Israel: White House Gets Busted on "Private" Meeting with Netanyahu

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Transcript & Analysis: Netanyahu in US – Waiting for Obama, Talking about “Small” Israel

Contrary to initial reports from the US, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did get his private meeting with President Obama in Washington, with discussions on the Iranian nuclear programme and the Middle East peace talks. The White House headline statement was, "The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel's security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues."

The problem for the Obama Administration is that journalists were unwilling to let "security cooperation" stand in place of other issues. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly was forced to hand trickier problems back to the White House:

QUESTION: On the peace process, is Senator Mitchell planning to go back to the Middle East, and what are you planning to do after the latest development on the Palestinian side?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think a lot of the focus today, of course, will be on the visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu. He’s meeting with the President tonight. We remain committed to our goal, which is the re-launch of negotiations between the sides and try and create the kind of atmosphere where these negotiations can succeed as soon as possible. As far as Senator Mitchell’s immediate plans, I’m not sure that he has plans in the very near term to return to the region. But of course, he’ll be ready to do so if that can be helpful.

QUESTION: Do you expect anything from the meeting between the President and Prime Minister Netanyahu?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not going to try and predict what – what’s going to come out of that meeting. I’ll leave that to the White House.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could only take refuge in repeating Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "our position has not changed":

Q - What does the White House -- well, one thing first, on the meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister tonight. Why is that closed, no press avail, the statements? What is the thinking there?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, as you know, our schedule since late last week has been up in the air. The President was supposed to speak on Tuesday to the same group that Prime Minister Netanyahu is speaking to. He obviously looks forward to sitting down with the Prime Minister tonight -- and continue to work together to address issues like Middle East peace and the threat that's posed by Iran.

Q - And on the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I just wanted to follow up. I understand the schedule has been in flux, but why no television cameras? Is it because you don't want to highlight the fact that there's not a lot of progress in these talks so far?

MR. GIBBS: No, the President wanted to have a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. That's what we're doing. I'm sure, Ed, that the contents of the meeting generally seem to be well read out and I trust that this time will be no different.

Q - But typically the President will go on camera if he wants to highlight what is a key initiative for him, and if Mideast peace is that important you would think that he would want to do that.

MR. GIBBS: Well, like the date didn't change from Saturday night to Sunday, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the President thinks no less of the importance of the Middle East peace process on simply by subtracting one television camera.

Q - And the last thing, on settlements. Last week, Secretary Clinton was in Israel, and suggested -- she wanted to praise the Israelis for some progress on settlements. And the Palestinians were upset because the U.S. policy has been a complete freeze on settlements.

MR. GIBBS: Policy dating back several decades, yes.

Q - Right, but specifically it was emphasized in the early days of this administration. And the Palestinians felt like maybe there were some back-peddling. Can you just clear up -- there was a sense that she seemed to be shifting last week.

MR. GIBBS: No, no, again, I judge from your question -- the policy of the United States government for many decades has been no more settlements. That's not something that is new to this administration. It's something that I think has gotten disproportionate media coverage, but it's not a policy difference in this administration and previous administrations.

So now a White House which was so embarrassed about the lack of progress on Israel-Palestine that it tried to hide talks with the Israeli Prime Minister finds itself in the floodlights of more indecision and even confusion. Not that this should worry the Israelis, who eagerly leaked news of the "private" talks. After all, they got their headline that Obama was "strongly committed" to them, irrespective of any minor difficulties such as those settlements.