The current military assistance program between U.S. and Israel is set to expire in 2018. Israel is said to be looking for as much as $50-billion in military aid in a new plan.DOUG MILLS/The New York Times
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington Monday to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama – the first face-to-face meeting between the men in more than a year, and possibly the last.
Mr. Netanyahu told Israelis Sunday the primary focus of the session would be on strengthening the security of the state of Israel.
"I believe that this meeting is important in order to clarify the continuation of American aid to Israel in the coming decade," he said after his regular Sunday meeting with the cabinet.
The current 10-year military assistance program, valued at about $3-billion (U.S.) a year, is set to expire in 2018. Israel is said to be looking for as much as $50-billion in military aid in a new 10-year plan.
Mr. Netanyahu said the two leaders would also discuss "possible progress with the Palestinians, or at least stabilizing the situation with them."
But more significant were the things that weren't addressed in his statement.
Absent was any mention of Iran and the threat posed by Tehran's alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, a topic that has dominated Mr. Netanyahu's agenda in the past and led to considerable friction between him and Mr. Obama.
Mr. Netanyahu has said a recently concluded deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany is not sufficient to deter Tehran's weapons aspirations. But the Israeli leader appears willing to drop the subject publicly provided Washington agrees to upgrade its military assistance to include the most advanced attack aircraft, capable of evading the best ground defence systems.
Also absent in Mr. Netanyahu's remarks was any reference to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that appears to be dead.
Senior U.S. officials told Israeli journalists before the weekend that Mr. Obama no longer believes a peace agreement is possible before he leaves office in January, 2017, and that efforts to promote formal negotiations between the parties would be pointless.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper quoted Robert Malley, Mr. Obama's senior adviser on the Middle East, as saying: "The main thing the President would want to hear from Netanyahu is that, without peace talks, how does he want to move forward to prevent a one-state solution, stabilize the situation on the ground and to signal he is committed to the two-state solution."
Israeli officials say Mr. Netanyahu is coming to the meeting with a number of confidence-building measures intended to try to quell recent Palestinian violence. These gestures are reported to include the removal of some Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, so as to reduce points of friction, and the approval of some Palestinian construction projects in areas under Israeli military control.
The measures reportedly do not include any restrictions on settlement construction, the Palestinians' chief demand.
There was no mention either of the recent Israeli appointment of a controversial new prime ministerial spokesman who has ruffled feathers even before starting his new position.
Ran Baratz, a former university lecturer and founder of a right-wing website, made social-media posts that described comments by Mr. Obama earlier this year as "anti-Semitic."
Previously, he described U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as having the mind of "a 12-year-old" and, just a week ago, he described Israel's President Reuven Rivlin as unimportant because he flew in economy class on a recent official visit to Europe.
Many Israelis are outraged, and three of Mr. Netanyahu's own cabinet ministers have called for him to revoke the appointment. Mr. Netanyahu, however, says the comments do not represent his government's views and that he will deal with the matter when he returns to Israel later in the week.
That's not good enough, said David Horovitz, editor of The Times of Israel. "Netanyahu should be ashamed to go and see Obama with the Ran Baratz appointment still on track," he wrote in his editorial Sunday.