Barak: PM-Obama meeting 'less dramatic than it seems'

Defense minister says US president didn't call for '67 borders, rather for talks based on those lines; Ayalon: "A disagreement among friends."
Talkbacks (8)


The meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama was "less dramatic than it seems," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 2 on Saturday.

Acknowledging that several additional speeches are scheduled to be given in the coming days by both the prime minister and US president, Barak said, "I think that as this whole story finishes, after the coming speeches at AIPAC and in the US Congress, that the gaps will seem much smaller."
In a one-on-one meeting at the White house on Friday Netanyahu rejected Obama's position that the future border between Israel and a Palestinian state should be based on pre-1967 lines, which he laid out in a speech on Thursday.

Barak attempted to dampen the clash of positions, saying, "I don't think that the president said borders need to be on the '67 lines." Obama, he said, called for negotiated borders, which would be based on those lines.

The defense minister also said he doesn't believe "that speech was all that bad."


He also threw his support behind the prime minister, saying "I think it's important that the prime minister bring attention to Israel's expectation that there will be recognition of the known blocs and neighborhoods that will be a part of Israel."


http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=221570

Time to start dialing back aid to Israel if they will not even try to find a peaceful solution. And, they have done nothing but escalate the tensions for the past decade and a half, IMO.

whose only awareness of i Israel is that they cost us money and are a major pain in the ass, diplomatically speaking. Oh, and they oppress Palestinians and want to nuke Iran. I would say Israel has a image problem.

I count myself as a supporter of Israel, but I join those in having lost my tolerance for their unlimited support. Enough. They keep putting Likudists in power who are as Islamophobic as Hamas is anti-Israel. And Netanyahu has the nerve to come to the US--their permanent benefactor and behave like that to our President. He knows what he is doing. Bebe was educated in this country. F__k him.

I was born in WWII and have lived in Germany and Austria and traveled extensively in Europe. I am not Jewish, but I see no alternative to a Jewish state in Israel.

The hatred of Jewish people across the globe is, unfortunately, even more endemic than the racism against African-Americans in our country. Nowhere is it stronger at this time than in the Middle East.

I utterly support Israel.

The people who complain about Israel cannot suggest an alternative that would provide a haven for Jewish people who feel unsafe anywhere else.

When the British Protectorate the included Palestine was divided, the largest portion was identified as Jordan. That is the Palestinian state. The ignorant anti-Israel cabal ignore that fact.

unless a peaceful two state solution is achieved. Sorry, but that is the truth. Obama never said they should give up all their gains from 1967, but that those borders should be the starting position to DISCUSS.

Security for both states has to be the goal. Security for all the people in the region.