President Barack Obama is rejecting talk that U.S.-Israel relations are in a meltdown. Relations have been strained since administration officials delivered rare harsh public rebukes after an Israeli announcement of approval of new housing units in East Jerusalem during Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit there last week.
Asked in a Fox News interview Wednesday whether the falling out amounted to a “crisis,” Obama said flatly, “No.”
“Israel’s one of our closest allies and we and the Israeli people have a special bond that’s not going to go away. But friends are going to disagree sometimes,” the president said. “There is a disagreement in terms of how we can move this peace process forward…The actions that were taken by the Interior Minister in Israel weren’t helpful to that process, Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged as much and apologized for it.”
Obama insisted that despite the highly-public criticism of Israel by various U.S. officials, including Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. is being fair to both sides.
“Yesterday, when there were riots by the Palestinians against a synagogue that had been reopened we condemned them in the same way because what we need right now is both sides to recognize that it is in their interests to move this peace process forward,” Obama told Fox.
During a hallway exchange that followed a lengthier interview on health care reform, Obama was also asked if his foreign policy would be “a failure” if Iran manages to build a nuclear weapon.
“It is one of our highest priorities to make sure that Iran doesn’t possess a nuclear weapon. That is why I’ve worked so hard to mobilize the international community, successfully, to isolate Iran,” the president said.
Obama acknowledged that his early ambitions of drawing the Iranian regime to the negotiating table have met with little success.
“The Iranian government has been more concerned about preventing their people from exercising their democratic and human rights than trying to solve this problem diplomatically. That’s why we’re going to go after aggressive sanctions,” the president said.
Obama said he hasn’t “taken any options off the table” for resolving the nuclear impasse. “It’s a problem we need to solve because, if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, you could potentially see a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East and that would be tremendously damaging to our national security interests,” he said.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Obama on Israel: Friends disagree
Obama on Israel: Friends disagree
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