Ynetnews: US: No peace talks during Obama’s term/J.Post: Netanyahu heads to US to push for $50b. military aid package/J.Post: The Obama-Netanyahu meeting: Just like the very first time… or not?

US: No peace talks during Obama’s term
Ynetnews/Yitzhak Benhorin/Published:11.06.15

Deputy national security advisor says neither Israelis or Palestinians have taken steps required for peace, Obama will not pressure Netanyahu during White House visit.
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama has ruled out the possibility of renewing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks before the end of his term in 2016, according to a statement Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes made while speaking to the press Thursday night. Rhodes’ comments come just days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to arrive in Washington for talks with Obama, who the deputy said does not currently see any chance for a two state solution. The security official cited attempts at direct as well as indirect talks as failures. Both sides, he said, failed to take the steps required to produce an agreement.

According to Rhodes, Obama does not plan on attempting to pressure Netanyahu to peace talks during his visit. Instead, the president plans to discuss ways to stymie the wave of violence that has engulfed namely the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the past several weeks.”Rhodes said this could be accomplished by taking “trust-building steps” to release tension and decrease incitement. He included that the Obama administration expects to hear from Netanyahu what steps Israel is prepared to take toward meeting the “aspirations” of the Palestinian people. The deputy national security advisor specifically cited Israel’s West Bank settlements as an Issue that Obama feels has damaged trust and the chances for an agreement. According to Robert Malley, Obama’s Middle East advisor, Rhodes’ statement marks the first time since the Clinton administration that Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations have been taken off the table of foreign policy priorities.

Netanyahu heads to US to push for $50b. military aid package
J.Post/November 06/15/

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to leave for Washington on Sunday in hopes of securing a decadelong, $5 billion a year military aid package to help Israel defend itself against Iran and other regional threats. On Monday, US President Barack Obama plans to host Netanyahu at the White House for their first face-toface meeting in a year.
The interim 12 months have been most acrimonious in the seven-year relationship between the two leaders, whose perceived personal dislike has been elevated to the level of diplomatic legend.

Netanyahu and Obama exchanged continuous barbs over the Iran deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear weapons, which the prime minister believes to be an historic mistake that only strengthens Iran’s military and atomic capacity. But now that the deal is in place, the Obama-Netanyahu meeting is intended to heal some of that rift and to focus on the day after, by looking at a way the two long-standing allies can strengthen their military cooperation. “This will be a crucial meeting [between] our two administrations,” an Israeli official said. “No one should underestimate the fact that both our political and security establishments, with the differences we had in recent times, still continue to work [together] very closely and very intimately and very frequently,” the official said.

Both governments are clear on one thing, “that Israel and America are fundamental and strategic allies that share the same interests and values. “I am sure this will be reinforced next week as the PM conducts his visit in Washington,” the official said. Israel now wants a decadelong security package, beginning in 2017 and worth $5 billion per year, according to sources; an increase from the last package that was worth $3 billion a year. The US provides more defense aid to Israel than to any other nation.

White House officials have previously said they are prepared to increase foreign military financing and defense aid to Israel, but have not specified to what extent. The proposed aid increase is far larger than previous rate hikes, and also more substantial those that had been discussed shortly after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was announced. At that time, discussions were over a marginal increase of $600 million-$ 700 million annually.

Israel faces several turbulent fronts, threatened by the civil war engulfing Syria to its east, the Iranian-financed Hezbollah militant organization to its north, Hamas in the Gaza Strip to its west and the hotbed of the Sinai Peninsula to its south, where ISIS is growing stronger. “The day after the agreement with Iran is a much more complicated situation than the day before,” an Israel official said. Iran’s military reach in the region has grown stronger, he said. In Syria, “it has reinforced its military assets” – a move that brings “Iran another step closer to Israel,” he said. When “we look at the reality after the nuclear agreement, we try to gauge is there any change in Iranian behavior or policy – the clear answer is no,” the official said.

The leaders are also expected to discuss the second topic that has consistently put them at odds: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington would like the peace process to resume and believes that settlement building is a significant obstacle to jump-starting those talks. Netanyahu has insisted that he will not halt Jewish building in east Jerusalem or the West Bank and that the heart of the problem is the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. After Netanyahu meets with Obama on Monday morning, he will deliver a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, where he will receive the 2015 Irving Kristol Award. It is the institution’s highest honor and is given to those who have made exceptional contributions in governance and political understanding. On Tuesday morning, the prime minister is to address the annual Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly and afterward hold talks with congressional leaders. In the evening, the Center for American Progress will host Netanyahu, where he is expected to speak on Iran, the Israel-Palestinian conflict and regional issues. The prime minister is to return on Wednesday.

Analysis: The Obama-Netanyahu meeting: Just like the very first time… or not?
By HERB KEINON/J.Post/11/06/2015

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Monday, it will be their 16th meeting. That’s a lot of face-time for leaders coming from vastly different ideological positions, who see the world through fundamentally different glasses, and who famously – and publicly – disagree about a lot: from the Palestinians, to the Arab Spring, to Iran.
Sixteen meetings on, however, and there is something that feels – in the run-up to Monday’s sit-down – like the very first time.

