foreign relations

Obama and Netanyahu Didn’t Smile Very Much in Their Meeting

Reiterating his complaint that returning the borders of Israel to where they were in 1967 before the Six-Day War would render them indefensible, Benjamin Netanyahu confronted Barack Obama today about yesterday’s speech to the Arab world. “Peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle East reality,” an “unsmiling” Netanyahu told Obama in the Oval Office, according to Reuters. (The Washington Post described his tone as “lecturing.”) The 1967 borders “don’t take into account certain demographic changes that have taken place on the ground over 44 years,” he added. Obama, for his part, reiterated portions of his speech to the press after their meeting. He did not give ground on his statement about the borders. That’s probably why most of the photos from their meeting showed a lot of chin-holding, and no hand-holding.

In meeting with Obama, Netanyahu rules out Israeli withdrawal to 1967 boundaries [NYT]

Obama and Netanyahu Didn’t Smile Very Much in Their Meeting