U.S. President Barack Obama and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will get together Monday for their first meeting since Obama and Netanyahu met regarding the prime minister’s statements against the Iran nuclear deal.
Netanyahu spoke to Congress in March asking them not to agree to the nuclear deal and to vote against an evolving peace with Iran. This current meeting with the president is to discuss outlining a 10-year military aid package for Israel. Israel now gets $3.1 billion a year in aid from the U.S. and they want that to increase to $5 billion a year for the next 10 years, according to congressional officials.
Iran deal expected to be part of Obama and Netanyahu meeting
Part of the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu is expected to be more discussions on how the U.S. can make Israel feel less concerned over safety in the area since the Iran deal is rolling back former sanctions on that country. Last month, Netanyahu spoke out at a UN General Assembly, saying he was very concerned that world leaders had celebrated the Iran nuclear deal and quoted some of the Iranian leaders who are still calling for the destruction of Israel.
Obama in turn said that the Israeli leader was wrong to oppose the Iran nuclear deal and took him to task over trying to stop it, especially his March speech to Congress. During this current Obama and Netanyahu meeting, the two plan to try to smooth over that dispute, say sources.
Israeli-Palestinian stalemate another expected meeting topic
Another topic of discussion at the meeting is the stalemate concerning trying to find a solution for Israeli-Palestinian peace and how to achieve a two-state resolution between the two countries, but this is not expected to be solved before Obama leaves office in 2016, say officials.
Regarding this, the Obama administration has already shown its frustration over Netanyahu promising Israeli voters there wouldn’t be a Palestinian state if he was reelected, and went on the air election day to warn people that massive numbers of Arab voters were coming out to vote. He later apologized for his words after he won a victory in the election.
Netanyahu is said to have spoken to his cabinet concerning the issue of the Palestinians and that his meeting will contain talks on possible progress with the situation and how to stabilize it. Obama wants to see a more open attitude regarding a Palestinian state and ideas on reducing tension in the area.
This is the first Obama and Netanyahu meeting in a little more than a year and there are a lot of issues the two need to work together on and find a way to agree on important issues for the two nations.
