Obama-Netanyahu Odd Couple Testing U.S.-Israel Ties
By Calev Ben-David and Nicole Gaouette - Jan 24, 2013
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerge from their re-election campaigns confronting the same disputes that divided them last year: peace talks with the Palestinians, settlements and, above all, Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
Those differences will fade as the challenge of stopping Iran’s nuclear efforts forces them to pull together this year, said Zalman Shoval, Netanyahu’s ambassador to the U.S. from 1998-2000 and an adviser to the premier on diplomatic affairs.
“Obama and Netanyahu know they have to work together over the next few years on urgent regional issues, especially Iran,” Shoval said. “Even if there are all sorts of personal and political reasons preventing complete harmony, the cooperation will have to be close.”
Results of this week’s Israeli election may ease the leaders’ sometimes fractious relationship. Pre-election polls predicted that Jewish Home, a party that supports settlement- building and opposes any Palestinian state, would emerge second in size to Netanyahu’s Likud-Beitenu. Instead it was the Yesh Atid party, a more moderate faction led by television presenter Yair Lapid, that won the most votes after Likud-Beitenu.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2013-01-23/obama-netanyahu-odd-couple-tests-u-s-israel-alliance-resilience.html
