Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington for Isreal-Palestine talks.
May 28, 2011- President Obama welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Friday just hours after the Prime Minister rejected the lastest Obama Middle East peace plan proposal. In his Thursday speech on the Middle East Obama reiterated his support for a Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution suggesting that Israel go back to territory it held prior to the Six-Day War in 1967.
The Prime Minister responded by saying his country would be left vulnerable by President Obama’s plan and insinuated that he could block any plans of Obama’s by speaking to his country’s many friends in the U.S Congress.
The President has received criticism in the US in the past for pressuring Netanyahu and even though Obama’s idea is in line with U.S. policy it received immediate negative reactions. Mitt Romney a potential presidential candidate said that Obama had literally thrown Israel under the bus. This is likely just the start of difficult negotiations and bitter politics leading up to the September United Nations vote for possible Palestinian statehood.
Netanyahu’s visit comes at a difficult moment for Israel. He is to speak to a joint session of Congress and address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee an advocacy group that is pro-Israel and very influential. The downfall of a longtime ally in Egypt caught Israel of guard and now self –determination protests have visited Israel.
