could end up leading to a downward spiral for relations that will be dangerous for everybody and bad for everybody.”

On Monday night, former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker harshly criticized Netanyahu at the J Street conference in Washington. Baker acknowledged his disappointment with “the lack of progress regarding a lasting peace,” saying that the chances for a two-state solution diminished since Netanyahu’s reelection last week.

Baker further slammed Netanyahu’s “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship,” saying that the prime minister’s “actions have not matched his rhetoric,” according to Politico.

Earlier in the day, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough offered a similar rebuke of Netanyahu – specifically the prime minister’s claims that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch.

“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made,” McDonough told the conference.

Despite Netanyahu’s efforts to clarify his remarks, the White House does not appear convinced. At the press conference Tuesday, Obama stated that both he and the Israeli electorate took Netanyahu at his word for the things he said during the campaign. He added that even when Netanyahu tried to clarify that he did not mean no Palestinian state would “ever” be established, he placed conditions that the Palestinians couldn’t meet in the foreseeable future.

Obama was asked if he would consider U.S. support for a UN Security Council resolution regarding a Palestinian state, but emphasized that the U.S. will reevaluate its position on the peace process for the coming years only after the new Israeli government is established. He did say that relations with Israel will not be reevaluated and military, defense and intelligence aid to Israel would continue uninterrupted.

Netanyahu and his associates believe the White House attack over the past week has not been driven by desire to advance the peace process but is connected to negotiations with Iran for a nuclear agreement, talks which are reaching a critical junction this week. Senior Israeli officials emphasize that Netanyahu is convinced Obama is trying to neutralize his influence in Congress on the Iranian issue by attacking him on the Palestinian issue.

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