US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro did damage control for the White House on Sunday morning, stating to Israeli media that US President Barack Obama’s remarks indicating the drop of US support for Israel were due to the “confusing situation” of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s flip-flopping remarks on peace talks.
“This confusing situation raises doubts about Israel’s real policy,” Shapiro stated in an interview on Army Radio‘s “Good Morning Israel” show. “The question we’re asking ourselves is: how can we move forward with the two-state solution? We look forward to working with the new government [on this] when it is formed.”
Shapiro, meanwhile, blamed Iran for the lack of a nuclear deal – not Netanyahu’s insistence that the deal endangers thousands of lives as Iran builds nuclear weapons.
“The reason why there is still no agreement with Iran is because Iran has not yet made the necessary decisions,” he insisted.
Last week, Obama stated in a Huffington Post interview that US is “evaluating” its stance on Israel after Netanyahu said just prior to elections that he would not continue to pursue a two-state solution, as the international community insists.
“We’re going to make sure, regardless of disagreements we have on policy, that our military and intelligence cooperation to keep the Israeli people safe continues and that cooperation also helps the American people stay safe,” he said.
“But we are going to continue to insist that, from our point of view, the status quo is unsustainable. And that while taking into complete account Israel’s security, we can’t just in perpetuity maintain the status quo, expand settlements. That’s not a recipe for stability in the region.”
Asked whether he believed Netanyahu was “serious about a Palestinian state,” Obama answered bluntly that “we take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership, and so that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region.”
