President Obama is warning that the U.S. might be unable to protect Israel from greater international isolation if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not endorse a framework peace agreement with the Palestinians.
The president gave an hourlong interview to Bloomberg View’s Jeffrey Goldberg, published Sunday ahead of the annual American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington.
Obama will meet with Netanyahu at the White House, but unlike some previous years, he won’t address AIPAC.
{mosads}The president and Secretary of State John Kerry are pushing Netanyahu to accept a U.S.-drafted framework for negotiating a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians to resolve their decadeslong standoff in the Middle East.
“If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” Obama said in the interview, summarizing the message he will deliver to Netanyahu.
The two leaders have had a fraught relationship, disagreeing over nuclear negotiations with Iran and the construction of settlements in the West Bank.
Obama said Israel has become “more isolated internationally” in recent years, and its future could be bleak without a peace deal.
Challenging Netanyahu, he said if the prime minister “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach.” He added, according to Goldberg, “It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”
The president also spoke of the U.S.’s historic alliance with Israel, which he has repeatedly said is unshakable. But he said the U.S. would have a much harder time defending Israel against hostile regimes at the United Nations and other international bodies if it continued to build new settlements and resist a peace deal.
“If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited,” Obama said in the interview.