March 08, 2016•Update: March 09, 2016
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
The U.S. insisted Tuesday that there are no hard feelings between Washington and Tel Aviv after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly canceled a planned trip to the U.S., setting off a flurry of speculation over the strained ties between the allies.
Israel sought a meeting with Obama on March 17 or 18, and the White House offered a face-to-face on the latter day, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Netanyahu canceled his visit citing the ongoing U.S. presidential election and the failure to reach a loftier military aid package for Israel, according to Israeli daily Haaretz. Obama previously declined to meet with Netanyahu last year when the Israeli leader was running for reelection in nationwide Knesset polls.
The White House said at the time that it has a practice of not meeting with foreign leaders close to elections. But unlike that incident, Obama is not a candidate in this year’s election – having reached the term limit on his executive post.
Still, reports have said that a number of presidential candidates are likely to attend a policy conference, and had sought a meeting with the Israeli leader. But the committee has yet to make public any candidate’s attendance.
“There's no reason to consider this a snub,” Earnest told reporters. He maintained, however, “we would have preferred to have heard about that in person before reading about it in media reports”.
Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer reportedly gave advance warning to the White House that the meeting might not come to fruition, according to an anonymous official in Netanyahu's office.
Reacting to those reports, Earnest said "I don't think even those officials are suggesting that the Israeli ambassador had informed the White House that Prime Minister Netanyahu would not be coming to the White House on March 18."
The latest row comes as Vice President Joe Biden prepares to meet with Netanyahu in Israel on Wednesday.
Regarding the potentially thorny meeting, Earnest said "if anybody can handle it, it's the vice president".
He insisted that Biden "is not carrying with him sort of the next offer in the negotiation over this memorandum of understanding about the United States providing military support to Israel".