Now, as was the case in May 2009, when the two men first met as the leaders of their respective countries, there was much written and said about their differences. Obama the liberal, Netanyahu the conservative; Obama the dove, Netanyahu the hawk. Surely sparks would fly at that meeting, some speculated. Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign, said that not adopting an “unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel” did not make one anti-Israel. And there he was, just a few months into office, meeting an “unwavering” Likud prime minister.

But many others argued that surely the two men would realize that they needed each other, that they must work together. Surely they would find a way to bridge their ideological gaps and get along – it was in the interests of both their lands. Surely, at least, they would radiate warmth and harmony before the cameras. But it wasn’t to be. The caustic tone that has marked much of the Obama-Netanyahu relationship was set back then when the US president surprised Netanyahu in front of the cameras with a demand for a total settlement freeze, including in Jerusalem, and when he created linkage between the Iranian and Palestinian issues. It was as unexpected as it was unprecedented, and it set the relationship off on the wrong foot.

Now, as then, there are those saying that following their titanic clash over the Iran deal, the two men – meeting for the first time in over a year – will surely want to show that bygones are bygones, and send a message to their constituencies and the world that they want to bury the hatchet and work together.

This will most likely be Netanyahu’s approach to the meeting. He signaled this already in picking the venues for his public appearances in Washington. Besides meeting with Obama, he will address the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, and the conservative American Enterprise Institute. No surprises there. But he will also speak at the Center for American Progress, one of the most clearly identifiable progressive think tanks in Washington. After addressing Congress in March at the invitation of then-speaker of the house John Boehner, over the loud and angry objections of Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, he is clearly trying to mend fences, to show that Israel is not a partisan issue. What better way of choreographing that message than to speak at a liberal think tank.

But things don’t always go as planned. Back in May 2009 Netanyahu went to Washington hoping to get the relationship off on the right track with a president with whom he had deep ideological differences. Obama, however, had a different agenda. Concerned about America’s standing in the Arab world following eight years of George W. Bush – years that saw America go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq – Obama was intent on showing daylight between Washington and Jerusalem, in order to bring the US closer to the Arab and Islamic world. It didn’t work. This policy of creating space between the US and Israel to close gaps between the US and the Arab world succeeded, indeed, in placing space between Washington and Jerusalem, but without moving the Arab world closer to Washington.

More than six years down the line, the Arab world is more skeptical and wary of the US, its polices and commitments, than it was back then. Obama is not going to be able to assure the Saudis, or the Emirates, or the Egyptians, of American commitment by publicly blindsiding Netanyahu. What they want to see now, no less than Israel, is a firewall against Iran. Which is why this time the president is unlikely to pull out any surprises – like the settlement freeze demand – when he meets Netanyahu in front of the cameras. And Netanyahu realizes well that with all his railing and fury at the Iran agreement, it’s a done deal – at least until January 2017 and a new president comes into office. The need now is to figure out how to work together to scrupulously make sure the deal is implemented.

When all is said and done, what the deal does, essentially, is kick the Iran nuclear issue down the road for 15 years. If implemented, it will cap and roll back somewhat the Iranian program for the next decade and a half.
What Obama and Netanyahu will need to focus on now is how to use the next 15 years to ensure that Iran does not break out to a bomb. This means the two countries will need to coordinate to ensure and monitor implementation, something that is in the best interests of both nations. There needs to be an understanding between Jerusalem and Washington about what constitutes an Iranian violation, and what the proper response to such a violation should look like. Israel and the US need to coordinate on monitoring, on sharing intelligence to get a clear picture of exactly what the Iranians are – and are not – doing.

And finally, there needs to be discussion about how to deter the Iranians, to deter them both from breaking the accord as well as – flush with all the cash that will come their way from sanctions relief – moving ahead to destabilize the region. And this is where the so-called compensation package to Israel in the form of an enhanced Memorandum of Understanding spelling out defense aid to Israel over the next 10 years comes into play.
Despite widespread perception to the contrary, this enhanced military support to Israel is not a “consolation prize” to Jerusalem following the signing of the Iran nuclear deal. What it is, rather, is an effort to build up deterrence to Iran, so that the Iranians will know that if they either try to dash to a nuclear finish line, or if they continue efforts to destabilize the region, then Israel will have the wherewithal to deter them.
This deterrence, by the way, is not only on Israel’s shoulders, and it is for this reason that the US is also trying to build an enhanced deterrence capability with the Persian Gulf states.

So on paper, in theory, there is every reason to believe that this visit will be hiccup-free – because both sides want it to be, because both Obama and Netanyahu realize the importance of showing the Iranians, and the region, that they are now on the same page. But that was also the assumption many had before that first meeting more than six years ago, and it was not to be. Watch Obama. Not his body language, carefully (and ridiculously) scrutinized from every angle whenever he meets Netanyahu, but rather watch what he says to the press when they meet. That brief statement – whether it comes before or after the meeting – will, as it did following their first meeting, go a long way toward setting the tone for the next year, the final year of that topsy-turvy period in Israeli-US ties that has come to be known by some as the Obibi Era.