(NYtime, Ynet).President Obama has told aides and allies that he does not believe that Mr. Netanyahu will ever be willing to make the kind of big concessions that will lead to a peace deal.
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu has complained that Mr. Obama has pushed Israel too far — a point driven home during a furious phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday morning, just hours before Mr. Obama’s speech, during which the prime minister reacted angrily to the president’s plan to endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders for a future Palestinian state.
Mr. Netanyahu, his close associates say, desperately wants Mr. Obama to use the diplomatic muscle of the United States to protect Israel from the vote, not only by vetoing it in the Security Council, but also by leaning hard on America’s European allies to get them to reject it as well.
"Sometimes being right is also being smart, especially when it comes to core issues which are important to the Israeli consensus. I will bring them up before the president," Netanyahu promised as he landed in Washington.
Senior officials joining Netanyahu hinted that the PM plans to elaborate on recent "Nakba Day" events. "One cannot ignore recent events taken place in the Middle East. People are waging war along the fences and it's not an exaggeration.
"The truth must be told and the prime minster only speaks the truth. Peace cannot be based on delusions. Such a peace would crash into the cliffs of Mideast reality."