US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday, Nov. 9.SAUL LOEB/AFP / Getty Images
After a frosty, year-long interregnum, U.S. President Barack Obama invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Oval Office talks Monday as the two sought to move past bitter disagreements over Iran and lingering personal slights.
Both sides attempted to portray the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in over a year as businesslike, if not warm. It was a "testament to the effectiveness of the working relationship between the two men, but it doesn't mean they have agreed on every issue and it doesn't mean they are the best of friends," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Unlike the joint news conference that usually follows White House conclaves with important visiting leaders, Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu avoided the risk of taking questions about their long-festering differences, especially over the U.S.-led deal with Tehran that limits its nuclear program.
There was no joint news conference, just as there hasn't been after any White House meeting with Mr. Netanyahu since Mr. Obama became president in 2009.
The latest rift over the Iran deal was especially bitter.
Mr. Netanyahu denounced the nuclear pact – perhaps Mr. Obama's most ambitious foreign policy gambit – as "bad in every aspect" and "filled with absurdities," but with U.S. elections looming and conflict raging in Syria on Israel's borders, the two leaders attempted to recast the relationship as constructive.
Monday's meeting also reflected the U.S. view that there was no hope for an Israeli-Palestinian peace in the near term. Agreement on a "two-state solution was not going to happen while President Obama was still in office and that even the possibility of talks about a two-state solution between Palestinians and Israelis was unlikely over the course of the next 14 or 15 months," Mr. Earnest said.
Given the bleak prospect for peace, Mr. Obama turned to dealing with Mr. Netanyahu's demands for additional billions for the Israeli military. Currently, the United States sends $3.1-billion annually to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu wants $5-billion annually – more than 20 per cent of Israeli military spending – and a new 10-year agreement, according to congressional sources.
He seems likely to get a significant increase, not only because of dimming prospects for peace and the spread of Islamic militant extremists but also because any perception of a lack of backing for Israel could severely damage Democratic prospects in next year's elections.
"It's no secret that the Prime Minister and I have had a strong disagreement over the Iran deal," Mr. Obama said before talks started in the Oval Office. "But we don't have a disagreement on the need to making sure Iran does not get a nuclear weapon … so we're going to be looking to make sure we find common ground there."
So talks will focus on a new military funding agreement. "We want to get a head start on that to make sure that both the United States and Israel can plan effectively for our defence needs," Mr. Obama said.
Although the current military funding agreement doesn't expire until 2017 – after Mr. Obama is out of office – brokering a new deal means more money for Mr. Netanyahu and less political exposure for Mr. Obama.
Mr. Netanyahu said U.S. willingness to spend whatever it takes to maintain Israel's military supremacy over any other nation in the Middle East was vital. "I want to express my appreciation to you and express the appreciation of the people of Israel to you for your efforts to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge so that Israel can, as you've often said, defend itself, by itself, against any threat."
In an exchange of scripted pleasantries Monday morning in the Oval Office, which included shaking hands twice for the cameras, Mr. Obama said: "The security of Israel is one of my top foreign policy priorities, and that has expressed itself not only in words, but in deeds."
Oval Office encounters haven't always been so cordial. Mr. Netanyahu lectured Mr. Obama on Jewish suffering during a 2011 exchange. A year earlier, Mr. Obama left the Israeli leader cooling his heels for two hours while he dined with his wife Michelle and their children.
Last spring, the Israeli leader infuriated the White House when he savaged the Iran deal in a speech to a joint session of Congress that many regarded as an effective campaign effort leading to his re-election.
Mr. Obama pointedly didn't meet with the Israeli leader, claimed he didn't bother to watch the speech and dismissed it. "As far as I can tell, there was nothing new," he said.
Even as the two sides sought to orchestrate a fence-mending meeting, Mr. Netanyahu's choice of a controversial new head of his public-relations unit suggested that the Israeli leader is content to just wait until Mr. Obama is gone.
Ran Baratz, the Prime Minister's choice, didn't make the trip, but his caustic Facebook postings deriding Mr. Obama as a modern-day anti-Semite, and saying Secretary of State John Kerry has the intellectual acuity of a 12-year-old, set off a furore.
Mr. Netanyahu quickly distanced himself, saying: "Those posts are totally unacceptable and in no way reflect my positions or the policies of the government of Israel."